Another little thing that bugs me is that Cameron had to go down to the real Titanic to get shots for the movie...again, why?
Actually, reading through the piece he wrote for Wired, it seems that he actually came up with the idea for making a Titanic movie so that he'd have an excuse to have someone pay for him to go down in a submersible to the actual Titanic.;)
I highly recommend picking up an issue of this month's Wired magazine, which hit the shelves the other day. It's guest-edited by James Cameron, and focuses on exploration, from undersea to subterranean to outer space. There's an interview with Burt Rutan, and also an interview with a renown cave explorer/inventor who's designing a submarine to search for life on Europa.
Here's an excerpt from Cameron's intro piece, which I found to be quite powerful:
Space is a vacuum. There is, by definition, nothing there. When we talk about exploring space, we really mean exploring the objects careening around in space - planets, moons, the occasional comet. So space is a hurdle, an ocean that must be crossed to reach a destination. Unfortunately, for three-quarters of the space age it has been treated as a destination in and of itself.
The last time humans crossed space to a destination was the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. In the 32 years since, no man has seen, with his own eyes, Earth as that beautiful, solitary blue sphere, and - reality check - no woman has ever seen it at all. We've been only to low Earth orbit since 1972, and from that altitude of 220 miles, looking at the 7,900-mile-diameter Earth is like peering at a basketball with your cheek pressed against it. Yes, you'll see curvature, but you're not seeing the whole thing. We've spent 32 years "exploring space" in low Earth orbit. Exploring nothing. To stay in orbit you have to go 17,000 mph, or Mach 25. So we've spent three decades going nowhere fast.
It's taken people a long time to wake up to this fact, but we finally have. Now Exploration with a capital E is in the air again, in what will hopefully become some kind of renaissance. Eleven billion hits to NASA's Web site during the Spirit and Opportunity rovers' exploration of Mars is an astounding groundswell of support. NASA is still blinking in surprise, trying to figure out why people love the rovers yet care less about the construction of the International Space Station than a new interchange outside Cleveland. It is only now sinking in that one is exploration and the other is, well construction.... If the next step is to send humans to Mars, then we must reexamine our culture of averting risk and assigning blame. We don't need any miracle breakthroughs in technology. The techniques are well understood. Sure, it takes money, but distributed over time it doesn't require any more than we're spending now. What is lacking is the will, the mandate, and the sense of purpose.
Something interesting is happening right now as you're reading this. NASA is scrambling, under presidential orders, to prepare for a renewed vision of human exploration beyond Earth. They've generated a plan, and it's a good one. I've sat on the NASA Advisory Council for the past 18 months, which is surely the most interesting period since the Apollo days. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe has fundamentally reorganized the agency. NASA is figuring out post-shuttle solutions to get people into orbit, how to do the heavy lifting to get big payloads (like interplanetary vehicles) up there, and all the other critical tasks to create human exploration space-systems architecture.
The public understandably asks how this will be paid for. The answer comes with some good news and some bad. The bad news is that space shuttle operations and space station construction and operations (in other words, current human spaceflight) is sucking up about $8 billion of NASA's $15 billion annual budget. The good news is that when the shuttle is retired (2010) and the space station completes its mission (2014), $8 billion a year will be freed up without adding a dime to the NASA budget. Over time, one funding wedge tapers, and the other widens. From 2014 to 2024, you've got a cool $80 bil to send folks to Mars.
The problem is that government projects are subject
This may be a little late, but the Planetary Society is running an art contest, challenging contestants to create a piece of artwork (including the computer-generated sort) depicting what they think Titan will be like. Entries can be submitted online, and the deadline is this Sunday.
Here's the official text from the contest announcement:
What lies beneath the hazy atmosphere that envelops Saturn's moon, Titan? Is the surface of the moon dotted with seas of liquid ethane? Do icy crags stretch towards a dim orange sky where high noon is only as bright as 1/1000th the level of daylight on Earth? No one knows -- yet.
On January 14, 2005, The European Space Agency's probe Huygens will plummet through the atmosphere to give us our first detailed look at Titan. Before the probe breaks through the clouds to image this mysterious moon, we invite you to imagine what Huygens will find and enter The Planetary Society's art contest.
HOW TO ENTER: Create an artwork representing what you imagine Titan looks like underneath its haze. Base your perspective on Huygens' journey. Are you viewing the planet from the air after Huygens breaks through the cloud or on the surface after the craft has parachuted to a landing? Did Huygens land on solid ground, or is she floating in an ethane sea? Send us your vision of what lies beneath the veil when you imagine Titan.
Once you've finished your artwork, you can enter the contest online--you don't have to mail your artwork in! Just create it on the computer, or take a digital photo or scan your artwork. If you are not able to enter the contest digitally, you can mail your artwork to us.
CONTEST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
Who can enter? Anyone aged 10 and above may enter. You can enter as a Youth (aged 10-17) or Adult (18 and over).
What kind of art can I create? You can use any medium to create your artwork, and then show it to us by submitting a digital image through the online entry form.
