John Carmack's Test Liftoff a Success

brainstyle writes "Space.com is reporting that John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace (and who apparently has some game design hobby) has had a successful launch of the prototype of its entry in the X-Prize. From the article: 'I had tried several algorithms on the simulator before settling on this one, and it behaved exactly the same in reality, which is always a pleasant surprise.'"

Re:Hope for all geeks out there

[Shinglor]

Thanks to simulation we can all tweak ideas without blowing up prototypes.

I think you'll find Armadillo Aerospace blew up a lot of prototypes.

I wonder...

[Pivot]

Is this the reason we still haven't seem Doom 3 yet?

Re:no X-Prize

[GlenRaphael]

So in 6 months they are going to go from a prototype that goes 100 feet to carrying three people into space? Obviously they are not contenders for the X-Prize.

They are contenders, but a bit of a long shot. Space Ship One is the leading contender to win the prize. If SSO crashes, Armadillo is the next best hope.

And, they aren't that far away. They've got the big rocket that carries three people built; they are just very - and appropriately - cautious. They are extensively testing all the algorithms and principles on the smaller rocket first. The main thing they think will take over 5 months is getting permission to make the shot.

Re:Maybe something (only) John can answer

[Timesprout]

Theres probably no direct realtionship between the two. He's obviously a very bright guy with a proven history of being able to solve problems, often using imaginative solutions.

For myself I think many real world programming tasks are broadly quite similar, gather requirements, design, code, test. I'm sure many of us have coded for disparate industries in our time writing complex apps for telecoms, financials etc without fully understanding the entirety of the low down nitty gritty. The key is being able to understand enough to translate what the domain experts tell you into functional code. Obviously experience helps this process as ofen you have a fair idea what will work and what wont. Then its pretty much an incremental process as with many other disciplines. You determine the problems, break them down and either solve them or work around them. For the most part basic intelligence and problem solving skills are more probably important than 'pure' coding skills.

Re:Wow

[pfdietz]

They got it to fly under guidance, hover briefly, and land (also under guidance) using its rockets.

This is a hell of a lot more impressive than an unguided model rocket.

Re:Will they make it?

[brainstyle]

I like this quote from Canadian Arrow's website [canadianarrow.com]:

"Although there are many different teams competing for the X PRIZE, we are all fundamentally on the same team. When one of us wins the X PRIZE, we will all become entrepreneurs and pioneers in the eyes of the world."

I can't speak for the actual participants, but I know that if I were on one of the teams I wouldn't be doing it primarily for the prize, but because I want to go to space. After all, I suspect that most of the entrants that are getting somwhere will have spent quite a bit more than the $10 million prize money by the time they get into space.

Re:no X-Prize

[Anonymous Coward]

So much for the "free market"

Lame attempt

[amightywind]

This is a surprisingly lame attempt at the X-Prize. A hydrogen peroxide engine is a terrible choice for propulsion. The propellant is dangerous and and has low specific impulse. It has been mainly used for thrusters in the past. It is not even the best choice for that. Bipropellant thrusters now predominate. Any high power rocket modeller can show better than this. One wonders why he chose to publicize the event, considering the upcoming flight of Burt Rutan's vehicle. That is what I call a serious attempt.

Re:Is This Really Serious?

[Ch_Omega]

If you had RTFA, you would know that what they present here is scaled down prototype to test some technologies, not the one they are attempting to use to get into x-prize altitude with.(And it's 62.5 miles, not 20).

Re:Gun ownership is INALIENABLE tsarkon reports

[ronfar]

In other words:

For all practical purposes, you have the right to bear arms provided that those arms will not seriously impede the government when they decide to get rid of you.

Note, this is not what the founders intended, but they didn't forsee a gargantuan standing army and our modern militarized police forces.

Please note, I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, but unless you also have the small, weak government envisioned by the Founding Fathers it is not a useful check on tyranny. (As the modern United States of America should prove to any doubters.)

Re:He's unlikely to win the X-Prize...

[nikster]

X prize or not: If you get this to work, and if you get it to work relatively cheaply, then there is tons of money to be made. you could start a $Bn business out of that, or sell the tech for 100s of millions. The X-Prize is nice but chump change compared to that.
And while JC would do it no matter what, just for the heck of it, or maybe just for the chance to strap the biggest possible engine to his butt, he must be well aware of that.

