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Space

Maverick Rocketeers Pursue Space Access 229

Posted by michael from the darwin-award-within-your-grasp dept.
Mad.Scientist writes "This article at Space.com is about mavericks who are trying to lessen the cost of going into space. One of the companies, Armadillo Aerospace, is founded by John Carmack, who is also a founder of Id Software, and the brain behind games such as Doom or Quake. I just have to say, godspeed to all." Carmack is only one of the people mentioned in this story, but see our previous story for more on Carmack's rocketry habit.
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Maverick Rocketeers Pursue Space Access More

Maverick Rocketeers Pursue Space Access

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  • the armadillo aerospace site is full of MPG videos.. low and high bandwidth versions.

    this will be the fastest slashdotting in history ;)
  • Then all they would need is booster rockets to put it orbit.

    that would be way cheaper than anything NASA is doing.

    Heck, NASA should just buy a few of those at 6 mil a pop!
    • The only problem I see is that in Carmack's games, a rocket shot up in the air never comes back down. I wonder if he sees this as a challenge.

      I feel sorry for the flight testers that work for Carmack's company.

      • I feel sorry for the flight testers that work for Carmack's company.

        Don't. He's using sandbags and the like as "flight test" payloads - and that's with the rockets not going more than several feet off the ground (so far, though that may soon change). Good thing, too, since he's aced a few of them.
  • It's more like a suped up amateur rocketry club.
    • They will never actually put a man into space.

      I dont think anyone is stupid enough to risk their life using the technology of game programmer john carmack!

      I mean his quake software was so buggy, it left a backdoor open where anyone could remotely take over someones computer.

      Lets not forget carmack knows absolutely nothing about real world physics, his games dont use REAL physics, sure he may know some calculus, but does this make him qualified to produce a rocket to launch a man into space?

      First I want to see some simulations of the launch, I want him to find the most aerodynamic design for the craft so it doesnt break up into peices or burn up into dust. I want him to also tell me how hes going to manage to do this in a safe way yet be cheaper than NASA. NASA is expensive for a reason, they DONT make alot of mistakes!
      • "so it doesnt break up into peices or burn up into dust"

        Would that also be known as Fragging?
      • NASA [space.com] doesn't [cnn.com] make [ellsworthamerican.com] mistakes [google.com]?

        Their most relevant mistake in this case is "cost-plus" contracts, where they pay "however much it costs our contractors, plus a guaranteed profit". This thoroughly discourages any but the most bloated proposals from contractors. Under these circumstances, a contractor's engineer can be fired for suggesting how to save money, because that will cost the contractor the amount saved plus the lost profit on that amount.

        This one is endemic to NASA, and is perhaps the primary reason why they are incapable of low-cost space flight. This, alone, could explain why private enterprise could suceed where NASA has utterly failed.
      • If NASA is expensive for a reason. What's the reason?

        Seriously; the Russians are launching for about 1/20th of NASA. And their engineers are about 1/10 of the cost, if they're even that cheap.

      • Actualy they allowed a back door to allow anyone to take over the quake server but not the actual machine.
  • What does John Carmack actually know about getting a ship into space. He might be an incredible programmer, but how well does it translate into space travel?
    • Well, I was at the conference and I can honestly say he knows about as much about space travel as he knew about graphics after writing Wolfenstein...

      Wolfenstein 3D, that is ;-)

  • model rockets (Score:2, Informative)

    by gripdamage ( 529664 )
    I knew someone who used to be very into rocketry. For hardcore people you have to go to these planned launches where the airspace over the site is reserved. Otherwise they might damage planes flying overhead.

    Very cool if you ask me.
    • Cool? Pain in the ass more like! :-)

      "We" (high-power rocketeers; I've never done it personally) have to arrange well in advance for a FAA waiver. Lots of paperwork, sometimes met with glassy stares or even hostility. Some FAA people are great, others clueless.

