John Carmack's Test Liftoff a Success 384
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.'"
Hope for all geeks out there (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, I think that this demonstarates the new power given to the (relativly) little guy by computers. Thanks to simulation we can all tweak ideas without blowing up prototypes.
I wish I had as much free time as some of these people.:E
It's always nice (Score:5, Interesting)
anyways, this is good news for J.C. congrats man
Awesome (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's always nice (Score:3, Interesting)
Linus Torvalds
John Carmack
Alan Cox (gotta love his kernel hacks)
and the miriad of other kernel programmers!
Re:It's always nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats right.
Maybe something (only) John can answer (Score:5, Interesting)
dammit
Impressive video! (Score:2, Interesting)
Holy smokes! that was a really impressive video. How in the world did they make it so that the rocket stabilized so well? I mean, gyroscopes only provides a partial answer. When the said that it landed within 1 foot of the launch pad, I assumed they meant that it *fell* within one foot of the launch pad. That thing sailed up and came down as if it was landing on an egg shell. Impressive!
And 100km is for tourists (Score:3, Interesting)
Carmack's vehicle does.
That's one reason I chose 200km rather than 100km for my amateur rocketry prize [geocities.com]. I'm pretty sure SC's and XCor's aerodynamically-limited approach would both lose in a race to 200km because they aren't really "space" vehicles.
Carmack's vehicle is.
I'm tempted to change my prize award to be private rather than amateur so that I can give it to Carmack's team. The problem is that my goal was, and is, to make space accessible to much lower levels of capital than even Carmack's group has expended -- which is already phenomenally low by aerospace standards.
Carmack's accomplishment, with his simplified fuel and system, is more profound than anything that has come along from the aerospace business since the hybrid rocket motor back in the 60s. Sadly -- compared to the golden age of aviation -- that's still not saying much. Carmack is, howeer, bound to inspire teams capable of running a modern day "Wright's bike shop" -- and that is saying much.
Re:Gun ownership is INALIENABLE tsarkon reports (Score:5, Interesting)
You're trolling, of course, but it's a good troll because it exploits a gap in knowledge most people arguing this issue aren't even aware of.
Without taking time to go into a long reply with many examples, suffice it to say that the Framers knew very well the difference between "arms" and "artillery." They specified "arms." Typical military rifles (a flintlock back in the day, an assault rifle today) are fine. Military weapons of serious, if not mass, destruction (a cannon back in the day, a nuke today) are not fine.
There can be some reasonable disagreement about where, exactly, to draw the line. In the old days, all artillery required horses to drag it and a crew to serve it. Nowadays, an RPG is a one-person weapon. Thus, the old criteria of "man-portability" may no longer be relied on to draw a bright line between arms and artillery. Where the line is to be drawn is a fine thing for politicians to debate into the wee hours, but it doesn't inform this discussion. FWIW, I think we do a very good job of drawing that line, today. Automatic weapons are very heavily regulated and taxed and the owners are seriously investigated before being given permission to acquire them. Less militarily-capable weapons get less regulation. More capable weapons draw more scrutiny. (Hell, if you want it and can afford it, you can, as a private citizen, own, operate, and shoot out of a fully-operational fighter plane with multiple functional machine guns. But you'd better be rich and have plenty of time and patience to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops.)
In summary, then:
There's a right to bear arms.
There's no right to bear artillery.
Simple, huh?
Re:Gun ownership is INALIENABLE tsarkon reports (Score:1, Interesting)
Australia also has mandatory licenses for firearms, but that is a separate issue.
There is a reason for this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Obviously, Joe Schmo is not going to know him, but we do. It is fine that you may resent him, but you should also respect the fact that living the geek dream is something that we all aspire to doing... but for one circumstance or another, we haven't been lucky enough to do it.
So give Carmack some friggin' props for at least pressing a little bit of the envelope and being a pioneer. In a world where technology is everywhere, he is pushing the barrier. Respect that.
Personally, I have always been dissappointed my whole life that I couldn't wake up, suit up, get in the airlock, and go out and weld space stations with my hands for a living. I think all of us geeks are upset for not being born in a more advanced civilization than we already are, or not having been born with enough money to get all the education we want.
He is at least using his cash for a useful hobby. Some day there will be normal use space travel. Damn if I can't wait for those days. Think, modern commerce in space... instead of spy sattelites and weapons platforms. It sounds a whole lot better than what is going on now.
Damn you innovators! Damn you all!
Re:This is what a rocket ship SHOULD look like.... (Score:3, Interesting)
My intuition was wrong: I'm stunned that so little propellant is used for landing. Nevertheless, you still need lots of propellant to schlep around your landing propellant through the boost phase. About how much "extra" propellant would you estimate is required? By my back-of-the-envelope thinking, it'd be about 800 lbs.
Does your site have specs on the big vehicle's fuel consumption and thrust estimates? I'd like to play around with your numbers. Just to keep my hand in, you know...
Impressive work. I can't wait to see more.