You would think that any manned spaced launch (and many unmanned ones) would be important News for Nerds wouldn't you?
As an avid space enthusiast, I personally look forward to the day that a manned space launch is just as unremarkable and routine as a manned air launch.
Gee, thanks for copying word-for-word the comment I made the last time slashdot posted this story, and getting modded +5 for it. Seriously, I wouldn't mind at all if you had at least given me some sort of attribution.
Even if it did all of those things, I suspect I'd still need a computer/storage device to store all of my pictures, videos, and music. I doubt I'm going to get a phone with a terabyte drive in the near future.
There's this little thing called network storage...
It's worth noting that NASA has also previously announced that they will be offering commercial contracts to US companies for transportation of cargo and eventually crew to the ISS. These would be fixed-cost contracts for services rendered, rather than the more traditional cost-plus contracts which reward inefficiency and waste. Unfortunately, none of the US companies are where they need to be yet, although it's looking like SpaceX should be there in a few years.
NASA will soon solicit offers from firms interested in delivering cargo and crew to the international space station (ISS), but NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said he wants to buy services, not dole out development contracts to newcomers who were shut out of the competition to build the space shuttle's replacement....
Griffin said he also would like to see a robust commercial space transportation industry take root and thrive, and said the best way for NASA to help is "to utilize the market that is offered by the international space station's requirement to supply crew and cargo as the years unfold."...
Griffin promised that NASA would give priority to non-government services should they become available, although he cautioned that deliberately "under utilizing" a NASA-owned and -operated system could encounter resistance from lawmakers intent on protecting government jobs....
Another difference between a traditional government contract and the deals Griffin hopes to make is that they would emphasize "performance rather than process." While NASA would insist on "certain standards," Griffin said "It's not up to me as the procurer of that service to determine how the engineers working for you, the provider, provide that service."...
Charles Miller, president of Constellation Services International, said he was "enthusiastically looking forward" to NASA's crew and cargo solicitation. Constellation Services Internationals, Woodland Hills, Calif., is developing what it calls the LEO (low Earth orbit) Express standardized cargo container, which could launch atop virtually any rocket, as an affordable, near-term solution to NASA's space station re-supply needs.
Elon Musk, president of Space Exploration Technologies, said he was "definitely encouraged" by Griffin's remarks. "This is a market SpaceX has been interested in for a long time," Musk said....
The plan is that as the launch services of SpaceX and other commercial providers matures, they'll be able to compete for commercial contracts to deliver cargo (and eventually crew) to the International Space Station. In fact, besides the Centennial Challenges competitions, this is one of the key ways NASA Head Michael Griffin is planning on fostering a commercial space industry.
From SpacePolitics, quoting a transcript of Griffin's recent announcement:
NASA has not had at its upper levels a manager or an administrator more supportive of commercial enterprise than I. We are base lining in the out years past the retirement of the shuttle, we are base lining commercial service to the station. That is the only known and knowable, at this point, market for those entrepreneurs that I have to give. We are base lining the use of that market for them and are providing, will be providing this fall a new procurement to try to stimulate that market.
That said, at the end of the day, what commercial means is, that it is not government directed. So, I can provide the incentive and I can provide the market that I have and commercial providers will either emerge or not. It is not acceptable for a publicly funded program not to have a way of meeting its mission requirements in the event that commercial operators do or don't materialize. So, the architecture that we have advanced allows NASA to meet its mission requirements, but also allows NASA to concentrate its resources on other more advanced activities if commercial providers can emerge in the next five to seven years. That is exactly our intent.
Our fondest desire would be to keep NASA on the very frontier of space activity, letting commercial provider fill in for those activities which are not frontier activities. We will be putting some money where our mouth is.
By making a weatherman's salary proportional to a certain function (logarithm of the probability he predicts, or entropy, or something, I forget), the weatherman has an incentive to make the best possible predictions: his salary will be directly proportional to the quality of his predictions, being maximized when his rain forecast probabilities match the actual probabilities of rain. You could set up a "free market betting system" this way, rewarding the quality of people's guesses regarding the likelihood of various outcomes.
That's why you have special markets used to explicitly deal with non-normal distributions. For example, check out this prediction market over at Intrade on what the federal funds rate will be by the end of 2005. Notice that they actually have several different tickets, for increases ranging from +1% to +5%.
In the real stock market, it's also why you have things like options, which I believe can be used to get a handle on non-normal distributions.
Yup. It was called the Policy Analysis Market, which was essentially a prediction market for forecasting the future of the middle east and how possible policies might impact the region.
It's quite interesting to see how your typical slashdotter reacted to it back then. Some quotes (all from comments moderated +4 or higher):
"In any event, while I support innovative ways of fighting terrorism (as opposed to wiretapping everyone and giving the president imperium, etc) the idea of making money off of death is exceptionally disturbing."
"The reason why this is sick is because next time you read that some coward terrorist decided to blow himself up on a Tel Aviv bus, killing him/herself and 15 schoolchildren, a gambler somewhere will go make himself a cool $50 because he "bet" on this."
"Holy Crap. That's disgusting. And, on a lighter note: Think of the money you can make taking exotic vacations and causing havok! Insider trading laws be damned, this could be a wonderfully abusable system. God, I hope this is a joke."
It's not quite orbit (yet), but JP Aerospace has been running a PongSat program for the past few years which does something similar. Some of their past missions have gone above 100,000 feet, and would make great science fair projects for students. The description from their page:
A PongSat is an experiment that fits inside of a ping pong ball.
These ping pong ball 'satellites' are flown to the edge of space by balloon or launched in sounding rockets. The PongSats are then returned to the student.
