Slashdot Mirror
NASA Open Sources Aircraft Design Software
First time accepted submitter sabre86 writes "At the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Aerospace Sciences Meeting in Nashville, NASA engineers unveiled the newly open sourced OpenVSP, software that allows users to construct full aircraft models from simple parameters such as wing span and fuselage length, under the NASA Open Source Agreement. Says the website, 'OpenVSP allows the user to create a 3D model of an aircraft defined by common engineering parameters. This model can be processed into formats suitable for engineering analysis.'"
There doesn't seem to be a Linux port at the moment?
Is the output Makerbot compatible? I want to use this to design a next generation super jumbo for my Makerbot!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
All I can get from the website/wiki is thats its a tool that processes things, which is kind of vague.
I found this paper via google:
http://www.mae.virginia.edu/meclab/images/AIAA%20Paper%20--%20VSP.pdf
Not a goatse link, honest.
If you remember the microsoft flightsimulators of the 80s/90s you could list specs and it would make you a plane, like make me a plane with a 50 foot wingspan and then you would attempt to fly it. This is pretty much the same idea for spec'ing a plane but instead of simulating flying it, it dumps out a file containing the model that you can do "whatever" with. Something like clippy for aerospace cad "so you seem to be trying to make a twin engine turboprop, would you like a wizard to help with that?".
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I tried, big, fast, pretty...
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
As someone who is into foam-built RC aircraft I am excited by the possibilities of this software. Electronics not included, a plane costs me about $10 to build. While I've built enough planes that I can just 'wing it' (See what I did there?), It would be fun to use this software to design RC planes...
I asked them that once, but they still wouldn't give me a space shuttle.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Why does NASA, a government agency, claim copyright on software?
And why does NASA release software under a non-free license?
It's not that hard. Use an existing license. Stop inventing your own licenses that conflict with truly free collaboration.
If you can find a way to add a passenger ejection system or aircraft parachute system to a large civil aircraft, anything 737 size or larger or arguments sake, which doesn't add an uneconomical amount of weight to an aircrafts design, then go for it.
The parachute system is fitted to quite a few light aircraft and microlights, but the application is limited because of the amount of weight it adds due to strengthening required to withstand the deployment forces (no point in having the parachute if it's deployment breaks the plane in half).
The major issue in plane design is weight - it dictates economics, and itself is dictated by design requirements, load bearing requirements and safety requirements (among other things). Too much weight and trip costs rise too much, passenger yields go down and the plane is uneconomical to use.
Also note that it's unusual for a fighter pilot to come out of an ejection without injuries directly caused by he ejection - compressed spines, broken limbs etc are the norm rather than the exception.
"Fighter pilots at least get the option of an ejection seat, so why have we dragged our heels in the dirt for so long by not finding a way for passengers of jumbo jets to survive catastrophe? "
Crash-proof planes do not fly.
"As for small planes, I've seen parachutes for the plane itself, but I don't think that ever went anywhere or if it was even all that practical."
All Ultralight pilots I know have one.
So all you saw was "ejection seats" and decided that was impractical (which it probably is) and that was all you needed to decide that the ENTIRE concept of seeking a design to save lives during an emergency (NOT NECESSARILY EJECTION SEATS) was a lost cause. That's some great scientific thinking there. You're really pushing the envelope of thought and innovation aren't you. /s
The idea here, mr. or mrs. closed minded, is to challenge ourselves to FIND a way, ANY way, that works, DURING an emergency. I already knew that our EXISTING designs were made very safe in a PREVENTIVE measure, but that was NEVER MY POINT. Maybe you should enroll in a course for reading comprehension.
Or they could just buy a copy of X-Plane for $79. Don't laugh, it's fscking phenomenal. Uses parametric airfoil designs and lots more. I'd be willing to bet some serious coin that the X-Plane designer is way better than OpenVSP; certainly X-Plane is going to be much more mature, it's been around forever.
Not affiliated, just a VERY impressed user.
I understand the GPL issues, but I am uncomfortable giving this to the North Korean government for starters.
Public disclosure isn't always best for the public. Just saying.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
You seem to be unfamiliar with Ryanair's prices. That is £50,000.00 + credit card charge + VAT per sector.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Fighter pilots may suffer injury, but at least they have a better chance of living than passengers of a jumbo jet.
