X Prize and John Carmack

Anonymous Coward writes "ABC News is running a story ostensibly about the X Prize but in reality they only talk about John Carmack and his teams efforts to win the prize (or at least compete). Quote: 'Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software, and that's the truth," he says. "If we looked at what we do in software, if we could only compile and test our program once a year, we'd never get anything done. But that's the mode of aerospace.' "

hm

[EMH_Mark3]

Aerospace like software, eh?
"Crap, the rocket is not ready and the deadline for launch is tomorrow!"
"Bah, launch it anyways and we'll release a patch later!"

I can empathize.

[grub]

"Effectively, I stopped buying Ferraris and turbo-charging them and started building rocket ships," Carmack says.

Yeah, I hate it when I have to put off buying Ferraris.

On the other hand ...

[Rajesh Raman]

Programmer: Ooops, wrong condition on the 'if' statement. I'll just reboot the rocket's computer and test again!
Flight director (emerging from flaming debris): Errr ... what rocket?

Crashes

[pipingguy]

Carmack says: Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software, and that's the truth

Unfortunate analogy?

Re:hm

[Anonymous Coward]

Aerospace like software, eh? "Crap, the rocket is not ready and the deadline for launch is tomorrow!" "Bah, launch it anyways and we'll release a patch later!"
That's probably a good characterization of NASA -- except maybe the patch part.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Just like software...

[ravind]

"Some people have commented that I am trying very hard to make aerospace like software"

See, it crashes just like my software. We call it the 'blue sky of death' :D

Rockets like Quake

[luckyguesser]

"We have liftoff!" == "Excellent!"
"Our trajectory is acceptable for re-entry"=="Accuracy!"
"Our rocket landed, and it's data storage is still intact"=="Perfect!"

* luckyguesser almost dodged John_Cormack's rocket.

"Aerospace"

[qat]

When he says Aerospace Software, he really means adding net jetpacks to Doom and allowing them to be used outside earth's atmosphere... you guys are interpreting this all wrong!

Can you licence Ship Design?

[Ducati_749S]

If he wins, I wonder if the ships' lifecycle will resemble those of his games?
I can see it allready:
1) Carmack devises a ship that excells in performance, but requires very costly componenets in order to deliver on its full functionality.
2) After a years' worth of excellent operational records, other countries license the engine design and build their own ships off of it
3) 2 years after launch a thriving Spaceship MOD community is launching new ships into space every couple of months....

Aerospace like software?

[FurryFeet]

Somehow, "my software crashed" lacks that ominous feel that "my software crashed" has...

already thought of

[morcheeba]

We were building a satellite with upload-code capability, and were facing a deadline, so we ran the numbers.

We had a very slow uplink, maybe 300 baud (packet overhead and protocol turn-around time included). And we had a lot of code. The satellite was visible only for maybe 8 minutes out of every 90 minute orbit, so unless we had ground stations positioned all around the world and synchronized, we were effectively limited to about 30 baud long-term average. And we had a lot of code.

What's worse is we figured that the radiation environment would reset the satellite every so often... this was fine in normal operation, but would kill an upload. It would be almost statistically impossible to upload the entire code without an upset.

So, we all got back to work.

Eventually, we got good code and launched the satellite. Unfortuantly, the rocket flew off-course and was blown up by the range safety officer -- the satellite ended up in the water. Our company also made bouys (functionally, they are similar concept satellites), so the debate was always whether we should load the regular code or the bouy code into the satellites. We didn't try to figure out the code-uplink case for "underwater".

Re:hm

[WTFmonkey]

this is what's going to push manking further

I am the man-king! Bow down before me! All will worship and grovel!

Sorry, got my Napoleon complex on there for a minute.

Re:Software Design != Rocket Design OR does it?

[shaitand]

"I just hope that they value a quality assurance process more then the typical software engineer. In a game like this you would not be able to release version 2.0."

utter nonsense, there are billions of people on earth, how many of them do you really think will fit in 1.0? If it crashes there's plenty of room for people to go on 2.0.

Slight identity crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

So, basically, all Carmack has right now is a product that creates a 100-foot crater in the ground every time it launches?

Who does he think he is, John Romero???

Re:hm

[El]

"If it crashes, just hit the reset button and run it again!" "Screw testing... if there are any problems, the end user will report them!"

Re:Two Words

[zwaffle]

Yes, yes, but keep in mind that there is also a non-negligable chance that you'll end up tripping over a cable, falling head first into a bucket of food grade peroxide... thank god the DOOM3 engine is done.

note to self

[geekoid]

never let John Carmak write systems that peoples lived depend on.

Re:wrong

[IM6100]

His name is: Phillip Screwdriver.

What, no rocket jump?

[Chuk]

I figured they'd just point a rocket launcher at the ground and take off that way...

Re:Cost

[fodi]

hey, why are you reading slashdot??

I'm still waiting for Doom 3 !!