      Sometimes you get a short window in which to fly, or a low ceiling. (e.g., 5000'.) The group I fly with now is having a launch next weekend. They had a waiver for the whole weekend lined up, but they've been given two no-fly windows each day because jets from a (relatively) nearby airbase are doing low-altitude exercises in the area.

      Even if we get a waiver, there are pilots who ignore the "Notice to Airmen" posted at the airport. When a low-flying plane gets within a mile or so, and isn't heading away, we have to hold up launches for a bit.

      Stefan

  • 'Invented' (for the most part, the first person shooter

    Continually evolved the capabilities of realism in computer games
    Created the base for so many great games to run on (Quake3)

    Im sure, if there is a way to get private individuals into space cheaply, carmack will find a way.
  • Does it come with a BFG 2000?

  • I can't wait to see the next generation rocket launcher in Doom III. Maybe it will be able to launch rockets into orbit?

  • Private space exploration the way to go... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bc90021 ( 43730 ) <bc90021&bc90021,net> on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:05PM (#3498939) Homepage
    It is good to see stories like this. Since the government (and it doesn't matter which party it is) doesn't seem really all that interested in anything other than their "International" Space Station, it will take private sector people to get us where we should be in terms of the advancement of space flight.

    And to see that there is at least one geek involved (Mr. Carmack) makes it all the more reassuring. Of course, I suspect that they're all geeks, but I don't know the credentials of anyone else in the story. ;)

  • mavericks, outsiders, rabblerousers, troublemakers (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tps12 ( 105590 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:05PM (#3498944) Homepage Journal
    Whatever you call them, rebels have defined our history from Day One. The first to rebel against conventional wisdom? Eve. We're still recovering from the fallout from that ordeal.

    Seriously, look at how many "rebels" have made their way into our history and into our hearts: Socrates, Jesus, Gandhi, Ford (the auto-maker, not the president), Darwin. The list goes on. At every major step in mankind's evolution, there has been someone who smacks us in the face and shows us something new.

    It's painful.

    But where would we be without it?

    Maybe Linus, RMS...today's rabblerousers?

    Think about it.

    • Now that you mention it, I think Linus might look a bit like Eve....

      RMS I still don't know about.

    • (* Whatever you call them, rebels have defined our history from Day One. The first to rebel against conventional wisdom? Eve. We're still recovering from the fallout from that ordeal.
      Seriously, look at how many "rebels" have made their way into our history and into our hearts *)

      The best role that mavericks fill is taking risks that "rational" people wouldn't. Most mavericks fail, but the lucky few that succeed are what changes everything.

      One of the Wright brothers' was seriously injured trying to perfect an upgrade to their designs.

      BTW, does anybody have any web material about the space dude who had a hard time persuading the early moon program to use the randeveus approach? Without that, they would have needed a huuuuuuge rocket.

  • I don't know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheAwfulTruth ( 325623 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:06PM (#3498956) Homepage
    When Doom crashed it was just an inconvienience, but this...
    • Check out the movies on the armadillo aerospace site - they've actually destroyed test vehicles. On the other hand, they've probably done far less damage than NASA so far...
  • This must be why the 'Rocket Launcher' has always been the weapon of choice of multiplayer gamers in quake
  • Whatever happened to that guy who was going to try and launch himself? I remember them talking about moving the launch to Mexico because he might not be able to get permission for the launch from the FAA... unfortunately that's about all I can remember at the moment. :(

    Bryan
  • Anyone remember the Rotary Rocket? It was another venture in the same vein, only NASA started giving away the market they were trying to sell to. A real shame, too, because they had some really, really nifty ideas. They even had a test flight before they suddenly found themselves bankrupt.

    Googling for Rotary Rocket leads me here [damer.com], but there is, I'm sure, some better source.

    --grendel drago

  • Great Big Guns! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by vkg ( 158234 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:14PM (#3499019) Homepage
    Gerald Bull who shot to fame as the inventor of the Iraqi Super Gun did a lot of work on constant pressure launch systems - enormous cannons with explosives positioned along the barrel to keep the pressure behind the projectile constant for the full launch length.