Really, though, at this point I'm almost sorry I mentioned ejection seats, as that's the first thing people seem to be latching onto and responding to and forgetting to think of OTHER possibilities.
Anyway, I'm fully aware that it's a difficult issue, and of the economics involved, such as weight. That was all fairly obvious to me, so I didn't think it was worth mentioning. I just want to see work on something, ANYTHING, that could feasibly advance aircraft design to save lives during the event of a plane going down.
Just to brainstorm a bit, putting aside ejecting people upward out of the plane, what other methods could be used to get people out to where a parachute could be deployed?
- dropping people downward, out of the bottom of the plane (like a bomb from a ww2 bomber)?
- or perhaps out the back like military transports drop troops, cargo, and even vehicles?
- or maybe we don't eject the passengers, but drop the airplane itself away from them (splitting the shell and pushing it outward away from the passengers), which I suppose, if at all feasible, might only work with small planes (drop the outer framework away, then deploy parachute from inner passenger cage framework, or whatever).
- and if none of those ideas work with existing plane designs, can we change the designs entirely to make them work?
- is there an entirely different way of considering the problem?
would any of these ideas be feasible? hell I don't know. possibly not. but that's not what's important. what's important is that we keep thinking, keep brainstorming, keep seeking a way, and not giving up.
Coming soon to you on an easyjet/ryanair flight near you.
Passenger Ejection Capsule £500.00 per sector
Last time I flew business class I was pretty much in a little 'capsule' by myself. It probably could be turned into an ejection seat if they wanted to.
The problem is that it would add a significant amount of weight and the risk of losing a plane because of a fault in the ejection system is probably higher than the chance of saving lives when it's used. In particular, ejecting from an airliner at 30,000 feet over mid-Atlantic isn't likely to help much unless your capsule can become a heated lifeboat after it lands.
And why does NASA release software under a non-free license?
GNU's specific complaint: "The NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3, is not a free software license because it includes a provision requiring changes to be your “original creation”. Free software development depends on combining code from third parties, and the NASA license doesn't permit this."
NASA's actual terms: "Each Contributor represents that that its Modification is believed to be Contributor's original creation and does not violate any existing agreements, regulations, statutes or rules, and further that Contributor has sufficient rights to grant the rights conveyed by this Agreement."
The GNU complaint seems somewhat bogus. By claiming to be the creator, i.e. the copyright holder, and providing the mandatory change logs there is an audit history. NASA has a clear paper trail and a clear assignment of the right to use, modify and distribute from the copyright holder. The Linux kernel being locked into GPL v2 seems to suggest that NASA has thought this through more than the GNU folks did, or perhaps learned from the mistakes of the GNU folks.
Making a 3D skin model and making a real jet are two totally different things. Not to mention the academic information behind this can be openly found and used; I doubt they are adding much theory that isn't already known.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Why does NASA, a government agency, claim copyright on software?
And why does NASA release software under a non-free license?
It's not that hard. Use an existing license. Stop inventing your own licenses that conflict with truly free collaboration.
Use an existing license. Stop inventing your own licenses that conflict with truly free collaboration.
The issue is that a license like the GPL is discriminatory to certain business models, namely those that keep source code changes private. The problem is that such discriminatory terms are inappropriate in a taxpayer funded project. Taxpayers who chose to make derived works and keep the changes private should be allowed to do so.
If you fund a project yourself you have every right to make that project GPL based. However if you seek taxpayer funding you have to be fair and accommodating to all taxpayers, even those you disagree with.
Huh, the GPL doesn't forbid you from keeping changes private. It forbids you from distributing changes without source. If you don't distribute, there is no problem.
Furtheremore, Whatever, GPL isn't the only free license. Use a BSD-style license or any other license without copyleft.
I still don't understand how an agency of the US government can claim copyright, though. Usually what happens is that the government subcontracts to individuals and are then bound by the copyright claims of those individuals. How is NASA getting away with this?
The issue is that a license like the GPL is discriminatory to certain business models, namely those that keep source code changes private.
Huh, the GPL doesn't forbid you from keeping changes private. It forbids you from distributing changes without source. If you don't distribute, there is no problem.
