NASA Builds a Cheap Standardized Space Probe

TangAddict writes "Dr. Alan Weston, who previously invented bungee jumping, led a team of scientists at NASA Ames Research Center to build a $4 million spacecraft in less than two years. The Modular Common Spacecraft Bus is designed to accept payloads of up to 50kg. and can be used for a variety of missions including a rendezvous with asteroids, orbiting Earth or Mars, and landing on the moon. When NASA officials saw the first flight test, they offered Weston and his team $80 million to use their design for the LADEE mission, which will gather dust and atmosphere samples from the moon in 2011."

Comments

He invented what??

[Anonymous Coward]

Invented Bungee Jumping? I think you'll discover he invented neither the name or the practice..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bungee_jumping

The practice comes from Pentecost Island in Vanuatu (where I have been, and witnessed) with a manhood test involving young men jumping off platforms with vines tied around their feet.

This was adapted by A. J. Hackett in New Zealand to the modern elasticised version, who also gave it the name Bungee Jumping.

Where does Weston like telling people he came into this all?

invented bungee jumping eh?

[the brown guy]

If you check the wikipedia page on bungee jumping, (sorry don't know how to provide the link to the page) there is no mention of Weston. Instead, it says some young men from some random island in Vanuatu used to jump off of cliffs with vines tied to their ankles to show that they are courageous.

Wait, was that like a joke or something?

What a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

When NASA officials saw the first flight test, they offered Weston and his team $80 million to use their design for the LADEE mission, which will gather dust 80 million for a project that's just going to sit and collect dust?