    Estimated cost to LEO? $1 per pound.

    Because the shock was distributed along the acceleration, maximum G force on the load was 40G: fine for food and fuel and most construction supplies.

    You can read more about his work at Federation of American Scientists Supergun pages [fas.org], [2] [fas.org], and at NASA [nasa.gov].

    There really is more than one way to do it.
    • Of course, a necessary postscript to any mention of G. Bull is how he decided to build his super gun for Iraq to lob artillery shells and Isreal's Mossad objected in the strongest possible way.

      RIP Gerald Bull.

      (this isn't any criticism of the method, it's neat technology, just an interesting element of the story)

      • Re:Great Big Guns! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by FreeUser ( 11483 )
        A very tragic end to a visionary who lost patience with a visionless west (whose space programs have more or less languished since the 80's) and wanted to build a working gun to proove his ideas irrespective of the consiquences.

        Mossad were fools to murder such a man ... he could have completed the gun and they could have bombed it and obliterated it, all without murdering a relatively innocent scientist. I say relatively because, while he was no more of a criminal than Einstein or Oppenheimer, his judgement in putting his talents to work for a man such as Hussein, even as blinded by his own vision as he was, was certainly lacking IMHO. Israel's stasi-like response was of even poorer judgement.

        His idea is correct, though ... everything but people and delicate parts could be launched with this method for dollars, instead of thousands of dollars, a pound.
        • Screw Bull, there were many other ways for him to keep his research and projects alive than by whoring himself to Hussein.

          His lack of morals, judgment, his illegal selling of arms to South Africa, his building of a delivery mechanism (artillery pieces, supergun, improved scuds) for weapons of mass destruction for Hussein, .... This guy was begging to be assasinated, and I am glad that someone tossed him the alms he was asking for.

    • I wonder... (Score:4, Funny)

      by cr0sh ( 43134 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:40PM (#3499195) Homepage
      If it would be possible to build a "super spud gun" using PVC fittings, etc - in this similar manner? Get a long piece of PVC, attach booster chambers using sewage drain "down spout" connectors, a load of JBWeld, some sensors and electronic ignition, etc.

      Maybe make the thing out of steel and weld all of the connections - would be an interesting porject for "backyard" high-altitude experiments.

      Possibly even "x-prize" level experiments...

    • Ram Accelerator (Score:4, Interesting)

      by gizmo_mathboy ( 43426 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:56PM (#3499288)
      If you really want a big gun then you want a Ram Accelerator. It will subject a projectile to about 25,000 G's of acceleration.

      The beauty of it is its efficiency. The fuel (gas) is stored in the barrel. The projectile is fired to have it travel fast enough to cause its shock wave to ignite the gas in the tube and therefore propel it even more. Basically, it is just ahead of the detonation wave it creates.

      The University of Washington has a good bit of info [washington.edu] about them.

      Cool stuff.
    • I like the idea of using magnets. [nasa.gov] If they can do it for rides at six flags, they can use it to launch a vehicle into space.
    • (* Gerald Bull who shot to fame as the inventor of the Iraqi Super Gun did a lot of work on constant pressure launch systems - enormous cannons with explosives positioned along the barrel to keep the pressure behind the projectile constant for the full launch length. *)

      Why not just use missles?

      It seems it would be cheaper to make smarter missles or robot bomber planes than haul around and manufacture huge guns.

      I don't get this "huge gun" need, such as the controversial "crusader" contraption? Am I missing something, or is it just porkbarrel toys?

  • I always thought this was an interesting idea. Here's a link to some pics of rotary rocket [marker.org]. The rocket uses helicopter-like blades to slow re-entry and thus is it a reusable rocket. Unfortunately, the company went bankrupt beginning of last year. However, I have heard a rumour that someone has bought up the company and plans on reviving the technology.

    Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com]
  • (shameless plug)

    We've lots and lots of reusable liquid fuel rocket videos on our website www.xcor.com [xcor.com] as well as a new photo gallery and redesigned engine projects page. Have a look if you haven't been there in a while or been there at all. :) We make reliable rocket hardware and rocket powered aircraft. There's some good video of the EZ-Rocket flying in the Space Access presentation video [xcor.com] (the conference that the the space.com article was about) as well.

  • "...founded by John Carmack, who is also a founder of Id Software, and the brain behind games such as Doom or Quake."

    You learn something new every day on /. :)

  • Straight from the horse's mouth (Score:4, Informative)

    by dmccarty ( 152630 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:21PM (#3499064)
    From previous /. comments, I've listed some of John Carmack's thoughts on space travel below:

    • Interestingly, these are all from 2001, and several of them refer to expecting to hit significant milestones "by the end of the year" or "next year".

      Anyone know if any of these milestones were achieved? Or if not, what armadillo's latest estimates are for the same things?
      • Some of them were. Check http://www.armadilloaerospace.com [armadilloaerospace.com]
        for details.

      • Re:Straight from the horse's mouth (Score:5, Informative)

        by John Carmack ( 101025 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:50AM (#3501134)
        >Anyone know if any of these milestones were achieved?
        >Or if not, what armadillo's latest estimates are for the same things?

        The estimate from day one was:

        Year one: VTVL demonstrator
        Year two: manned rocket ships
        Year three: space shots

        The VTVL demonstrator went faster than expected, and it looked like we were going to lift a person off the ground before the end of the first year. We had a couple crashes and redesigns that set us back a bit, and we were forced to make a major change in our catalyst packs to allow us to get enough back-to-back flights without changes before putting a person on it, so we haven't yet made that "milestone bunny hop".

        However, while we were waiting for some things along that development path, we wound up developing some other technologies that weren't even in the original plan -- our recent work on biprop engines wasn't really scheduled until year three or later, and the rocket rotor work is looking like it will allow some big improvements in our upcoming designs.

        The current goal of record is to set some of the manned aviation 3000 meter time-to-climb records before the end of this year.

        John Carmack

  • Carmack's Slashdot account (Score:2, Informative)

    by molo ( 94384 )
    For those that don't know, John Carmack has a Slashdot account, and is known to post here occasionally. Check out his user page [slashdot.org].

    -molo

  • funny that game creators move their fantasies (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dario_moreno ( 263767 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:29PM (#3499123) Journal

    I saw this piece on TV about the Ultima
    creator living in a medieval castle mockup,
    and now it's Cormack, after tuning the
    ubergeek Ferrari, trying to fly to space
    by himself on a budget...

    when the stuff they sold us only keeps us
    in a virtual world, replacing all the REAL
    things the 60's scifi writers had promised.

  • It won't be cheap (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:31PM (#3499140)
    This article keeps talking about space flight as if it were something that should be cheap, that brilliance is the only thing keeping us out of orbit.

    We wish.

    Space flight isn't like air flight, where a couple of bicycle repairmen from Ohio could study the basic principles and build a device on their own. Air flight can be done with an ordinary gasoline engine and the right kits. Goddard developed the first successful rockets with a combination of basic physics and lots of chemistry, but those weren't manned or orbital.

    On the other hand, sending a man into space for the first time took the combined financial and intellectual resources of an entire superpower. It still does, not because the principles are too advanced but because the raw materials are hideously expensive and because the margin for error is enormous. If you're trying to fly yourself into orbit, you damned well better have your engineering right because after a certain point, even parachutes won't save you from a miscalculation.

    About the only thing that could make orbital commutes cost-effective would be a successful space elevator [space.com], a tether between a geosynchronous station and the ground along which cargo and people could climb and descend. High-tech planes won't do it, rockets won't do it, all of those take too much money and have too much risk. An elevator would have an initial cost and then be relatively cheap to run and re-run. And once you had one, you could send up parts for a second one again and again.