It's an easy and inexpensive way to get students excited about science and engineering.
There are endless possibilities for experiments that can fit inside a ping pong ball. PongSat's can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. Experiments can be as simple as comparing how high a ball bounces before and after being exposed to vacuum. The PongSat can carry seeds to see if exposure to cosmic rays effect their growth. Several small inexpensive computers and other electronics can fit inside a PongSat. These can be used to create a wide range of experiments. Whether carrying a marshmallow to see if it puffs up in the vacuum of near space or an entire sophisticated satellite in miniature, PongSat can create motivation, drive and passion in the classroom.
PongSats are flown at no cost to the student or school.
* How easy would it be to break?
Very difficult. The planned position of the elevator avoids hurricanes, lightning and other extreme weather. The ribbon is engineered to be twice as strong as it needs to be to support itself and any planned cargo attached to it.
* What if it falls?
The majority, the long end out in space, gains enough speed that it burns up in the atmosphere, with the lower portion falling into the sea. It will not fall on top of anyone.
* For the portion that doesn't burn up in a fall - what effect will it have on the environment?
Honestly, it will make a little bit of a mess. But New York City tickertape parades have made bigger messes. Comparatively it will put much less dust, dirt, debris and chemicals into the environment than wildfires of the American west, any one of the large expendable rockets, or a month of natural meteors hitting Earth. The ribbon is light (7.5 kg/km) so, any pieces that fall to earth will slow down, in the air, to about the same terminal velocity as that of an open newspaper page falling. It will not have enough momentum to cause mechanical damage when it comes down. We have considered other health risks such as inhalation of very small fragments and believe this will not be a problem but we are conducting studies to make sure this isn't a problem. Since we are aware of the possible problems now we can design the elevator to avoid these issues.
* How large a wave/disturbance would it generate?
The wave/disturbance would be nonexistent. As above, there just isn't enough mass, even in later, larger, ribbons, to generate such energy dispersion. There might be a small amount of light as a line in the sky as the ribbon burns up but after that it will be a few pieces of black film fluttering to Earth. Because of the size, distribution and winds, it is conceivable that only a few people would even see the event in any way and just as few would find actual pieces of the ribbon.
* How much warning would there be from the time of a break to the time it would take for the lower portion to come down?
Depending on exactly what happened it could be a few hours to weeks.
* What would happen to the surviving portion?
The ribbon that fell to Earth could be recovered for study but because of the amount and distribution it would be difficult to find many pieces. The pieces that do land would eventually degrade but not for a very long time. Keep in mind that this is mostly a stable form of carbon; it doesn't do anything. The debris would resemble long hair and would probably be broken up in interactions with animals, plants, wind, fish and waves. In fiber form it would be much too large to inhale and would probably work its way through a digestive system unaffected. The only debris we have any concern about is if it were reduced to nanotube size. This we don't understand yet so we will study this to see if there is a problem and then probably also design the ribbon to remain in larger pieces if it re-enters.
* What would happen to anything climbing the ribbon at the time it broke?
The short answer is that some payloads will fall (below the break and below 24,000 km altitude), some will enter low orbit (below the break and between 24,000 km and GEO) and some will be tossed to high Earth orbit (above GEO) depending on where the payloads are and where
Those of you interested in space-based automation should take a look at the Advanced Automation for Space Missions report on Wikisource. Basically, it's a study which NASA sponsored back in 1980 to brainstorm and analyze different ways of using automation in space. Although it's fairly old, a lot of their analysis is still relevant today.
Here's the chapters:
1. Introduction 2. Terrestrial Applications: An Intelligent Earth-Sensing Information System 3. Space Exploration: The Interstellar Goal and Titan Demonstration 4. Nonterrestrial Utilization Of Materials: Automated Space Manufacturing Facility 5. Replicating Systems Concepts: Self-Replicating Lunar Factory and Demonstration 6. Technology Assessment of Advanced Automation for Space Missions 7. Conclusions and Implications of Automation in Space
(I made a post about this a few days ago and it still seemed relevant, so I'm reposting here)
From an story in Defense Industry Daily [defenseindustrydaily.com], mentioned on slashdot a few days ago:
SpaceX initially intended to follow its first vehicle development, Falcon 1, with the intermediate class Falcon 5 launch vehicle. However, in response to customer requirements for low cost enhanced launch capability, SpaceX accelerated development of an EELV-class vehicle, upgrading Falcon 5 to Falcon 9. SpaceX has sold a Falcon 9 launch to a US government customer, and still plans to make Falcon 5 available in late 2007. Their efforts are worth watching, and could affect the military satellite launch market.
With up to a 17 ft (5.2 m) diameter fairing, Falcon 9 is capable of launching approximately 21,000 lbs (9,500 kg) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in its medium configuration and 55,000 lbs (25,000 kg) to LEO in its heavy configuration, a lift capacity greater than any other launch vehicle. In the medium configuration, Falcon 9 is priced at $27 million per flight with a 12 ft (3.6 m) fairing and $35 million with a 17 ft fairing. Prices include all launch range and third party insurance costs, and SpaceX claims that this makes Falcon 9 the most cost efficient vehicle in its class worldwide.
So, Boeing's Delta IV Heavy lifts 25,000 kg for $254 million. The SpaceX Falcon 9 S9 will be able to lift the same amount for a starting price of $78 million. Wow.
Since it's based on the Falcon 5, the Falcon 9 will probably also be man-rated.
