A 45% annual growth sounds great, but you have to remember that right now only a very small percentage of power is generated using photovoltaic solar cells. Just taking the share of PV solar energy from the graph on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy:_world_resourc es_and_consumption tells me that right now the global share is at about 0.04% (!!). Assuming for a moment that the 45% annual growth will remain constant, it will take about 15 years (!) for the global market share of PV solar electricity to reach even 10% (0.04 * 1.45^15 = 10.5%). Of course we don't know how fast it will start growing when the prices really become competitive with the fossils, but I think there is always a limit to the amount of growth that the market can support (given the time it takes to set up new production capacity).
This is basically true for any new product, so also for all other renewables and fancy stuff like nuclear fusion. Even if the adoption rate is large, it takes a long time to reach a large market penetration if you start from zero!
There is now a Martian teenager standing next to the rover with a bucket of water in its one tentacle, a squeegee in its other tentacle and holding up its third tentacle, waiting for the rover to give it a Martain dollar.
And someone at NASA gets the task of giving this poor kid the difficult message that he is not getting anything, because it was unrequested...
This is truly exciting! The signifigance of this I think is worded best by this quote from Burt Rutan himself (from the press release):
"Apart from building SpaceShipOne for Paul and then watching it fly to space on June 21st this is one of the most exciting days of my life. Our June space flight was flown with several new technologies that address both the cost and safety of manned space flight. These, combined with the lessons learned from our SpaceShipOne research program, will enable us to develop the finest suborbital operational systems possible. I am looking forward to getting started on the development program and the opportunity to work with Virgin on taking Paul Allen's vision to the next stage."
Why does this thing have a "backwards looking hazard identification camera"? Are they that confident about finding life on Mars that they expect to be fleeing from it?
Thanks, didn't know that. Alan's Mojave weblog has been updated as well and contains further details and photos. It might be that the retraction was caused by a too steep approach, in which case it would have nothing to do with the White Knight problem.
It appears that White Knight had a landing gear problem on the previous flight as well. Knowing that most systems on the two craft are identical, this could mean that there is a (serious?) problem with the landing gear design. So they're probably in for a very thorough re-examination of the relevant systems. But they're probably on top of things and it's hard to say anything sensible about it without inside-information.
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A 45% annual growth sounds great, but you have to remember that right now only a very small percentage of power is generated using photovoltaic solar cells. Just taking the share of PV solar energy from the graph on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy:_world_resourc es_and_consumption tells me that right now the global share is at about 0.04% (!!). Assuming for a moment that the 45% annual growth will remain constant, it will take about 15 years (!) for the global market share of PV solar electricity to reach even 10% (0.04 * 1.45^15 = 10.5%). Of course we don't know how fast it will start growing when the prices really become competitive with the fossils, but I think there is always a limit to the amount of growth that the market can support (given the time it takes to set up new production capacity).
This is basically true for any new product, so also for all other renewables and fancy stuff like nuclear fusion. Even if the adoption rate is large, it takes a long time to reach a large market penetration if you start from zero!
And someone at NASA gets the task of giving this poor kid the difficult message that he is not getting anything, because it was unrequested...
"Apart from building SpaceShipOne for Paul and then watching it fly to space on June 21st this is one of the most exciting days of my life. Our June space flight was flown with several new technologies that address both the cost and safety of manned space flight. These, combined with the lessons learned from our SpaceShipOne research program, will enable us to develop the finest suborbital operational systems possible. I am looking forward to getting started on the development program and the opportunity to work with Virgin on taking Paul Allen's vision to the next stage."
Why does this thing have a "backwards looking hazard identification camera"? Are they that confident about finding life on Mars that they expect to be fleeing from it?
Thanks, didn't know that. Alan's Mojave weblog has been updated as well and contains further details and photos. It might be that the retraction was caused by a too steep approach, in which case it would have nothing to do with the White Knight problem.
It appears that White Knight had a landing gear problem on the previous flight as well. Knowing that most systems on the two craft are identical, this could mean that there is a (serious?) problem with the landing gear design. So they're probably in for a very thorough re-examination of the relevant systems. But they're probably on top of things and it's hard to say anything sensible about it without inside-information.