Or, if you choose, you can mail your art to us. If you mail your art, it cannot be larger than 1 by 11 by 17 inches (2.5 by 28 by 43 cm), and we will not return it to you. Send your entry to: Huygens Art Contest, The Planetary Society, 65 N Catalina Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106, USA. Click here for a donloadable entry form in PDF format.
When does the contest end? Sunday, November 28, 2004 at 23:59 Pacific time.
What can I win? Four First Prizes (two Youths, two Adults) and up to twenty Second Prizes will be awarded. A Grand Prize Winner will be chosen from among the First Prize Winners. The Grand Prize is a trip to Darmstadt, Germany to be on site at ESA's Space Operations Centre for the descent of the Huygens probe! All Winners' artworks will be displayed at ESA's European Space Operations Centre during the Huygens mission to Titan. All Winners will also receive a Planetary Society Prize Package including one year free Planetary Society membership, a Certificate of Honor, a Cassini-Huygens Mission Patch, an ESA poster, pin, and keychain, and a "Nine Planets" lithograph set. Two Special Prizes (one Youth and one Adult) will also be awarded for that art most closely resembling any portion of the actual Titan panoramic landscape taken by the Huygens probe during its final stages of descent. These awards will be made within 30 days following the return of the actual Titan image data, and will each consist of a framed and autographed Huygens photo of the Titan landscape.
Hydrogen is an energy carrier and not an energy source.
Yup.
We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.
And/or wind, nuclear, geothermal, etc. The point is that using hydrogen as an energy carrier allows us to more fully transition to non-fossil energy sources.
Also, while skimming through his web site I was quite intrigued by the following:
Congressman Rohrabacher Introduces Legislation Creating National Endowment for Space and Aeronautics
Washington, Aug 27 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: 202-225-2415 27 August 2004
(Washington, D.C.) Rep. Rohrabacher introduced legislation that will establish a National Endowment for Space and Aeronautics, in order to boost the private development of suborbital space flight.
With a cash reserve generated from both governmental and private sources, the Endowment will encourage individual initiative to push the boundaries of suborbital space flight and space exploration. The Endowment will be chiefly directed to award a prize for the demonstration of a reusable space flight vehicle to carry at least one person to a minimum altitude of 400 kilometers from the United States, or its territories. The spacecraft would also have to complete at least three full orbits of the Earth and return safely to the Earth. The total amount of the cash prize for this demonstration would not exceed $100,000,000.
"I'm encouraged that individuals like Burt Rutan, Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie, like the pioneers before them, will open new frontiers that will continue to benefit American's leadership role in space. The Endowment legislation is a small step in the right direction," Rohrabacher said.
If they have a good safety record and good safety practices, then yes, I would trust the company that leases his spaceplane. If not, I won't buy a ticket from them.
Here's a tally of the House votes. If you're a US citizen, be sure to check how your congressman voted and give them a happy or angry phone call on Monday. I'm certainly planning on doing so.
Even though the legislation was bipartisan (and the earlier version passed the house with only one vote against), this voted ended up being mostly along party lines. Overall, 206 Republicans voted for it and 2 against. 63 Democrats voted for it, with 117 against.
This page has a transcript of the House debate on the bill. Some interesting parts (bolding is mine):
[Boehlert, R-NY]This bill tries to strike a delicate balance between the need to give a new industry a chance to develop brand-new technology and the desire to provide enough regulation to protect the industry's customers. We think we have struck that balance and here is why. First, the bill gives the Federal Aviation Administration clear authority for the first time to regulate the commercial human space flight industry. Second, the bill gives the FAA unlimited authority to regulate the industry and its rockets to make sure they do no harm to third parties, that is, people on the ground or in the air who are in no way involved with the flight. Third, the bill sets a clear timetable for when FAA will have unlimited authority to regulate the industry and its rockets to make sure they do no harm to the people on board. But here is what the bill does not do. It does not allow the FAA right now to guess whether some new untested rocket technology will do harm to the people onboard. Why? Because this industry is at the stage when it is the preserve of visionaries and daredevils and adventurers. These are people who will fly at their own risk to try out new technologies. These are people who do not expect and should not expect to be protected by the government. Such protection would only stifle innovation. So instead of allowing FAA guesswork for the next several years, the bill requires that anyone participating in launch, whether it is crew or passenger, must be notified of all risk of flight and must be told explicitly that the government has not certified the vehicle as safe for crew or passengers. And the FAA can come in and prohibit rocket designs and operational procedures that have already been shown to fail. Now, obviously, this Wild West or barnstorming or infant industry state of affairs cannot obtain forever, if the commercial space flight industry is to become more than an expensive and risky novelty. Safety must increase, and gradually the industry will start to look more like a common carrier. And that is why the bill allows FAA after 8 years to regulate commercial space flight in pretty much the same way it regulates the airline industry. But it seems to me kind of silly to regulate Burt Rutan's vehicle, which has flown three times, as if it was a Boeing 747. If we regulate it that way, then his craft will never evolve into the equivalent of a 747....