A recent study performed by the Futron Corporation, concluded that Falcon 5 was superior in design reliability to other vehicles in its class, due to engine redundancy. Falcon 9, by extension, has even higher reliability with increased propulsion redundancy.
Falcon 5 and Falcon 9 will be the world's first launch vehicles where all stages are designed for reuse. The Falcon 1 has a reusable first stage, but an expendable upper stage. Reuse is not factored into launch prices. When the economics of stage recovery and checkout are fully understood, SpaceX will make further reductions in launch prices.
Meanwhile, in the parent article, NASA has announced that it will be spending $5.5 billion on developing the Crew Exploration Vehicle, $4.5 billion on the Crew Launch Vehicle, and between $5 and $10 billion on a new heavy-lift vehicle. Who wants to bet that by the time NASA's new rockets are ready, SpaceX will already have a similar rocket available at a tiny fraction of the price?
Granted, SpaceX still needs to pull off a successful launch of the Falcon I, scheduled for later this year. I wish them the best of luck.
Malaysia, according to a leading space authority, could be the next new focal point for space travel. Malaysia's central location makes it an attractive option for private commercial space travel companies and those interested in space exploration business, such as the Zero G Corporation and the Florida Space Authority. A 35-member Florida business delegation is scheduled to take a trip to Malaysia near the end of the month in order to look into investment and business possibilities.
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia said it would launch five third-generation satellites from a site in the United States as part of its ambitious plan to become a developed country in 2020 and to meet defence needs....
"We are moving to become an advanced economy and communications is important to meet our economic needs. Now we are relying on other people's satellites. For security needs for instance, can we completely rely on other people's satellites?"...
The third-generation satellites offer higher-resolution images. They provide specific and timely data for mapping departments in agricultural countries and geographical information for companies located near the equatorial belt.
"This (the satellites) is for the strategic needs of the country. For our economic and defence needs of our country, we must have our own capacity in space," Jamaluddin added.
So, I guess even if Malaysia doesn't have any launchers themselves yet, they seem to have satellite construction down.
SpaceX initially intended to follow its first vehicle development, Falcon 1, with the intermediate class Falcon 5 launch vehicle. However, in response to customer requirements for low cost enhanced launch capability, SpaceX accelerated development of an EELV-class vehicle, upgrading Falcon 5 to Falcon 9. SpaceX has sold a Falcon 9 launch to a US government customer, and still plans to make Falcon 5 available in late 2007. Their efforts are worth watching, and could affect the military satellite launch market.
With up to a 17 ft (5.2 m) diameter fairing, Falcon 9 is capable of launching approximately 21,000 lbs (9,500 kg) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in its medium configuration and 55,000 lbs (25,000 kg) to LEO in its heavy configuration, a lift capacity greater than any other launch vehicle. In the medium configuration, Falcon 9 is priced at $27 million per flight with a 12 ft (3.6 m) fairing and $35 million with a 17 ft fairing. Prices include all launch range and third party insurance costs, and SpaceX claims that this makes Falcon 9 the most cost efficient vehicle in its class worldwide.
So, Boeing's Delta IV Heavy lifts 25,000 kg for $254 million. The SpaceX Falcon 9 S9 will be able to lift the same amount for a starting price of $78 million. Wow.
Since it's based on the Falcon 5, the Falcon 9 will probably also be man-rated.
A recent study performed by the Futron Corporation, concluded that Falcon 5 was superior in design reliability to other vehicles in its class, due to engine redundancy. Falcon 9, by extension, has even higher reliability with increased propulsion redundancy.
Falcon 5 and Falcon 9 will be the world's first launch vehicles where all stages are designed for reuse. The Falcon 1 has a reusable first stage, but an expendable upper stage. Reuse is not factored into launch prices. When the economics of stage recovery and checkout are fully understood, SpaceX will make further reductions in launch prices.
Meanwhile, in the parent article, NASA has announced that it will be spending $5.5 billion on developing the Crew Exploration Vehicle, $4.5 billion on the Crew Launch Vehicle, and between $5 and $10 billion on a new heavy-lift vehicle. Who wants to bet that by the time NASA's new rockets are ready, SpaceX will already have a similar rocket available at a tiny fraction of the price?
Granted, SpaceX still needs to pull off a successful launch of the Falcon I, scheduled for later this year. I wish them the best of luck.
Erm, where did you get that info from? Bush does many shitty things, but cutting NASA funding isn't one of them. In fact, NASA is one of the few non-defense government agencies which has actually seen funding increases. Bush even threatened to veto a huge appropriations bill unless legislators increased NASA's funding by a billion dollars.
The official info on NASA's budget can be seen here.
The article you refer to was written by a/.er with the handle of Rei who is the most mindless pro-NASA whore I have ever seen.
That's pretty harsh. I mean, I get into arguments with her all the time and think she's biased about certain things, but when it comes to aerospace, she's one of the most knowledgeable folks around here.
The big advantage of Scaled Composites and the other rocket shops is that they aren't big, stupid, brutally inefficient, Soviet style bureaucracies like the NASA manned space flight program is.
While there *is* genius in the Rutan design, you have to see that as an owner of a company, he HAS to hype it's fiscal performance to the press, to prop up stock prices.
I'm fairly certain that neither Virgin Galactic nor Scaled Composites have public stock available.
So if I rub tinfoil together moths will fall from the sky...or is this a pulled-from-my-ass-and-you'll-just-look-like-a-fo ol-if-you try-it" type example?