And there is no business model so your point is not on topic. ;-)
Furtheremore, Whatever, GPL isn't the only free license. Use a BSD-style license or any other license without copyleft.
Agreed.
I still don't understand how an agency of the US government can claim copyright, though. Usually what happens is that the government subcontracts to individuals and are then bound by the copyright claims of those individuals. How is NASA getting away with this?
The contracts established between NASA and the individuals or subcontractors could include some sort of "work for hire" type clause where copyright is assigned to NASA? Much like the Regents of the University of California held the copyright on all the code written by professors and students back in the day.
I've always wanted to know how NASA can say that I can't come in each time I try to walk into their hallway, I mean, how can an american agency own a building?
Fighter pilots may suffer injury, but at least they have a better chance of living than passengers of a jumbo jet.
You do realize that even with ejection seats, just flying a fighter plane is far more dangerous than flying in a jumbo jet?
The issue is that a license like the GPL is discriminatory to certain business models, namely those that keep source code changes private.
Huh, the GPL doesn't forbid you from keeping changes private. It forbids you from distributing changes without source. If you don't distribute, there is no problem.
And there is no business model so your point is not on topic. ;-)
Sure there is. It's part of many organisations' business models. To take one heavy-handed example, Google. They grab Linux-based source code, create their own internal distribution, and use it to power internal development and massive servers that are turning in a pretty penny.
What do you think that the airplane designers are doing? The aircraft industry is incredibly safety conscious. That's one of the reasons that everything is so expensive. The whole plane parachute is used on Cirrus airplanes and has saved some lives. Seats have been designed to protect people in impacts up to 26Gs. You can get seatbelts with airbags installed.
Every aircraft accident (at least in the U.S.) is investigated. The goal is to find out what caused the accident and how to prevent it. NASA has a program called ASRS which encourages pilots to report anything that might impact safety.
Please do a little research and see what is being done before accusing people of dragging their heels in the dirt.
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
The NASA terms require the contributor to identify themselves as the creator, i.e. the copyright holder, and to also submit a change log. This statement and the log are the paper trail. Note that the NASA terms also define the rights to use, modify and redistribute. If you just grab someone else's code you are a licensee not a copyright holder and do not have the authority to agree with NASA's terms. Only the copyright holder can agree to NASA's terms.
... It's part of many organisations' business models ...
But not the business models I was referring to. I wrote "certain business models", not "all business models".
You may find this enlightening:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government
Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.
Wait, are you telling me we can download planes now? Sweet! Yes, RIAA, I totally would download a plane.
But would you fly in it? :-)
The best way is not to allow the emergency to happen in the first place. Every other way you might attempt to recover from a catastrophic failure in flight isn't going to work as well as just not having to deal with the problem in the first place.
I was talking about the X-Plane designer, not just the flight sim itself. The designer allows you to enter airfoil shape, engine thrusts, weights, etc. You almost have to be an aeronautical engineer to properly design a plane from the ground up. It's that sophisticated. Meanwhile, the actual flight sim behavior is based upon the entered airfoil designs and airflow calculations, so when you're flying in X-Plane you're basically flying in a software wind-tunnel (plus random weather settings).
Can the 3D data models this SW generates be fed into a machine that cranks out a physical model? With RC aircraft becoming so cheap, it might be cool to use the SW to design a craft that can be rendered in matter, then outfitted with the RC parts. Maybe some RC derbies could use standardized mechanics in different bodies, competing purely on the body design.
--
make install -not war
And there is no business model so your point is not on topic. ;-)
You might want to ask the woman next to you for her signature.... I think you're way out on a limb there and Shirley Maclaine's signature might be the only benefit.
Google, IBM, eBay, BBC, etc, etc - a very long list of small enterprises who make money on the back of GPL (greater and lesser version) that you've probably never heard of, and can be excused for not being able to research.
Here's another obscure one that some taco cowboy rode into retirement.. You were probably a big authority in primary school - but we've all got this internet thing now, you can check stuff with it.