[DeFazio, D-OR] We all salute the innovation and the achievement that we have recently seen in the early days of private space flight, and we certainly do want to encourage that. But we go a little bit too far in this legislation. I do not understand why the committee has inserted the references to paying passengers and that we would not regulate until after the serious injury or death of paying passengers. It took me a decade here in Congress to strip the FAA of its requirement to promote the industry. That was something adopted in the very early days. It seems to be similar to what is going on here, to say that in the early days the Civil Aeronautics Board would have a charge of promoting the industry and later regulation became more paramount. But up and to and through the 90s until a tragic accident with then Air Tran, the industry was both regulated and promoted by the same agency. I promoted it out for years as a conflict. And it was only after that incident that we finally changed the language and said, no, it would be paramount that they would regulate in the interest of public health and safety. But here we are again trying to codify the old so-called ``tombstone mentality'' of the FAA by including paying passengers. It is one thing to say, here is someone who invente
The Republican leadership tried to push the bill through by suspending the chamber's rules through a voice vote, but Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn. -- who voiced firm opposition to the bill on safety grounds -- called for a yea-and-nay breakdown and noted that a quorum was not present. That stymied the GOP's procedural maneuver, and further action was postponed.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., argued during the 40-minute debate that new legislation was needed to resolve the Federal Aviation Administration's role in regulating piloted suborbital space launches, and that the FAA would be able to step in if a spacecraft was found to be unsafe for the crew or passengers. Oberstar, on the other hand, believes that the bill is too lax in that regard, and that the FAA would have to stand by until someone is killed or gravely injured.
Rohrabacher said failure to act could drive the infant suborbital space travel industry out of the country. "Don't strangle this industry and drive these entrepreneurs offshore," he pleaded.
Re:Space colonies don't solve population crises
on
Apollo 12 at 35
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· Score: 1
There's a number of ways to get around the problems you mention. Just one possibility that's been proposed is to have a fleet of solar-powered ion propulsion habitats constantly cycling between the vicinity of Earth and that of Mars. On the Earth side, you have reusable launch vehicles which can fly up to one of these habitats, deposit crew and supplies at the habitat, and then fly back down to pick up another crew. The crew stays in the habitat until it swings around Mars, where a Mars-based launch vehicle can pick them up.
Sure, it's not the sort of thing we'll see in the next 10 years and it assumes a self-sustaining Mars habitat, but it's certainly in the realm of technological possibility. The only theoretically-limiting factor is the amount of propellant needed to get crew and supplies up to the cycling habitat.
How to get back to the moon: t/Space
on
Apollo 12 at 35
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· Score: 3, Informative
Back in September, NASA selected 11 companies to conduct preliminary concept studies for human lunar exploration and the development of the NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle. Many of these are your typical aerospace dinosaurs, but a notable exception is t/Space, a new company which includes people like Burt Rutan (of Scaled Composites and SpaceShipOne), Elon Musk (of SpaceX), Red Whittaker (of the Red Team, which constructed an autonomous vehicle which competed in DARPA's Grand Challenge), and several of the new companies in the budding private space industry.
According to their page: Our core mission requirement is to enable prompt, affordable, safe and sustainable lunar exploration and development by the largest possible number of Americans, both in person and via telepresence.
Under our approach, government incentives focus exclusively on top-level goals, with technology and operational choices left to the private sector. The government incentives will be matched to specific top-level needs, but the "invisible hand" of market forces will shape choices as they flow down multiple supplier chains. Incentives will be structured so that several companies in each major area have an opportunity to win this support. With this competitive industrial base, two major processes become possible:
* Market forces will continually launch new products that replace established goods and services (the "creative destruction" that Joseph Schumpeter [Austrian economist 1883-1950] identified as the key element of capitalism). Poorly performing systems will be killed off quickly via competition rather than via burdensome NASA reviews or Congressional intervention. * Capability gap analyses will be performed by dozens and ultimately hundreds of companies on a continuous basis. As happens now in all competitive industries, the successful companies will be those who listen closely to their customers and accurately predict their future needs - in other words, capability gap analysis by multiple independent profit-seekers.
Commercial firms will create and own infrastructure that offers services that overlap in many cases. The overlaps found in a competitive private space economy will provide the resiliency now lacking in single-string solutions such as the Space Shuttle and Space Station, for which there are no ready alternatives. While functional overlaps are viewed as inefficiencies in centrally-planned systems, in a market-based system they drive costs lower (by reducing monopoly power and spurring innovation) and accelerate schedules (by eliminating single-point bottlenecks among suppliers and spurring competition).
If I understand correctly, tSpace's plan is to design an overall space architecture, and have companies compete for different components, whether they be launch vehicles, space station life support modules, or lunar landers. Many of these components will also be available commercially, keeping the price down and the reliability high. I suspect it's going to be difficult to keep from being eaten alive by the huge aerospace companies (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.), but I have a hope that they'll somehow end up getting the contract and end up completely reforming our approach to space.