Re:The JC Factor

[MonkeyCookie]

I went and looked at his post history. His posts almost all +5, and on inspection I saw that they deserved it.

John Carmack has the "inside scoop" on a lot of issues we talk about on Slashdot, as he knows the people and technology we talk about, and is able to give a different perspective on it than a lot of us would. His posts containing his viewpoints and stories have a lot of stuff that is indeed interesting and insightful, much more so than the average Slashdot post. The posts where he is talking about his personal observations of Steve Jobs, or his rocket experiments, for example, is information that most Slashdotters would be unable to provide.

Re:The full scale vehicle is also flying, sort of

[Anonymous Coward]

No questions about why I was there. No suggestions to drop by at another time. No professionalism or courtesy.

To some total stranger who wanders in uninvited? And you're surprised?

Re:Lame response

[TigerNut]

Armadillo's little rocket weighs a little over 300 pounds, and it's restricted in altitude by the FAA burn time limit, which they are observing to the letter because if they don't they'll never get permission to go higher. Like they posted on the Armadillo website, their little rocket is a testbed designed to de-risk anything they do to the big one. As has also been noted, they've abandoned concentrated H2O2 for H2O2/methanol mixed-monopropellant, and in the process developed all the required catalyst geometries and control systems that get them a reliable, startable, controllable engine, which they can build in their shop.

Does your supersonic rocket land itself back on the blunt end, within a couple of feet from where you launched?

Re:Gun ownership is INALIENABLE tsarkon reports

[Sylver Dragon]

Please note, I am a firm believer in the right to bear arms, but unless you also have the small, weak government envisioned by the Founding Fathers it is not a useful check on tyranny. (As the modern United States of America should prove to any doubters.)

I don't think this is entirely true. While it may not have been envisioned by the framers, even with a very powerful military, weapons in the hands of the people can help keep politicians in line, somewhat. The reason for this is that one person, with a gun, and enough drive to kill a politician, is probably going to get the job done. If the politician has done enough things to piss more than one person off, to the point of wanting to kill them, then that politician should probably be very sure he has a current will. To me, the idea of revolt being the prime deterent to tyrany has shifted to the threat of being killed by one determined person with a gun. Even in recent history the president, arguably the most protected person in office, was shot (Regan). Granted the shot wasn't fatal, but it was still life threatening.

Also, this type of argument assumes a couple of things:
1. The revolt isn't started in the military. If this were to happen, things would just get messy, quick.
2. The revolt is not on a massive country wide scale. For this, look at Vietnam. Its very clear that the US had a very clear technological advantage. However, the US military was fighting the whole penesula. People from both North and South Vietnam didn't want the US forces there, or at best didn't care. Identifying the enemy was very difficult. Also, the Vietnimesse were very determined to push the US out, they would take huge losses and not let up. I tend to think that the same could happen in the US, if the government got bad enough. Granted, the likelyhood of it actually happeneing is very low. But, if enough people are willing to fight and die for something, they can overcome a technologicly superior force.
3. Consider who the military would be killing, US citizens. If the revolt is a popular revolt, the US government would absolutly cripple itself by putting the revolt down. Also, this always begs the question of how the soldiers in the military would react to having to kill US citizens. Though, the military does do a good job of keeping its soldiers from thinking about such things.

Re:Gun ownership is INALIENABLE tsarkon reports

[Anonymous Coward]

the difference between "arms" and "artillery

You're splitting too fine a hair.

"International arms dealers" don't confine themselves to rifles. The term predates firearms -- consider "coat of arms" -- and means merely "weapons".

The phrase you're looking for, restricted just to man-portable firearms, is "small arms".

Dictionary.com says:

arm

A weapon, especially a firearm: troops bearing arms; ICBMs, bombs, and other nuclear arms.

Lest you object that the modern usage is different, I'll note that the Federalist Papers include such phrases as "Hannibal had carried her [Carthage's] arms into the heart of Italy", referring to the entire offensive force of a nation; or "the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations". I somehow doubt the "arms" of foreign nations in this case meant just the muskets, and not the "artillery" or, for that matter, sabers.

More evidence of "Founder usage" can be found in Federalist No. 29:

if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it

It seems fairly clear here that "arms" is not some subset of weaponry, and also fairly clear that the "large body of citizens" is expected to be equipped in a manner essentially the same as the standing army.

The "gap in knowledge" would appear to be on your side. You've manufactured a distinction which does not, in fact, exist.