A little of both... more like a can't-exactly-remember-what-professor-said-but-tin foil-sounds-about-right example.:)
I'm under the impression that the direct speed/altitude benefits are fairly small. Rather, the main benefits are from safer abort methods (you can parachute back down if your engines fail) and being able to build an engine optimized for the upper atmosphere and space. You also don't have to pay launch site fees, and liability insurance becomes easier to deal with. Here's a relevant quote from t/Space's site:
The major benefits of air launch come in safety, simplicity and flexibility. Crew safety is enhanced because abort-at-ignition is easier when the capsule already is high enough for parachute deployment, vs. the on-the-pad challenge of releasing sufficient energy in the correct direction to send the capsule high enough for the parachutes to deploy. Public safety is enhanced because the launch takes place over open ocean, well away from any populated areas.
Air launch also allows simpler engines, which don't need to be designed to operate at both sea-level air pressure and at altitude. The "all-airborne" operation also reduces the performance penalty of using inexpensive low-pressure tanks and engines.
Flexibility and responsiveness is greatly enhanced by air launch. Most winds and precipitation at the airport runway -- launch site -- don't delay a launch; the carrier aircraft simply flies to clear weather. In addition, responsive launch often requires matching a particular inclination and orbit phasing. The carrier aircraft over open ocean can launch the CXV to any azimuth, and by flying across longitudes, can quickly match a desired orbit phasing.
The t/Space version of air launch provides only modest performance gains, in the 10-25% range, compared to a ground launch. It does not attempt technically difficult challenges such as accelerating the launch aircraft to supersonic speeds, or reaching very high altitudes.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong; but I believe that moths actually have a natural "radar detector" for sensing their predator's (bats) pings.
Yup, although it's a purely passive system. There's a fairly extensive overview of how moths detect bats' echolocation pulses. The behavior is kind of interesting... If the moth hears a weak sound (indicating the bat is far away), the moths will just turn around and fly away. If the sound is moderate, the moth will start looping around or stop flapping its wings and flutter down like a leaf. If the sound is really loud, indicating that the moth has a few milliseconds before it becomes bat food, the moth will suddenly fold its wings in and dive down as fast as it can.
One of my profs mentioned that if you make really high-pitched noises around moths, you can initiate the various evasive maneuvers. I can't remember how to make the noise... maybe something like rubbing aluminum foil together could do it.
Reason: The Baroque Cycle suggests that there are sometimes great explosions of creativity, followed by that creative energy's recombining and eventual crystallization into new forms--social, technological, political. Are we seeing a similar degree of explosive progress in the modern U.S.?
Stephenson: The success of the U.S. has not come from one consistent cause, as far as I can make out. Instead the U.S. will find a way to succeed for a few decades based on one thing, then, when that peters out, move on to another. Sometimes there is trouble during the transitions. So, in the early-to-mid-19th century, it was all about expansion westward and a colossal growth in population. After the Civil War, it was about exploitation of the world's richest resource base: iron, steel, coal, the railways, and later oil.
For much of the 20th century it was about science and technology. The heyday was the Second World War, when we had not just the Manhattan Project but also the Radiation Lab at MIT and a large cryptology industry all cooking along at the same time. The war led into the nuclear arms race and the space race, which led in turn to the revolution in electronics, computers, the Internet, etc. If the emblematic figures of earlier eras were the pioneer with his Kentucky rifle, or the Gilded Age plutocrat, then for the era from, say, 1940 to 2000 it was the engineer, the geek, the scientist. It's no coincidence that this era is also when science fiction has flourished, and in which the whole idea of the Future became current. After all, if you're living in a technocratic society, it seems perfectly reasonable to try to predict the future by extrapolating trends in science and engineering.
It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn't care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don't belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture.
Since our prosperity and our military security for the last three or four generations have been rooted in science and technology, it would therefore seem that we're coming to the end of one era and about to move into another. Whether it's going to be better or worse is difficult for me to say. The obvious guess would be "worse." If I really wanted to turn this into a jeremiad, I could hold forth on that for a while. But as mentioned before, this country has always found a new way to move forward and be prosperous. So maybe we'll get lucky again. In the meantime, efforts to predict the future by extrapolating trends in the world of science and technology are apt to feel a lot less compelling than they might have in 1955.
* A $20,000 bet between Mitchell Kapor (founder of Lotus) and Ray Kurzweil on whether or not the Turing Test will be passed by 2029
* A $10,000 bet between Esther Dyson and Bill Campbell on whether or not Russia will be the world leader in software development by 2012
* A $2,000 bet on whether or not someone alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150
* A $2,000 bet between Craig Mundie (Microsoft CTO) and Eric Schmit (Google CEO) on whether or not commercial passengers will routinely fly in pilotless airplanes by 2030
Slashdot Mirror
You would think that any manned spaced launch (and many unmanned ones) would be important News for Nerds wouldn't you?
As an avid space enthusiast, I personally look forward to the day that a manned space launch is just as unremarkable and routine as a manned air launch.
Why can't you have your own storage device?
Gee, thanks for copying word-for-word the comment I made the last time slashdot posted this story, and getting modded +5 for it. Seriously, I wouldn't mind at all if you had at least given me some sort of attribution.
Even if it did all of those things, I suspect I'd still need a computer/storage device to store all of my pictures, videos, and music. I doubt I'm going to get a phone with a terabyte drive in the near future.
There's this little thing called network storage...
It's worth noting that NASA has also previously announced that they will be offering commercial contracts to US companies for transportation of cargo and eventually crew to the ISS. These would be fixed-cost contracts for services rendered, rather than the more traditional cost-plus contracts which reward inefficiency and waste. Unfortunately, none of the US companies are where they need to be yet, although it's looking like SpaceX should be there in a few years.