    But I'm not holding out hope for a $200 ticket on a space shuttle anytime soon.
    • It still does, not because the principles are too advanced but because the raw materials are hideously expensive

      No. They aren't. The raw materials are reasonably cheap, or they can be. The cost per kg of the fuel is miniscule, about $10/kg of payload. The fuel tank is fairly expensive- they tend to be composite affairs, but they can sometimes be made from aluminum alloy if you have two stages. Turbopumps are very complex, but XCOR use a piston pump, and other designs are out there, like the rotary rocket pump.

      You can knock together a small liquid fuelled rocket for about a couple of thousand. It's difficult, but not impossible.

      and because the margin for error is enormous.

      I think that its pretty comparable to any other aerospace activity- and that's how the FAA regulators are looking at it right now in fact (approximately).

      But I'm not holding out hope for a $200 ticket on a space shuttle anytime soon.

      That's unlikely. The cost of a transatlantic Concorde flight (about $5000-10,000) is more likely; and in the next 15 years is just about possible; although $100,000 may be more likely.

    • What Wolf said. Heck, one of the groups (ERPS) hasn't even had to use pumps in their flight testing (yet - and that's not for want of tests). And we did knock one together for a few thousand - $4,400, specifically, for our KISS rocket.
    • How common and cheap do you suppose gasoline was when the Wright brothers flew? A more accurate comparison would probably be ten or twenty years earlier when they were almost flying.

      I don't think it was until after the automobile was mass produced that gasoline was so cheap and parachutes could usually be counted on to work. Besides, now we have more computational power than existed in the whole world at the time of early space flight in packages that weigh less than a pound and sensors to go along with them. One of the early (and continuing) problems with space flight was control and designing the parts. We also have 3D CAD tools that run on a PC rather than taking teams of engineers years to draw up and analysis tools for looking at data that far surpass anything available even 30 years ago. To top it off, we have research available as public archives detailing what various governments spent billions to find out.

      With all that going for them, I think we'll see private space flight within a decade.

    • I think one of the biggest costs come from the fact that every one wants to put people up there.

      So you have to have all this testing etc, failsafe components reg aproval etc etc.

      I think the nongovernment space hackers should concentrate on sending satelites before they start thinking about sending people.

      It should be cheaper it could get them some bussines, and it will give them valuable experience.

      why the x-price is asking for launching of people i dont know - they risk fatality and that will hurt amateur space efforts a lot.

      by the way while a flash of brilliance may seem unlikely i wouldnt discount it. Hey a ram engine is mostly a hollow tube right? Some smart guy in a garage might figure out how those work.

    • Re:It won't be cheap (Score:5, Informative)

      by John Carmack ( 101025 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @01:23AM (#3501075)
      I am going to have to save the parent post, because it is such a perfect example of the mindset that has made progress in aerospace so damn slow. I couldn't have said it better if I was trying to intentionally construct the stereotype. This ties directly in to the quote I had in the article -- "rocket science" has been mythologized out of all proportion to its true difficulty.

      First, you are severely understating the achievements of the Wright brothers. They had to invent almost everything from scratch, including much of the theory, and there was no existence proof to show that it was possible at all. I'm really not an aviation buff, so I'm sure someone else can recount the challenges better, but it is worth noting that at the time the Wrights did their work, there was also a high profile, government funded effort underway headed by Samuel Langley. With the "best minds in the country" and government resources behind it, they still didn't make the breakthroughs.

      I contend that building and flying an X-Prize class vehicle (100 km suborbital, three passengers, reusable) today is a much less daunting task than the original invention of the airplane.

      We have existence proofs of what is being attempted. There is no question that it is possible, because it has been demonstrated in many different forms. The only question is how cheap it can be done.

      There is a massive amount of information available. Today, anyone can go read up on things that NOBODY knew back when they were building the early rocket systems.

      Obviously, computers and electronics are vastly better. Our current electronics box has all the necessary sensors and actuators for flying a spaceship, and it cost less than $15,000 to put together (yes, it runs linux).

