The Romanians considered the rockoon approach and discarded it. Instead they are building - yes, really! - a rocket powered seaplane to do an air launch of their rocket carrying their moonbot.
They are nuts.
And they are soooo fscking awesome.
The problem with the rockoon is that even once you are outside the atmosphere, you are still subject to the rocket equation of getting to the moon with the delta V. Some things just don't scale down well.
The single biggest problem that any team is facing is getting cash and sufficient cash to pay for a launch. This has been a problem for Astrobotic (and why they have postponed to 2015). This has been an issue for Moon Express. This is an issue for Rocket City Space Pioneers. And, yes, it is an issue for Team Phoenicia (my own team). For FredNet, too.
Getting material donations has not been difficult. Just the $. That's why Team Phoenicia has been selling engines and rockets.
If you want to help and not just snark, go to your favourite team's website and hit the donate button. They all have them. If/. or any other entity would use the/. effect to that end, it'd be a wondrous and helpful thing.
It's interesting that NASA doesn't mention the GLXP at all in there, not even in passing (or so shows my very fast scan of the document).
That contrasts quite a bit with the fact that they generated the NASA Heritage Site rules and what they briefed and said to the GLXP teams in July.
One of the individuals in the scheduled press announcement has a website and based on her work my bet is that they may have found some indications that there is life on earth that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus.
There was a book a few years ago about this subject for women...it didn't sell well. 35 is really the magic number. Down Syndrome potential ratchets up massively after that, frex.
Men are not immune from it either. schizophrenia and other issues seem to correlate to older paternal age too.
The effects of older parents having kids are something that almost everyone wants to avoid talking about. Postponing having kids until after you are 30 has dangers and as more and more of us do it...
I hate to be a bit self referential, but when Dr Keller came out with her press release, I wrote up a comparison of the Permian-Triassic and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinctions. The whole article centers around the idea that the Permian Extinction is assumed to be one caused by vulcanism where there is VERY strong evidence for that being the root cause so we ought to compare the KT to the PT if we want to see if lava trumps meteor.
Or make something in the same vein. AC would be a bit difficult to follow-up with, given the story's ending, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't have been a second ship to say, Tau Ceti, with a different outcome.
You might be surprised but the military is VERY interested in climate as well.
That said, the HPCS program - if continued until completion: whole new COngress coming up here - will produce an HPC platform that will probably end up being used by most HPC sites. Not just DOD ones.
Late in June, speaking at the Farnborough aerospace show, the Roskosmos leadership suddenly announced that they were suspending the tender and would instead adopt a multi-stage program of creating a space transport vehicle [the kliper]. Now the main emphasis is on the time-tested orbital workhorse, the Soyuz spacecraft.
John Hawks, a professor of anthropology, has a pretty sound and harsh refutation of the article. It looks like, if John is to be followed, that this is some pretty wishful thinking and sloppy work.
Aviation Week has already covered the fact that the airship has already flown. It looks like Lockheed is in exploration mode for aircraft right now because the traditional market of milking the government teet for manned fighter and bomber contracts has a decidedly less than glorious future.
This announcement may in fact be about really finding Beagle 2. It might also be a desperate attempt to regain some sort of credibility. Pillinger was damned pretty thoroughly by that ESA report on the Beagle 2 mission.
Seymour Cray with the Cray 3 had his processor bricks made of Gallium arsenide. The wikipedia article has flaws (I'll try to fix later) but it has the point that he went down the route of the 3d chip and circuitry much earlier than this/. story.
Once the 64-node machine is built, the designers will try to transfer several existing supercomputer programs onto the new hardware using these tools. "If we can get these [programs] to work, we'll know that we have a general purpose solution," Parsons says.
[Emphasis added]
So, this is still vapourware.
LARC, at NASA, built an FPGA supercomputer. Here's a link to a related paper from 2002. Note, its a PDF.
Additionally, Cray builds an FPGA using supecomputer in its XD-1. It's definitely a nonvapourware project since they've sold over 15 of them. Yes, yes, it also uses Opterons, but they're paired with FPGAs.
Additionally, prior to Seymour Cray's death at the hands of a drunk driver, he was looking into FPGAs as his next stab at supercomputing.
I don't think this has anything to do with power generation, regardless of the blurb at the NIF. It's about researching better bombs.
That's right. It has nothing to do with power generation. Neither does a fusion drive for a spacecraft. That's about throwing fuel in an expended form out the back of a 'rocket'. Project Daedalus is a good example. The NIF, if it produces fusion, will have the basic concept down. True, there's still a repetitive way of doing this is short times and all that (gun like feeds for propellant pellets, frex) and some impressive gains in reliability. But getting the fusion at all is more than half way there.
Sorry this is so late. Work, babies, and all of that.
The John Hopkins folks proposed a 'Son of Hubble' for that same cost. It would give the same or better scientific data gathering and also be designed to be fixed in an easier fashion, made with more modern tech, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I could and probably ought to have. http://teamphoenicia.blogspot.com./ The donate button is on the right. :)
The Romanians considered the rockoon approach and discarded it. Instead they are building - yes, really! - a rocket powered seaplane to do an air launch of their rocket carrying their moonbot. They are nuts. And they are soooo fscking awesome. The problem with the rockoon is that even once you are outside the atmosphere, you are still subject to the rocket equation of getting to the moon with the delta V. Some things just don't scale down well.