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From this article:
NASA will soon solicit offers from firms interested in delivering cargo and crew to the international space station (ISS), but NASA Administrator Mike Griffin said he wants to buy services, not dole out development contracts to newcomers who were shut out of the competition to build the space shuttle's replacement.
Griffin said he also would like to see a robust commercial space transportation industry take root and thrive, and said the best way for NASA to help is "to utilize the market that is offered by the international space station's requirement to supply crew and cargo as the years unfold."
Griffin promised that NASA would give priority to non-government services should they become available, although he cautioned that deliberately "under utilizing" a NASA-owned and -operated system could encounter resistance from lawmakers intent on protecting government jobs.
Another difference between a traditional government contract and the deals Griffin hopes to make is that they would emphasize "performance rather than process." While NASA would insist on "certain standards," Griffin said "It's not up to me as the procurer of that service to determine how the engineers working for you, the provider, provide that service."
Charles Miller, president of Constellation Services International, said he was "enthusiastically looking forward" to NASA's crew and cargo solicitation. Constellation Services Internationals, Woodland Hills, Calif., is developing what it calls the LEO (low Earth orbit) Express standardized cargo container, which could launch atop virtually any rocket, as an affordable, near-term solution to NASA's space station re-supply needs.
Elon Musk, president of Space Exploration Technologies, said he was "definitely encouraged" by Griffin's remarks. "This is a market SpaceX has been interested in for a long time," Musk said.
The plan is that as the launch services of SpaceX and other commercial providers matures, they'll be able to compete for commercial contracts to deliver cargo (and eventually crew) to the International Space Station. In fact, besides the Centennial Challenges competitions, this is one of the key ways NASA Head Michael Griffin is planning on fostering a commercial space industry.
From SpacePolitics, quoting a transcript of Griffin's recent announcement:
NASA has not had at its upper levels a manager or an administrator more supportive of commercial enterprise than I. We are base lining in the out years past the retirement of the shuttle, we are base lining commercial service to the station. That is the only known and knowable, at this point, market for those entrepreneurs that I have to give. We are base lining the use of that market for them and are providing, will be providing this fall a new procurement to try to stimulate that market.
That said, at the end of the day, what commercial means is, that it is not government directed. So, I can provide the incentive and I can provide the market that I have and commercial providers will either emerge or not. It is not acceptable for a publicly funded program not to have a way of meeting its mission requirements in the event that commercial operators do or don't materialize. So, the architecture that we have advanced allows NASA to meet its mission requirements, but also allows NASA to concentrate its resources on other more advanced activities if commercial providers can emerge in the next five to seven years. That is exactly our intent.
Our fondest desire would be to keep NASA on the very frontier of space activity, letting commercial provider fill in for those activities which are not frontier activities. We will be putting some money where our mouth is.
By making a weatherman's salary proportional to a certain function (logarithm of the probability he predicts, or entropy, or something, I forget), the weatherman has an incentive to make the best possible predictions: his salary will be directly proportional to the quality of his predictions, being maximized when his rain forecast probabilities match the actual probabilities of rain. You could set up a "free market betting system" this way, rewarding the quality of people's guesses regarding the likelihood of various outcomes.
Something similar already exists. They're called weather derivatives.
This only works when the distribution is NORMAL.
That's why you have special markets used to explicitly deal with non-normal distributions. For example, check out this prediction market over at Intrade on what the federal funds rate will be by the end of 2005. Notice that they actually have several different tickets, for increases ranging from +1% to +5%.
In the real stock market, it's also why you have things like options, which I believe can be used to get a handle on non-normal distributions.
Yup. It was called the Policy Analysis Market, which was essentially a prediction market for forecasting the future of the middle east and how possible policies might impact the region.
Slashdot had a story on it back in 2003, titled Pentagon lets you bid on terrorism?
It's quite interesting to see how your typical slashdotter reacted to it back then. Some quotes (all from comments moderated +4 or higher):
"In any event, while I support innovative ways of fighting terrorism (as opposed to wiretapping everyone and giving the president imperium, etc) the idea of making money off of death is exceptionally disturbing."
"The reason why this is sick is because next time you read that some coward terrorist decided to blow himself up on a Tel Aviv bus, killing him/herself and 15 schoolchildren, a gambler somewhere will go make himself a cool $50 because he "bet" on this."
"Holy Crap. That's disgusting. And, on a lighter note: Think of the money you can make taking exotic vacations and causing havok! Insider trading laws be damned, this could be a wonderfully abusable system. God, I hope this is a joke."
It's not quite orbit (yet), but JP Aerospace has been running a PongSat program for the past few years which does something similar. Some of their past missions have gone above 100,000 feet, and would make great science fair projects for students. The description from their page:
A PongSat is an experiment that fits inside of a ping pong ball.
These ping pong ball 'satellites' are flown to the edge of space by balloon or launched in sounding rockets. The PongSats are then returned to the student.
It's an easy and inexpensive way to get students excited about science and engineering.
There are endless possibilities for experiments that can fit inside a ping pong ball. PongSat's can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. Experiments can be as simple as comparing how high a ball bounces before and after being exposed to vacuum. The PongSat can carry seeds to see if exposure to cosmic rays effect their growth. Several small inexpensive computers and other electronics can fit inside a PongSat. These can be used to create a wide range of experiments. Whether carrying a marshmallow to see if it puffs up in the vacuum of near space or an entire sophisticated satellite in miniature, PongSat can create motivation, drive
and passion in the classroom.
PongSats are flown at no cost to the student or school.