I highly recommend reading through their presentation. The things they discuss are quite insightful, and they have some incredible ideas. Here's a few of their points:
Safety results from design choices, not oversight * Attempting to produce safety by inspection, quality control,
Re:Space colonies don't solve population crises
on
Apollo 12 at 35
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· Score: 1
There's actually an interesting web site which keeps a database of interesting gene names. There's genes like ken and barbie (for drosophila lacking genitalia), maggie (for where development seems to stop, like in certain simpsons characters), tribbles (dividing uncontrollably), and tigger (constant jumping).
The idea I've mostly seen tossed around isn't to use the ET as a debris shield, but to actually turn it into a (very large) space station module.
In the 80s David Brin wrote a great short story, "Tank Farm Dynamo" (available online), which talks about a near-future space station using the technologies of external tank modules and electrodynamic tether propulsion. He assumed that electrodynamic tethers were a pretty "out there" idea and that external tank modules were a straight-forward no-brainer. Ironically, we've flown prototypes of the tethers on the space station and absolutely no development has been done towards external tank modules.
It's unfortunately not little enough, but the lab I'm currently in has a large drosophila robotic model sitting in a two-ton vat of mineral oil which flaps its wings around and such. It's dubbed, "Bride of Robofly."
Here's what Michael Badnarik himself posted in response to some comments in his blog:
I find the percentage of negative comments here somewhat surprising given the number of "please ask for a recount" messages that I've alread gotten. However, I'd like to clear up a serious misconception that many of you apparently have.
This demand for a recount is not expected to change the outcome. I may be "Quixotic", but I'm not crazy. David Cobb and I have no expectation that the results of the election will be changed in the slightest. What we ARE hoping to do is to find out just how corrupt the system really is. Why bother voting for anyone if the electronic machines are going to report a pre-determined outcome.
I saw a bumper sticker that expressed the idea very well. It said: DIEBOLD - MAKING MACHINES THAT VOTE SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO.
Comment by Michael Badnarik -- 11/11/2004 @ 6:23 pm
In the recent Discovery Channel documentary, "Black Sky: The Race for Space," Burt Rutan revealed one of his preliminary designs for an orbital craft. Basically, it looked like SpaceShipOne, except it had a huge rocket roughly twice it's length sticking out its rear. I'm guessing Rutan has some tricks up his sleeve to deal with the reentry issue.
However, I'm not sure if we'll see Rutan launching such an orbital craft in time for this prize. From a recent speech he gave:
I put out there that before I die I want to see affordable travel to the Moon, that's essentially where I'm going. What I mean by affordable is not what Houston talks about affordable; I'm talking about where a third of the people in this room can afford to go to the Moon when I finally kick off. That's my vision.
Now, when you do that, you can draw a schedule back to show this above low Earth orbit stuff, and this low orbit stuff, and this suborbital stuff. Tier One is suborbital manned spaceflight, Tier Two is low Earth orbit manned spaceflight, and Tier Three is what we do above low Earth orbit, and it does have to start very soon after we have affordable Earth orbit stuff. I drew a schedule for all of that about three and a half months ago, and I decided what had to happen at every point to get to that. As of the 27th of September, I'm already six months ahead three months into the schedule. I did not think that there would be a major investment by a major guy who can and will do it. Can anyone here think of a better guy that will actually go out and build a spaceline [than Richard Branson]? I couldn't.
Can anyone here think of a better guy that will actually go out and build a spaceline [than Richard Branson]? I couldn't. I could move directly on to orbital ops from a research standpoint, but I decided that since I didn't seem to have a real close competitor to the X Prize, that maybe I ought to stay with suborbital and make damn sure that there's a successful, certified, safe system out there flying many passengers every day suborbitally before I lose interest in it and go on to orbital. And that's what I'm going to do. Is it going to be tough? Yeah, there's some tough things. Are the regulatory issues going to be tough? Yeah. But I'm not as scared of that program that is in front of me right now as I was scared of the SpaceShipOne program that was in front of me in 2001.
Personally, I'm guessing that to win this prize somebody will end up designing a capsule to launch on SpaceX's reusable Falcon V rocket, which, starting next year, will be launching 4200kg payloads (enough for a manned capsule) to orbit for $12 million.
According to an interesting thread over at democraticunderground.com, some pecular findings have come up from comparing exit polls and election results. According to the thread, several swing states and every state using e-voting without a paper trail (which has previously been shown to be vulnerable to tampering) showed a ~5 point disparity towards Bush. In every state which used e-voting with a paper trail, the election results matched the exit polls.
Considering the source, though, I'm taking this with a very large grain of salt, particularly because some peculiarities were hinted at in the exit polls themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, no species has ever been shown to evolve into another species. No scientific experiment has ever proved this.
Article: Evolution on the Fast Track
Is it a Weapon of Mass Discovery?
Another little thing that bugs me is that Cameron had to go down to the real Titanic to get shots for the movie...again, why?