The single biggest problem that any team is facing is getting cash and sufficient cash to pay for a launch. This has been a problem for Astrobotic (and why they have postponed to 2015). This has been an issue for Moon Express. This is an issue for Rocket City Space Pioneers. And, yes, it is an issue for Team Phoenicia (my own team). For FredNet, too. Getting material donations has not been difficult. Just the $. That's why Team Phoenicia has been selling engines and rockets. If you want to help and not just snark, go to your favourite team's website and hit the donate button. They all have them. If /. or any other entity would use the /. effect to that end, it'd be a wondrous and helpful thing.
It's interesting that NASA doesn't mention the GLXP at all in there, not even in passing (or so shows my very fast scan of the document). That contrasts quite a bit with the fact that they generated the NASA Heritage Site rules and what they briefed and said to the GLXP teams in July.
And for the tech we get to develop and have developed. O:) The IP that is being generated out of the Prize is worth more than the Prize itself.
One of the individuals in the scheduled press announcement has a website and based on her work my bet is that they may have found some indications that there is life on earth that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus.
There was a book a few years ago about this subject for women...it didn't sell well. 35 is really the magic number. Down Syndrome potential ratchets up massively after that, frex.
Men are not immune from it either. schizophrenia and other issues seem to correlate to older paternal age too.
The effects of older parents having kids are something that almost everyone wants to avoid talking about. Postponing having kids until after you are 30 has dangers and as more and more of us do it...
Very old news. :D John's the old man of the teams, so to speak.
Thanx for the link, but Bryan has a better article.
I hate to be a bit self referential, but when Dr Keller came out with her press release, I wrote up a comparison of the Permian-Triassic and the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinctions. The whole article centers around the idea that the Permian Extinction is assumed to be one caused by vulcanism where there is VERY strong evidence for that being the root cause so we ought to compare the KT to the PT if we want to see if lava trumps meteor.
Anyone have a link to the total number of Kuipier Belt objects they've found? It hasn't past 100 yet has it?
Or make something in the same vein. AC would be a bit difficult to follow-up with, given the story's ending, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't have been a second ship to say, Tau Ceti, with a different outcome.
You're confused. That was the synapsids in the Permian with their unchecked Volcano Maker Pro users.
The KT Event was a case of the dinos getting waaaaaaaaaaaay too excited over their Orbital Dynamics for Dummies books.
A tad bit more seriously. Take that Gerta Keller!
You might be surprised but the military is VERY interested in climate as well.
That said, the HPCS program - if continued until completion: whole new COngress coming up here - will produce an HPC platform that will probably end up being used by most HPC sites. Not just DOD ones.
Late in June, speaking at the Farnborough aerospace show, the Roskosmos leadership suddenly announced that they were suspending the tender and would instead adopt a multi-stage program of creating a space transport vehicle [the kliper]. Now the main emphasis is on the time-tested orbital workhorse, the Soyuz spacecraft.
From here.
It seems that the Russians are having a few problems with their new space program. *shock*
John Hawks, a professor of anthropology, has a pretty sound and harsh refutation of the article. It looks like, if John is to be followed, that this is some pretty wishful thinking and sloppy work.
He has a follow-up post on his weblog as well.
Aviation Week has already covered the fact that the airship has already flown. It looks like Lockheed is in exploration mode for aircraft right now because the traditional market of milking the government teet for manned fighter and bomber contracts has a decidedly less than glorious future.
A little longer ago than I thought, but this was already posted.
Because the guy in charge of the project, Professor Pillinger, was too busy bragging about how his probe was so superior to NASA designs.
Actually, this shouldn't be labeled as flamebait.
Prof Pillinger has been bagging on NASA and the NASA probes for some time (esp about cost).
This announcement may in fact be about really finding Beagle 2. It might also be a desperate attempt to regain some sort of credibility. Pillinger was damned pretty thoroughly by that ESA report on the Beagle 2 mission.
Seymour Cray with the Cray 3 had his processor bricks made of Gallium arsenide. The wikipedia article has flaws (I'll try to fix later) but it has the point that he went down the route of the 3d chip and circuitry much earlier than this /. story.
A brilliant man, Seymour...
So, this is still vapourware.
LARC, at NASA, built an FPGA supercomputer. Here's a link to a related paper from 2002. Note, its a PDF.
Additionally, Cray builds an FPGA using supecomputer in its XD-1. It's definitely a nonvapourware project since they've sold over 15 of them. Yes, yes, it also uses Opterons, but they're paired with FPGAs.
Additionally, prior to Seymour Cray's death at the hands of a drunk driver, he was looking into FPGAs as his next stab at supercomputing.
Sorry this is so late. Work, babies, and all of that.
Huh. this story looks like its almost exactly what I have on my blog. Anyways, the direct link for the NIF is here.
Just think: it's better than half way to a fusion drive if it all works in 2010.
Los Angeles National Laboratory doesn't exist. If you mean, Los Alamos National Laboratory on the other hand...
The John Hopkins folks proposed a 'Son of Hubble' for that same cost. It would give the same or better scientific data gathering and also be designed to be fixed in an easier fashion, made with more modern tech, etc.