Liftport addresses this quite nicely in their FAQ:
http://liftport.com/faq2.php#science2
# What if the ribbon breaks?
* How easy would it be to break?
Very difficult. The planned position of the elevator avoids hurricanes, lightning and other extreme weather. The ribbon is engineered to be twice as strong as it needs to be to support itself and any planned cargo attached to it.
* What if it falls?
The majority, the long end out in space, gains enough speed that it burns up in the atmosphere, with the lower portion falling into the sea. It will not fall on top of anyone.
* For the portion that doesn't burn up in a fall - what effect will it have on the environment?
Honestly, it will make a little bit of a mess. But New York City tickertape parades have made bigger messes. Comparatively it will put much less dust, dirt, debris and chemicals into the environment than wildfires of the American west, any one of the large expendable rockets, or a month of natural meteors hitting Earth. The ribbon is light (7.5 kg/km) so, any pieces that fall to earth will slow down, in the air, to about the same terminal velocity as that of an open newspaper page falling. It will not have enough momentum to cause mechanical damage when it comes down. We have considered other health risks such as inhalation of very small fragments and believe this will not be a problem but we are conducting studies to make sure this isn't a problem. Since we are aware of the possible problems now we can design the elevator to avoid these issues.
* How large a wave/disturbance would it generate?
The wave/disturbance would be nonexistent. As above, there just isn't enough mass, even in later, larger, ribbons, to generate such energy dispersion. There might be a small amount of light as a line in the sky as the ribbon burns up but after that it will be a few pieces of black film fluttering to Earth. Because of the size, distribution and winds, it is conceivable that only a few people would even see the event in any way and just as few would find actual pieces of the ribbon.
* How much warning would there be from the time of a break to the time it would take for the lower portion to come down?
Depending on exactly what happened it could be a few hours to weeks.
* What would happen to the surviving portion?
The ribbon that fell to Earth could be recovered for study but because of the amount and distribution it would be difficult to find many pieces. The pieces that do land would eventually degrade but not for a very long time. Keep in mind that this is mostly a stable form of carbon; it doesn't do anything. The debris would resemble long hair and would probably be broken up in interactions with animals, plants, wind, fish and waves. In fiber form it would be much too large to inhale and would probably work its way through a digestive system unaffected. The only debris we have any concern about is if it were reduced to nanotube size. This we don't understand yet so we will study this to see if there is a problem and then probably also design the ribbon to remain in larger pieces if it re-enters.
* What would happen to anything climbing the ribbon at the time it broke?
The short answer is that some payloads will fall (below the break and below 24,000 km altitude), some will enter low orbit (below the break and between 24,000 km and GEO) and some will be tossed to high Earth orbit (above GEO) depending on where the payloads are and where
Those of you interested in space-based automation should take a look at the Advanced Automation for Space Missions report on Wikisource. Basically, it's a study which NASA sponsored back in 1980 to brainstorm and analyze different ways of using automation in space. Although it's fairly old, a lot of their analysis is still relevant today.
Here's the chapters:
1. Introduction
2. Terrestrial Applications: An Intelligent Earth-Sensing Information System
3. Space Exploration: The Interstellar Goal and Titan Demonstration
4. Nonterrestrial Utilization Of Materials: Automated Space Manufacturing Facility
5. Replicating Systems Concepts: Self-Replicating Lunar Factory and Demonstration
6. Technology Assessment of Advanced Automation for Space Missions
7. Conclusions and Implications of Automation in Space
From an story in Defense Industry Daily [defenseindustrydaily.com], mentioned on slashdot a few days ago:
SpaceX initially intended to follow its first vehicle development, Falcon 1, with the intermediate class Falcon 5 launch vehicle. However, in response to customer requirements for low cost enhanced launch capability, SpaceX accelerated development of an EELV-class vehicle, upgrading Falcon 5 to Falcon 9. SpaceX has sold a Falcon 9 launch to a US government customer, and still plans to make Falcon 5 available in late 2007. Their efforts are worth watching, and could affect the military satellite launch market.
With up to a 17 ft (5.2 m) diameter fairing, Falcon 9 is capable of launching approximately 21,000 lbs (9,500 kg) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in its medium configuration and 55,000 lbs (25,000 kg) to LEO in its heavy configuration, a lift capacity greater than any other launch vehicle. In the medium configuration, Falcon 9 is priced at $27 million per flight with a 12 ft (3.6 m) fairing and $35 million with a 17 ft fairing. Prices include all launch range and third party insurance costs, and SpaceX claims that this makes Falcon 9 the most cost efficient vehicle in its class worldwide.
So, Boeing's Delta IV Heavy lifts 25,000 kg for $254 million. The SpaceX Falcon 9 S9 will be able to lift the same amount for a starting price of $78 million. Wow.
Since it's based on the Falcon 5, the Falcon 9 will probably also be man-rated.
From here [spaceref.com]:
A recent study performed by the Futron Corporation, concluded that Falcon 5 was superior in design reliability to other vehicles in its class, due to engine redundancy. Falcon 9, by extension, has even higher reliability with increased propulsion redundancy.
Falcon 5 and Falcon 9 will be the world's first launch vehicles where all stages are designed for reuse. The Falcon 1 has a reusable first stage, but an expendable upper stage. Reuse is not factored into launch prices. When the economics of stage recovery and checkout are fully understood, SpaceX will make further reductions in launch prices.
Meanwhile, in the parent article, NASA has announced that it will be spending $5.5 billion on developing the Crew Exploration Vehicle, $4.5 billion on the Crew Launch Vehicle, and between $5 and $10 billion on a new heavy-lift vehicle. Who wants to bet that by the time NASA's new rockets are ready, SpaceX will already have a similar rocket available at a tiny fraction of the price?