;)
Actually, reading through the piece he wrote for Wired, it seems that he actually came up with the idea for making a Titanic movie so that he'd have an excuse to have someone pay for him to go down in a submersible to the actual Titanic.
Ooh, sorry. I've supposedly banned myself from reading slashdot, so I don't see old articles too often.
I highly recommend picking up an issue of this month's Wired magazine, which hit the shelves the other day. It's guest-edited by James Cameron, and focuses on exploration, from undersea to subterranean to outer space. There's an interview with Burt Rutan, and also an interview with a renown cave explorer/inventor who's designing a submarine to search for life on Europa.
...
Here's an excerpt from Cameron's intro piece, which I found to be quite powerful:
Space is a vacuum. There is, by definition, nothing there. When we talk about exploring space, we really mean exploring the objects careening around in space - planets, moons, the occasional comet. So space is a hurdle, an ocean that must be crossed to reach a destination. Unfortunately, for three-quarters of the space age it has been treated as a destination in and of itself.
The last time humans crossed space to a destination was the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. In the 32 years since, no man has seen, with his own eyes, Earth as that beautiful, solitary blue sphere, and - reality check - no woman has ever seen it at all. We've been only to low Earth orbit since 1972, and from that altitude of 220 miles, looking at the 7,900-mile-diameter Earth is like peering at a basketball with your cheek pressed against it. Yes, you'll see curvature, but you're not seeing the whole thing. We've spent 32 years "exploring space" in low Earth orbit. Exploring nothing. To stay in orbit you have to go 17,000 mph, or Mach 25. So we've spent three decades going nowhere fast.
It's taken people a long time to wake up to this fact, but we finally have. Now Exploration with a capital E is in the air again, in what will hopefully become some kind of renaissance. Eleven billion hits to NASA's Web site during the Spirit and Opportunity rovers' exploration of Mars is an astounding groundswell of support. NASA is still blinking in surprise, trying to figure out why people love the rovers yet care less about the construction of the International Space Station than a new interchange outside Cleveland. It is only now sinking in that one is exploration and the other is, well construction.
If the next step is to send humans to Mars, then we must reexamine our culture of averting risk and assigning blame. We don't need any miracle breakthroughs in technology. The techniques are well understood. Sure, it takes money, but distributed over time it doesn't require any more than we're spending now. What is lacking is the will, the mandate, and the sense of purpose.
Something interesting is happening right now as you're reading this. NASA is scrambling, under presidential orders, to prepare for a renewed vision of human exploration beyond Earth. They've generated a plan, and it's a good one. I've sat on the NASA Advisory Council for the past 18 months, which is surely the most interesting period since the Apollo days. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe has fundamentally reorganized the agency. NASA is figuring out post-shuttle solutions to get people into orbit, how to do the heavy lifting to get big payloads (like interplanetary vehicles) up there, and all the other critical tasks to create human exploration space-systems architecture.
The public understandably asks how this will be paid for. The answer comes with some good news and some bad. The bad news is that space shuttle operations and space station construction and operations (in other words, current human spaceflight) is sucking up about $8 billion of NASA's $15 billion annual budget. The good news is that when the shuttle is retired (2010) and the space station completes its mission (2014), $8 billion a year will be freed up without adding a dime to the NASA budget. Over time, one funding wedge tapers, and the other widens. From 2014 to 2024, you've got a cool $80 bil to send folks to Mars.
The problem is that government projects are subject
This may be a little late, but the Planetary Society is running an art contest, challenging contestants to create a piece of artwork (including the computer-generated sort) depicting what they think Titan will be like. Entries can be submitted online, and the deadline is this Sunday.
Here's the official text from the contest announcement:
What lies beneath the hazy atmosphere that envelops Saturn's moon, Titan? Is the surface of the moon dotted with seas of liquid ethane? Do icy crags stretch towards a dim orange sky where high noon is only as bright as 1/1000th the level of daylight on Earth? No one knows -- yet.
On January 14, 2005, The European Space Agency's probe Huygens will plummet through the atmosphere to give us our first detailed look at Titan. Before the probe breaks through the clouds to image this mysterious moon, we invite you to imagine what Huygens will find and enter The Planetary Society's art contest.
HOW TO ENTER:
Create an artwork representing what you imagine Titan looks like underneath its haze. Base your perspective on Huygens' journey. Are you viewing the planet from the air after Huygens breaks through the cloud or on the surface after the craft has parachuted to a landing? Did Huygens land on solid ground, or is she floating in an ethane sea? Send us your vision of what lies beneath the veil when you imagine Titan.
Once you've finished your artwork, you can enter the contest online--you don't have to mail your artwork in! Just create it on the computer, or take a digital photo or scan your artwork. If you are not able to enter the contest digitally, you can mail your artwork to us.
CONTEST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
Who can enter?
Anyone aged 10 and above may enter. You can enter as a Youth (aged 10-17) or Adult (18 and over).
What kind of art can I create?
You can use any medium to create your artwork, and then show it to us by submitting a digital image through the online entry form.