      It isn't as blatant, but other manufacturing areas have also made great progress. I had a batch of a dozen small motors made at a CNC job shop for only $1000. Even counting everything that goes into them, the total cost including valve is less than $300 each. These may well be better than the peroxide thrusters used on the Mercury capsules. It was amusing to hear the NASA pad manager tell stories about having to go bang on the Mercury thrusters with a wrench to get them to stop sputtering. Don't think that all NASA hardware performs as designed.

      Pressure vessels are significantly improved. A common all-carbon-fiber tank for natural gas vehicles has a better compressed volume to mass ratio than anything that could be built in the sixties. Filament winding can make large structures that are both stronger and cheaper than the classic welded structures.

      There are direct spinoffs from government rocketry development. To drill the tiny, high aspect cooling passages for the Agena upper stage engine, they had to invent brand new machining technologies. Today, you can get the same techniques done at standard industrial job shops. As far as expensive materials go, the Agena engine was made out of aluminum.

      The general industrial infrastructure is also a heck of a lot better. I can order damn near anything I need for our work from McMaster-Carr at 4:00 in the morning, and it shows up two days later.

      NASA spent $50 million to set up the tracking and telemetry networks for Mercury. You can get far, far better results today with a GPS and satellite modem. There are billions of dollars of space based assets already at our disposal.

      I could go on for quite a while on why we would have an easier time today just replicating the efforts of the past, but that is only part of the issue. What we are aiming for in the near term is far smaller in scope than any of the projects that the public normally associates with space. Even with all the advantages of today, it would be absurd to think that we could put together a space shuttle or a Saturn V. I hesitate to make analogies, but we are effectively working on building little microprocessors instead of big mainframes. 100 km straight up and down (that gives a 5G reentry, which, while not for your grandmother, doesn't take a superhero) is just not all that hard.

      Yes, there are lots of challenges to be met, and we will doubtless run into all sorts of things that we haven't even considered. We will solve them as we go. People do hard things all the time, in many different fields. The reason "rocket science" looks so much harder is just lack of familiarity.

      Because the existing way of doing things in space costs tens to hundreds of millions of dollars a shot, there just isn't an opportunity for radical experimentation. The optimization problem is slowly trending towards a stable local minimum, with little chance of getting out to the global minimum. Imagine trying to develop software if you only got to compile and run your app four times a year. Imagine how much that would slow down progress, and what contortions you would go through if $100 million was riding on each run.

      Build fast. Test often. Stay flexible. Mind the critical path.

      John Carmack

      • Re:It won't be cheap (Score:4, Interesting)

        by costas ( 38724 ) on Saturday May 11, 2002 @09:18PM (#3504185) Homepage
        Well, I am a rocket scientist and I couldn't agree with you more.

        The "two guys from Ohio" were way, way ahead of their time. They were among the first to do actual experiment-based airfoil testing. They developed light-weight internal combustion engines. Their biggest breakthrough was realizing the importance of control: they developed twistable wings (the ailerons were invented later) to maneuver the airplane. It's not like major military powers were not trying to do the same thing; it's just that the two bicycle shop owners persisted and had the insight and ingenuity to do this.

        Space travel has a much lower threshold today than air flight did for the Wrights: we know how to get there, we know how to survive, we know how to spread the risks. The difference is cost: it will take more than two dedicated hobbyists to build a space vehicle. And it will take a market demand to amortize the costs and make space travel possible; I think that's a bigger obstacle than technology or cost.
      • I am going to have to save the parent post, because it is such a perfect example of the mindset that has made progress in aerospace so damn slow. I couldn't have said it better if I was trying to intentionally construct the stereotype. This ties directly in to the quote I had in the article -- "rocket science" has been mythologized out of all proportion to its true difficulty.

        Heh. I won't take it personally -- this wasn't my best-written post by a long shot. Thanks for the breakdown of the advances and the costs involved, actually. I may forward them along to my older brother, who's far more fascinated by this sort of thing than I am.