Granted, SpaceX still needs to pull off a successful launch of the Falcon I, scheduled for later this year. I wish them the best of luck.
From this page:
...
...
Malaysia Could Be Hot Spot for Space Travel
Malaysia, according to a leading space authority, could be the next new focal point for space travel. Malaysia's central location makes it an attractive option for private commercial space travel companies and those interested in space exploration business, such as the Zero G Corporation and the Florida Space Authority. A 35-member Florida business delegation is scheduled to take a trip to Malaysia near the end of the month in order to look into investment and business possibilities.
Also, from an article titled Malaysia to launch five third-generation satellites:
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia said it would launch five third-generation satellites from a site in the United States as part of its ambitious plan to become a developed country in 2020 and to meet defence needs.
"We are moving to become an advanced economy and communications is important to meet our economic needs. Now we are relying on other people's satellites. For security needs for instance, can we completely rely on other people's satellites?"
The third-generation satellites offer higher-resolution images. They provide specific and timely data for mapping departments in agricultural countries and geographical information for companies located near the equatorial belt.
"This (the satellites) is for the strategic needs of the country. For our economic and defence needs of our country, we must have our own capacity in space," Jamaluddin added.
So, I guess even if Malaysia doesn't have any launchers themselves yet, they seem to have satellite construction down.
From an story in Defense Industry Daily, mentioned on slashdot a few days ago:
SpaceX initially intended to follow its first vehicle development, Falcon 1, with the intermediate class Falcon 5 launch vehicle. However, in response to customer requirements for low cost enhanced launch capability, SpaceX accelerated development of an EELV-class vehicle, upgrading Falcon 5 to Falcon 9. SpaceX has sold a Falcon 9 launch to a US government customer, and still plans to make Falcon 5 available in late 2007. Their efforts are worth watching, and could affect the military satellite launch market.
With up to a 17 ft (5.2 m) diameter fairing, Falcon 9 is capable of launching approximately 21,000 lbs (9,500 kg) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in its medium configuration and 55,000 lbs (25,000 kg) to LEO in its heavy configuration, a lift capacity greater than any other launch vehicle. In the medium configuration, Falcon 9 is priced at $27 million per flight with a 12 ft (3.6 m) fairing and $35 million with a 17 ft fairing. Prices include all launch range and third party insurance costs, and SpaceX claims that this makes Falcon 9 the most cost efficient vehicle in its class worldwide.
So, Boeing's Delta IV Heavy lifts 25,000 kg for $254 million. The SpaceX Falcon 9 S9 will be able to lift the same amount for a starting price of $78 million. Wow.
Since it's based on the Falcon 5, the Falcon 9 will probably also be man-rated.
From here:
A recent study performed by the Futron Corporation, concluded that Falcon 5 was superior in design reliability to other vehicles in its class, due to engine redundancy. Falcon 9, by extension, has even higher reliability with increased propulsion redundancy.
Falcon 5 and Falcon 9 will be the world's first launch vehicles where all stages are designed for reuse. The Falcon 1 has a reusable first stage, but an expendable upper stage. Reuse is not factored into launch prices. When the economics of stage recovery and checkout are fully understood, SpaceX will make further reductions in launch prices.
Meanwhile, in the parent article, NASA has announced that it will be spending $5.5 billion on developing the Crew Exploration Vehicle, $4.5 billion on the Crew Launch Vehicle, and between $5 and $10 billion on a new heavy-lift vehicle. Who wants to bet that by the time NASA's new rockets are ready, SpaceX will already have a similar rocket available at a tiny fraction of the price?
Granted, SpaceX still needs to pull off a successful launch of the Falcon I, scheduled for later this year. I wish them the best of luck.
Why in Bush's name are we cutting fuding to nasa?
Erm, where did you get that info from? Bush does many shitty things, but cutting NASA funding isn't one of them. In fact, NASA is one of the few non-defense government agencies which has actually seen funding increases. Bush even threatened to veto a huge appropriations bill unless legislators increased NASA's funding by a billion dollars.
The official info on NASA's budget can be seen here.
The article you refer to was written by a /.er with the handle of Rei who is the most mindless pro-NASA whore I have ever seen.
That's pretty harsh. I mean, I get into arguments with her all the time and think she's biased about certain things, but when it comes to aerospace, she's one of the most knowledgeable folks around here.
The big advantage of Scaled Composites and the other rocket shops is that they aren't big, stupid, brutally inefficient, Soviet style bureaucracies like the NASA manned space flight program is.
Agreed.
While there *is* genius in the Rutan design, you have to see that as an owner of a company, he HAS to hype it's fiscal performance to the press, to prop up stock prices.
I'm fairly certain that neither Virgin Galactic nor Scaled Composites have public stock available.
So if I rub tinfoil together moths will fall from the sky...or is this a pulled-from-my-ass-and-you'll-just-look-like-a-fo ol-if-you try-it" type example?
n foil-sounds-about-right example. :)
A little of both... more like a can't-exactly-remember-what-professor-said-but-ti
Although nothing seems to show up on google...