Or, if you choose, you can mail your art to us. If you mail your art, it cannot be larger than 1 by 11 by 17 inches (2.5 by 28 by 43 cm), and we will not return it to you. Send your entry to: Huygens Art Contest, The Planetary Society, 65 N Catalina Ave., Pasadena, CA 91106, USA. Click here for a donloadable entry form in PDF format.
When does the contest end?
Sunday, November 28, 2004 at 23:59 Pacific time.
What can I win?
Four First Prizes (two Youths, two Adults) and up to twenty Second Prizes will be awarded. A Grand Prize Winner will be chosen from among the First Prize Winners.
The Grand Prize is a trip to Darmstadt, Germany to be on site at ESA's Space Operations Centre for the descent of the Huygens probe!
All Winners' artworks will be displayed at ESA's European Space Operations Centre during the Huygens mission to Titan. All Winners will also receive a Planetary Society Prize Package including one year free Planetary Society membership, a Certificate of Honor, a Cassini-Huygens Mission Patch, an ESA poster, pin, and keychain, and a "Nine Planets" lithograph set.
Two Special Prizes (one Youth and one Adult) will also be awarded for that art most closely resembling any portion of the actual Titan panoramic landscape taken by the Huygens probe during its final stages of descent. These awards will be made within 30 days following the return of the actual Titan image data, and will each consist of a framed and autographed Huygens photo of the Titan landscape.
Hydrogen is an energy carrier and not an energy source.
Yup.
We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.
And/or wind, nuclear, geothermal, etc. The point is that using hydrogen as an energy carrier allows us to more fully transition to non-fossil energy sources.
Do you honestly think that these spacecraft are going to be carrying paying passengers on their very first test flights?
Awesome. If you have time though, you should really call them up or send a letter -- emails are often lost in the shuffle.
Well, be sure to call him up and tell him so!
Also, while skimming through his web site I was quite intrigued by the following:
Congressman Rohrabacher Introduces Legislation Creating National Endowment for Space and Aeronautics
Washington, Aug 27 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 202-225-2415
27 August 2004
(Washington, D.C.) Rep. Rohrabacher introduced legislation that will establish a National Endowment for Space and Aeronautics, in order to boost the private development of suborbital space flight.
With a cash reserve generated from both governmental and private sources, the Endowment will encourage individual initiative to push the boundaries of suborbital space flight and space exploration. The Endowment will be chiefly directed to award a prize for the demonstration of a reusable space flight vehicle to carry at least one person to a minimum altitude of 400 kilometers from the United States, or its territories. The spacecraft would also have to complete at least three full orbits of the Earth and return safely to the Earth. The total amount of the cash prize for this demonstration would not exceed $100,000,000.
"I'm encouraged that individuals like Burt Rutan, Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie, like the pioneers before them, will open new frontiers that will continue to benefit American's leadership role in space. The Endowment legislation is a small step in the right direction," Rohrabacher said.
If they have a good safety record and good safety practices, then yes, I would trust the company that leases his spaceplane. If not, I won't buy a ticket from them.
Here's a tally of the House votes. If you're a US citizen, be sure to check how your congressman voted and give them a happy or angry phone call on Monday. I'm certainly planning on doing so.
Even though the legislation was bipartisan (and the earlier version passed the house with only one vote against), this voted ended up being mostly along party lines. Overall, 206 Republicans voted for it and 2 against. 63 Democrats voted for it, with 117 against.
This page has a transcript of the House debate on the bill. Some interesting parts (bolding is mine):
...
[Boehlert, R-NY]This bill tries to strike a delicate balance between the need to give
a new industry a chance to develop brand-new technology and the desire
to provide enough regulation to protect the industry's customers.
We think we have struck that balance and here is why. First, the bill
gives the Federal Aviation Administration clear authority for the first
time to regulate the commercial human space flight industry.
Second, the bill gives the FAA unlimited authority to regulate the
industry and its rockets to make sure they do no harm to third parties,
that is, people on the ground or in the air who are in no way involved
with the flight.
Third, the bill sets a clear timetable for when FAA will have
unlimited authority to regulate the industry and its rockets to make
sure they do no harm to the people on board.
But here is what the bill does not do. It does not allow the FAA
right now to guess whether some new untested rocket technology will do
harm to the people onboard. Why? Because this industry is at the stage
when it is the preserve of visionaries and daredevils and adventurers.
These are people who will fly at their own risk to try out new
technologies. These are people who do not expect and should not expect
to be protected by the government. Such protection would only stifle
innovation.
So instead of allowing FAA guesswork for the next several years, the
bill requires that anyone participating in launch, whether it is crew
or passenger, must be notified of all risk of flight and must be told
explicitly that the government has not certified the vehicle as safe
for crew or passengers. And the FAA can come in and prohibit rocket
designs and operational procedures that have already been shown to
fail.