There is nothing that will protect against most emergencies. Wind shear and controlled flight into terrain are still common causes (as a relative percentage of incidents, not absolute terms), and there's almost no conceived protection that would allow greatly increased survival. Most injuries are caused on the ground. Greater cost/weight in seats/seatbelts (5-point harnesses and rigid seats) and you'll save more injuries than just about anything else. Have the seatbelts indicate to the crew the status of the belt (connected or not) and then forced belt usage will be easier. I agree he focused on an almost irrelevant point, but you just said "I wish someone could think up something better" when you can't even conceive of a single example of something that could possibly help. You were silly, stupid, and set yourself up for such ridicule. Your only suggestion is something you know is not practical for commercial planes (though rather than ejection seats, ejection pods of blocks of 16 or so seats with separate emergency chutes and structure might help with a slow catastrophic destruction of the plane, but most fatal crashes are either explosive high up, or striking the ground at high speed, and chutes will do little to help with any of that. You'd need structure. By the time you've surrounded the passengers in that much structure, you'll need to leave it on the ground, and by the time you are done, you are designing a train. All the people you think should be working on it already have, and there's nothing that can be done.
Learn to love Alaska
Hahaha! fighter seat ejection is done with explosive charges, usually works (when it doesn't kill or horribly maim, which it sometimes does) for a man in his 20s in top shape but would kill at least a quarter of civilian passengers. You're going to have a jumbo jet with hundreds of charges in the passenger cabin, what could possibly go wrong....let's see, terrorists would thank you for obviating the need to smuggle bombs, malfunction of system could crash the plane, there's more but I'm laughing too much....
Google, IBM, eBay, BBC, etc, etc - a very long list of small enterprises who make money on the back of GPL (greater and lesser version) that you've probably never heard of, and can be excused for not being able to research.
Actually the problem is that you have missed the context of this discussion. Since we are discussing software that is being *distributed*, in-house undistributed software is an irrelevant tangent. Whatever Google is doing in-house is irrelevant to the issues that NASA faces in distributing this software.
China, in particular.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Because China will implement replacements for it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What's wrong with this place? Plenty of posts below the above raving about licences and nothing apart from the post above about building it.
Anyone else get stuck on building "ScriptMgr" in "vsp" and did you find a way around it?
The ability to put say... a nuclear warhead in orbit, interestingly, isn't considered lightly by governments, and I can't think of one who would give that kind of technology to public domain. (thought you might argue that it'll soon be irrelevant, if it's not yet the case, with private space programs and previously underdeveloped country developing their own space technology.)
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that NASA business is to put nuclear warhead in orbit, I'm just saying they build things that can do that. I'll just not speculate on that.
(\__/) This is Lapinator
(='.'=) copy it in your sig
(")_(") so it can take over the world
What do you think the engineers who design aircraft are doing already? As others here have pointed out, the biggest killer in a plane crash is fire. So the biggest priority is to get passengers off the plane AFTER it lands. Modern passenger aircraft are already well designed in this respect. As an example the Airbus 320 has one entrance, but no less than 8 exits! That's not bad for 150 seats.
Bottom line, I fly a lot. I am simply disputing your assertion that airplanes are unsafe. You can call me closed-minded if you like, I will call you irrational. Statistically, your own choices will kill you long before any pilot's choices figure into it. I simply do not understand how people can fear plane crashes or crime or terrorism and yet have absolutely no fear of the the things that will actually kill them. If the goal is to save people from needless death, perhaps you should start by looking at what ACTUALLY kills people and pick something with better numbers: Cancer, heart disease, automobiles, alcohol, tobacco, stroke, suicide. murder, drowning, electrocution... All are far more likely to kill you than air travel. You have more of a chance of dying from injuries sustained falling down(1 in 246) than of dying in a plane(1 in 20000).
Do not taunt Happy-Fun-Ball!
Actually the problem is that you have missed the context of this discussion.
You could hurt your back lugging those goalposts around all the time. See if you can find a company in that list that doesn't distribute the code. Do you even have a fucking clue what the GPL is? HInt: it's useless unless distribution is involved.
Just because you can argue the toss (or how many angels can party on the head of a pin) doesn't mean you should.
Fighter pilots at least get the option of an ejection seat, so why have we dragged our heels in the dirt for so long by not finding a way for passengers of jumbo jets to survive catastrophe?
My best guess is it boils down to risk/cost/benefit. How much does it cost to train a fighter pilot? How much does it take to train an airline passenger?
Which one spends more hours in an aircraft, and therefore, has a higher risk of accident?
Also, there are other safety mechanisms in place.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.