I'm under the impression that the direct speed/altitude benefits are fairly small. Rather, the main benefits are from safer abort methods (you can parachute back down if your engines fail) and being able to build an engine optimized for the upper atmosphere and space. You also don't have to pay launch site fees, and liability insurance becomes easier to deal with. Here's a relevant quote from t/Space's site:
n =projects.view&workid=CCD3097A-96B6-175C-97F15F270 F2B83AA
http://www.transformspace.com/index.cfm?fuseactio
The major benefits of air launch come in safety, simplicity and flexibility. Crew safety is enhanced because abort-at-ignition is easier when the capsule already is high enough for parachute deployment, vs. the on-the-pad challenge of releasing sufficient energy in the correct direction to send the capsule high enough for the parachutes to deploy. Public safety is enhanced because the launch takes place over open ocean, well away from any populated areas.
Air launch also allows simpler engines, which don't need to be designed to operate at both sea-level air pressure and at altitude. The "all-airborne" operation also reduces the performance penalty of using inexpensive low-pressure tanks and engines.
Flexibility and responsiveness is greatly enhanced by air launch. Most winds and precipitation at the airport runway -- launch site -- don't delay a launch; the carrier aircraft simply flies to clear weather. In addition, responsive launch often requires matching a particular inclination and orbit phasing. The carrier aircraft over open ocean can launch the CXV to any azimuth, and by flying across longitudes, can quickly match a desired orbit phasing.
The t/Space version of air launch provides only modest performance gains, in the 10-25% range, compared to a ground launch. It does not attempt technically difficult challenges such as accelerating the launch aircraft to supersonic speeds, or reaching very high altitudes.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong; but I believe that moths actually have a natural "radar detector" for sensing their predator's (bats) pings.
Yup, although it's a purely passive system. There's a fairly extensive overview of how moths detect bats' echolocation pulses. The behavior is kind of interesting... If the moth hears a weak sound (indicating the bat is far away), the moths will just turn around and fly away. If the sound is moderate, the moth will start looping around or stop flapping its wings and flutter down like a leaf. If the sound is really loud, indicating that the moth has a few milliseconds before it becomes bat food, the moth will suddenly fold its wings in and dive down as fast as it can.
One of my profs mentioned that if you make really high-pitched noises around moths, you can initiate the various evasive maneuvers. I can't remember how to make the noise... maybe something like rubbing aluminum foil together could do it.
There's also a similar page on the neuroethology of bat echolocation.
This reminds me of an interview in Reason (a libertarian mag) of slashdot favorite Neal Stephenson. Here's the relevant part:
http://www.reason.com/0502/fe.mg.neal.shtml
Reason: The Baroque Cycle suggests that there are sometimes great explosions of creativity, followed by that creative energy's recombining and eventual crystallization into new forms--social, technological, political. Are we seeing a similar degree of explosive progress in the modern U.S.?
Stephenson: The success of the U.S. has not come from one consistent cause, as far as I can make out. Instead the U.S. will find a way to succeed for a few decades based on one thing, then, when that peters out, move on to another. Sometimes there is trouble during the transitions. So, in the early-to-mid-19th century, it was all about expansion westward and a colossal growth in population. After the Civil War, it was about exploitation of the world's richest resource base: iron, steel, coal, the railways, and later oil.
For much of the 20th century it was about science and technology. The heyday was the Second World War, when we had not just the Manhattan Project but also the Radiation Lab at MIT and a large cryptology industry all cooking along at the same time. The war led into the nuclear arms race and the space race, which led in turn to the revolution in electronics, computers, the Internet, etc. If the emblematic figures of earlier eras were the pioneer with his Kentucky rifle, or the Gilded Age plutocrat, then for the era from, say, 1940 to 2000 it was the engineer, the geek, the scientist. It's no coincidence that this era is also when science fiction has flourished, and in which the whole idea of the Future became current. After all, if you're living in a technocratic society, it seems perfectly reasonable to try to predict the future by extrapolating trends in science and engineering.
It is quite obvious to me that the U.S. is turning away from all of this. It has been the case for quite a while that the cultural left distrusted geeks and their works; the depiction of technical sorts in popular culture has been overwhelmingly negative for at least a generation now. More recently, the cultural right has apparently decided that it doesn't care for some of what scientists have to say. So the technical class is caught in a pincer between these two wings of the so-called culture war. Of course the broad mass of people don't belong to one wing or the other. But science is all about diligence, hard sustained work over long stretches of time, sweating the details, and abstract thinking, none of which is really being fostered by mainstream culture.
Since our prosperity and our military security for the last three or four generations have been rooted in science and technology, it would therefore seem that we're coming to the end of one era and about to move into another. Whether it's going to be better or worse is difficult for me to say. The obvious guess would be "worse." If I really wanted to turn this into a jeremiad, I could hold forth on that for a while. But as mentioned before, this country has always found a new way to move forward and be prosperous. So maybe we'll get lucky again. In the meantime, efforts to predict the future by extrapolating trends in the world of science and technology are apt to feel a lot less compelling than they might have in 1955.
Oh geeze... I wonder how the Cydonia nuts are going to react to that one... it's the avatar of the Face on Mars!
Some additional (and larger) animations of Martian dust devils are available here:
Animations for August 19
Animations for July 8
This animation is my favorite, with maybe a half-dozen dust devils charging past the camera, some of them quite close.
There's plenty of other wagers similar to this one on longbets.org, except the loser pays money to a charity instead of to the winner.
A few examples:
* A $20,000 bet between Mitchell Kapor (founder of Lotus) and Ray Kurzweil on whether or not the Turing Test will be passed by 2029
* A $10,000 bet between Esther Dyson and Bill Campbell on whether or not Russia will be the world leader in software development by 2012
* A $2,000 bet on whether or not someone alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150
* A $2,000 bet between Craig Mundie (Microsoft CTO) and Eric Schmit (Google CEO) on whether or not commercial passengers will routinely fly in pilotless airplanes by 2030