Now, obviously, this Wild West or barnstorming or infant industry
state of affairs cannot obtain forever, if the commercial space flight
industry is to become more than an expensive and risky novelty. Safety
must increase, and gradually the industry will start to look more like
a common carrier. And that is why the bill allows FAA after 8 years to
regulate commercial space flight in pretty much the same way it
regulates the airline industry. But it seems to me kind of silly to
regulate Burt Rutan's vehicle, which has flown three times, as if it
was a Boeing 747. If we regulate it that way, then his craft will never
evolve into the equivalent of a 747.
[DeFazio, D-OR] We all salute the innovation and the achievement that we have recently
seen in the early days of private space flight, and we certainly do
want to encourage that. But we go a little bit too far in this
legislation.
I do not understand why the committee has inserted the references to
paying passengers and that we would not regulate until after the
serious injury or death of paying passengers. It took me a decade here
in Congress to strip the FAA of its requirement to promote the
industry. That was something adopted in the very early days. It seems
to be similar to what is going on here, to say that in the early days
the Civil Aeronautics Board would have a charge of promoting the
industry and later regulation became more paramount. But up and to and
through the 90s until a tragic accident with then Air Tran, the
industry was both regulated and promoted by the same agency. I promoted
it out for years as a conflict. And it was only after that incident
that we finally changed the language and said, no, it would be
paramount that they would regulate in the interest of public health and
safety.
But here we are again trying to codify the old so-called ``tombstone
mentality'' of the FAA by including paying passengers. It is one thing
to say, here is someone who invente
If any of you vote in Minnesota, you may want to call up Jim Oberstar (D-Minn) and voice your concerns...
From here:
The Republican leadership tried to push the bill through by suspending the chamber's rules through a voice vote, but Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Minn. -- who voiced firm opposition to the bill on safety grounds -- called for a yea-and-nay breakdown and noted that a quorum was not present. That stymied the GOP's procedural maneuver, and further action was postponed.
The bill's sponsor, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., argued during the 40-minute debate that new legislation was needed to resolve the Federal Aviation Administration's role in regulating piloted suborbital space launches, and that the FAA would be able to step in if a spacecraft was found to be unsafe for the crew or passengers. Oberstar, on the other hand, believes that the bill is too lax in that regard, and that the FAA would have to stand by until someone is killed or gravely injured.
Rohrabacher said failure to act could drive the infant suborbital space travel industry out of the country. "Don't strangle this industry and drive these entrepreneurs offshore," he pleaded.
There's a number of ways to get around the problems you mention. Just one possibility that's been proposed is to have a fleet of solar-powered ion propulsion habitats constantly cycling between the vicinity of Earth and that of Mars. On the Earth side, you have reusable launch vehicles which can fly up to one of these habitats, deposit crew and supplies at the habitat, and then fly back down to pick up another crew. The crew stays in the habitat until it swings around Mars, where a Mars-based launch vehicle can pick them up.
Sure, it's not the sort of thing we'll see in the next 10 years and it assumes a self-sustaining Mars habitat, but it's certainly in the realm of technological possibility. The only theoretically-limiting factor is the amount of propellant needed to get crew and supplies up to the cycling habitat.
Back in September, NASA selected 11 companies to conduct preliminary concept studies for human lunar exploration and the development of the NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle. Many of these are your typical aerospace dinosaurs, but a notable exception is t/Space, a new company which includes people like Burt Rutan (of Scaled Composites and SpaceShipOne), Elon Musk (of SpaceX), Red Whittaker (of the Red Team, which constructed an autonomous vehicle which competed in DARPA's Grand Challenge), and several of the new companies in the budding private space industry.
According to their page: Our core mission requirement is to enable prompt, affordable, safe and sustainable lunar exploration and development by the largest possible number of Americans, both in person and via telepresence.
Under our approach, government incentives focus exclusively on top-level goals, with technology and operational choices left to the private sector. The government incentives will be matched to specific top-level needs, but the "invisible hand" of market forces will shape choices as they flow down multiple supplier chains. Incentives will be structured so that several companies in each major area have an opportunity to win this support. With this competitive industrial base, two major processes become possible:
* Market forces will continually launch new products that replace established goods and services (the "creative destruction" that Joseph Schumpeter [Austrian economist 1883-1950] identified as the key element of capitalism). Poorly performing systems will be killed off quickly via competition rather than via burdensome NASA reviews or Congressional intervention.
* Capability gap analyses will be performed by dozens and ultimately hundreds of companies on a continuous basis. As happens now in all competitive industries, the successful companies will be those who listen closely to their customers and accurately predict their future needs - in other words, capability gap analysis by multiple independent profit-seekers.
Commercial firms will create and own infrastructure that offers services that overlap in many cases. The overlaps found in a competitive private space economy will provide the resiliency now lacking in single-string solutions such as the Space Shuttle and Space Station, for which there are no ready alternatives. While functional overlaps are viewed as inefficiencies in centrally-planned systems, in a market-based system they drive costs lower (by reducing monopoly power and spurring innovation) and accelerate schedules (by eliminating single-point bottlenecks among suppliers and spurring competition).