        In my haste to compose the original post, I seem to have glossed over the main point that bothered me: why anyone would want to develop private space flight. Yes, I know it's fun and hard and a challenge and everybody wants to be in orbit just once, but hear me out.

        Cars are immediately useful inventions, because almost everything man builds is built on land. Air flight is a useful shortcut to get from one land-based site to another. The technology required to send people deep underwater is useful for primarily two things: research and recreation. Lots of people learn to SCUBA dive primarily to take photos of the animal life off the coast of the Great Barrier Reef.

        But whither space flight? Yes, getting to float in orbit is a neat experience, and you have a spectacular view of the Earth below you. But right now, there's nowhere else to go. Even the moon is a few days of controlled flight away, and that's assuming you have the survival gear to walk on it and the ability to take off again once you're done. But it's generally agreed right now that the moon is far less recreationally exciting than the Great Barrier Reef; there's no light, no color, no movement. Earth orbit doesn't even have the grey rocks to look at. And flying to another planet is out of the question.

        If we had vast space stations in orbit, then there would be a good reason to want to be able to take oneself into orbit. But right now, the ISS is too small and limited to registered users only. And all the technology to design and build a private orbital rocket won't do NASA any good so long as the components to build a space station require a space shuttle to launch.

        So I'll grant you, it's soon possible to build and launch a man into orbit with relatively little capital. But unlike another poster suggested, I don't think we'll see private space flight within a decade. The technology may arrive, but even if it does, there's still nowhere for people to go. Without meaning any offense, I see private rocketry as somewhat analogous to mountain climbing: something to do just because it's there to be done, because there's sure not any other reason to do it.

        This is why I still like the space elevator dream: not only can it send people into orbit with relatively little effort, but hardware as well, and it provides a fixed platform for assembling that hardware at the top and sending the workers back down for more food and oxygen. It gives us the means to get into orbit cheaply and somewhere to go once we get up there. Best of all, it wouldn't require much training to ride one.
    • (* after a certain point, even parachutes won't save you from a miscalculation. *)

      Why not? If you have a space-suit and a strong parachute, why can't that save you?

      The atmosphere thickness increases gradully. Thus, the drag on the chute should be relatively continious, no?

      Perhaps space would be cheaper if they perfected the "space parachute" first.

  • Rockets to space, or guns? (Score:4, Informative)

    by hotgrits ( 183266 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @04:33PM (#3499160) Homepage
    While rockets may be useful for putting people into space, don't miss the story of Gerald Bull [std.com], the genius Canadian engineer who planned to put satellites into space using a "supergun."

    To quote from the website mentioned above:
    By the time he was done, he could launch a 180 kg projectile at 3600 m/s, which is about a third of escape velocity. He could hit altitudes of 180 km. That's not orbit, nor is 3600 m/s nearly enough to get things into orbit, but it showed what could be done. The whole project cost in the area of $10 million, chicken feed by missile standards.

    He lived an unusual life, to be sure, working for various shady governments, mostly in a simple effort to make his vision reality. His work for Iraq, however, apparently cost him his life. He was assasinated in 1990.

    Bull's dream of cheap satellite launches was left unfulfilled. And so the world still pushes all that heavy fuel into space.

    He was a true hacker.

  • I'll comment later... (Score:5, Funny)

    by John Carmack ( 101025 ) on Friday May 10, 2002 @06:32PM (#3499718)
    I am helping a hardware vendor optimize the E3 build of Doom right now, but I'll make a pass of replys and comments later on tonight...

    (yes, the Id net connection is slashdotted at the moment)

    John Carmack

  • My eyes have flitted over this story on the front page, and every time I see it, I misread the headline as "Maverick Puppeteers Rock Space Access."

    That is a story I would like to see, though.

  • Back on Aug 02 of last year, I asked Carmack [slashdot.org] about his future goals the last time this came up. His answers [slashdot.org] were very enlightening, and I encourage people to check them out.

    I would be curious to hear from him if any of his goals have changed, either more or less ambitiously.

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