If I understand correctly, tSpace's plan is to design an overall space architecture, and have companies compete for different components, whether they be launch vehicles, space station life support modules, or lunar landers. Many of these components will also be available commercially, keeping the price down and the reliability high. I suspect it's going to be difficult to keep from being eaten alive by the huge aerospace companies (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.), but I have a hope that they'll somehow end up getting the contract and end up completely reforming our approach to space.
I highly recommend reading through their presentation. The things they discuss are quite insightful, and they have some incredible ideas. Here's a few of their points:
Safety results from design choices, not oversight
* Attempting to produce safety by inspection, quality control,
How many passengers fly on airplanes each year?
There's actually an interesting web site which keeps a database of interesting gene names. There's genes like ken and barbie (for drosophila lacking genitalia), maggie (for where development seems to stop, like in certain simpsons characters), tribbles (dividing uncontrollably), and tigger (constant jumping).
The idea I've mostly seen tossed around isn't to use the ET as a debris shield, but to actually turn it into a (very large) space station module.
In the 80s David Brin wrote a great short story, "Tank Farm Dynamo" (available online), which talks about a near-future space station using the technologies of external tank modules and electrodynamic tether propulsion. He assumed that electrodynamic tethers were a pretty "out there" idea and that external tank modules were a straight-forward no-brainer. Ironically, we've flown prototypes of the tethers on the space station and absolutely no development has been done towards external tank modules.
It's unfortunately not little enough, but the lab I'm currently in has a large drosophila robotic model sitting in a two-ton vat of mineral oil which flaps its wings around and such. It's dubbed, "Bride of Robofly."
Here's what Michael Badnarik himself posted in response to some comments in his blog:
I find the percentage of negative comments here somewhat surprising given the number of "please ask for a recount" messages that I've alread gotten. However, I'd like to clear up a serious misconception that many of you apparently have.
This demand for a recount is not expected to change the outcome. I may be "Quixotic", but I'm not crazy. David Cobb and I have no expectation that the results of the election will be changed in the slightest. What we ARE hoping to do is to find out just how corrupt the system really is. Why bother voting for anyone if the electronic machines are going to report a pre-determined outcome.
I saw a bumper sticker that expressed the idea very well. It said: DIEBOLD - MAKING MACHINES THAT VOTE SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO.
Comment by Michael Badnarik -- 11/11/2004 @ 6:23 pm
If you would prefer to donate the money via the Badnarik campaign instead, here's the link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct
In the recent Discovery Channel documentary, "Black Sky: The Race for Space," Burt Rutan revealed one of his preliminary designs for an orbital craft. Basically, it looked like SpaceShipOne, except it had a huge rocket roughly twice it's length sticking out its rear. I'm guessing Rutan has some tricks up his sleeve to deal with the reentry issue.
However, I'm not sure if we'll see Rutan launching such an orbital craft in time for this prize. From a recent speech he gave:
I put out there that before I die I want to see affordable travel to the Moon, that's essentially where I'm going. What I mean by affordable is not what Houston talks about affordable; I'm talking about where a third of the people in this room can afford to go to the Moon when I finally kick off. That's my vision.
Now, when you do that, you can draw a schedule back to show this above low Earth orbit stuff, and this low orbit stuff, and this suborbital stuff. Tier One is suborbital manned spaceflight, Tier Two is low Earth orbit manned spaceflight, and Tier Three is what we do above low Earth orbit, and it does have to start very soon after we have affordable Earth orbit stuff. I drew a schedule for all of that about three and a half months ago, and I decided what had to happen at every point to get to that. As of the 27th of September, I'm already six months ahead three months into the schedule. I did not think that there would be a major investment by a major guy who can and will do it. Can anyone here think of a better guy that will actually go out and build a spaceline [than Richard Branson]? I couldn't.
Can anyone here think of a better guy that will actually go out and build a spaceline [than Richard Branson]? I couldn't.
I could move directly on to orbital ops from a research standpoint, but I decided that since I didn't seem to have a real close competitor to the X Prize, that maybe I ought to stay with suborbital and make damn sure that there's a successful, certified, safe system out there flying many passengers every day suborbitally before I lose interest in it and go on to orbital. And that's what I'm going to do. Is it going to be tough? Yeah, there's some tough things. Are the regulatory issues going to be tough? Yeah. But I'm not as scared of that program that is in front of me right now as I was scared of the SpaceShipOne program that was in front of me in 2001.
Personally, I'm guessing that to win this prize somebody will end up designing a capsule to launch on SpaceX's reusable Falcon V rocket, which, starting next year, will be launching 4200kg payloads (enough for a manned capsule) to orbit for $12 million.
According to an interesting thread over at democraticunderground.com, some pecular findings have come up from comparing exit polls and election results. According to the thread, several swing states and every state using e-voting without a paper trail (which has previously been shown to be vulnerable to tampering) showed a ~5 point disparity towards Bush. In every state which used e-voting with a paper trail, the election results matched the exit polls.
Considering the source, though, I'm taking this with a very large grain of salt, particularly because some peculiarities were hinted at in the exit polls themselves.