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Space Education

SpaceNow, a New Space Education Initiative 79

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the we-need-more-space-awareness dept.
Avacar writes "SpaceNow has officially launched their new website. It contains fairly detailed and technical explanations on how standard rocketry works, as well as orbital mechanics for interplanetary travel. They advocate putting fusion engines in space as a clean, cost-effective way to travel between planets. They also have a full curriculum for educating youth about space, and will soon be starting up weekly debates on touchy issues with space travel on their forums."
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SpaceNow, a New Space Education Initiative More

SpaceNow, a New Space Education Initiative

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  • For the public good? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Monday September 26, 2005 @06:33PM (#13654311) Homepage Journal
    I'm going to guess that this will be a failure, just like all "for the public good" projects seem to be. By failure I mean: way more expensive/lower quality/slower than if created by open competition rather than public funding. I'm also guessing that this is not "for the public good" but for the good of some certain individuals. Let's read the article to find out.

    Exploration and development of the Moon, both for science and for resources which may better our life on Earth;

    Getting back to the Moon sounds great, but I'm not sure what we'll find there. I really feel like the bad guy in Contact when I say this, but there is no reason that science shouldn't find a way to pay for itself. Research and development is important, but all research and no development seems like a complete waste if there isn't an endgame. Sorry, but one country saying "I win! I win! nyah-nyah" isn't enough for me to vote to spend billions on.

    The exploration and settlement of Mars, to establish humankind as a multi-planet, spacefaring race;

    Settlement of Mars will not create a spacefaring race. Competition will bring those costs down once there is a REASON to settle Mars. I say unlock the regulations and allow multiple businesses to find a reason to get there. If it doesn't have a profit incentive for any reason, there is no reason to go there. When they day comes that a profit incentive is found, I bet we'll see many people trying.

    The research and development of Nuclear Fusion, for spaceflight applications and clean alternative energy on Earth;

    Why do we need space for this? Realistically, fusion is being sought after by many organizations. The dilemma is that radioactive materials are so closely regulated and guarded, there isn't a lot of room for private individuals and companies to see better solutions.

    Promoting research and awareness of the threats posed by Earth-crossing asteroids, as well as their potential resources.

    This is one place I can see Constitutional grounds for government to spend money. Defense. As for their resources, I don't see any way that public funds will be able to utilize these resources in the best way possible. Unless Haliburton (who Clinton also supported) can mine those asteroids, right?

    If you are interested in ordering a hardcopy of our complete curriculum, or require custom materials developed for your classroom, send an e-mail to: sales@spacenow.ca

    A-ha! There's the catch. Classroom textbooks. Profitable. Changed annually. Mandated by law. So this is about making humanity better, right?

    I honestly HATE seeing more and more "for the public good" websites that go up, and then find out these organizations have something to sell to a government-funded monopoly. Unless they're offering these curricula for free?

    • Re:For the public good? (Score:5, Informative)

      by EccentricAnomaly ( 451326 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @06:41PM (#13654361) Homepage
      The research and development of Nuclear Fusion, for spaceflight applications and clean alternative energy on Earth;

      Why do we need space for this? Realistically, fusion is being sought after by many organizations. The dilemma is that radioactive materials are so closely regulated and guarded, there isn't a lot of room for private individuals and companies to see better solutions.

      1) Fusion doesn't require any radioactive materials. 2) Fusion engines are very efficient and would allow not just single stage to orbit vehicles, but single stage to Mars surface and back to Earth without refueling and taking only a couple of months for the round trip.

      The technology is very exciting, but it will take a tremendous breakthrough for it to be practical. Even beyond the technology needed for fusion power stations on Earth... you'll need lightweight, compact fusion reactors for space.
      • 1) Fusion doesn't require any radioactive materials. Oops. You're right.

        The technology is very exciting, but it will take a tremendous breakthrough for it to be practical. I agree! I used to dream when I was younger of "cheap cheap energy" and how much society would be affected. The problem with cheap fusion for me is the easy creation of gold from lead, which would ruin my desire to convert to a hard metal currency system :) :) I do believe fusion is possible, but I don't believe the market is ready t
        • I used to dream when I was younger of "cheap cheap energy" and how much society would be affected.

          And you got to see it. Suburbs, interstates, SUVs, detached houses for the masses, low-cost air travel, aluminum cans, plastics, all made possible by cheap oil. And now that's over.

          The next 50 years may look more like the first half of the 20th century. Big apartment buildings, living near work, trains, glass bottles, flying as a luxury. All the little low-power gadgets we have now will be around, but

          • Large urban areas are anachronisms. They are huge energy sinks and social entropy sinks because it's all piped in expensive reality. They used to be important because of trade and communications, people physically had to get in physical proximity to each other in order to do business. We have the communications part down now so that more and more people don't have to travel for business/work purposes, and they can still be involved with high tech economy. It will actually be cheaper to spread out more in th

      • Re:For the public good? (Score:5, Funny)

        by eaolson ( 153849 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @08:03PM (#13654902)
        Fusion engines are very efficient

        The real downside to fusion engines is that they are also very fictional.

      • Re:For the public good? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by 47F0 ( 523453 )
        No, all fusion requires is a magic bottle somewhere in Utah.

        Hey, I'm all in favor of fusion engines - but they don't exist - unless you count the Mr. Fusion option on my DeLorean. The closest we have to fusion is... zip? In spite of multiple megawatt laser facilities working very hard on the problem.

        In the meantime, some very good work has been done on fission engines - work that has been discarded. But if we really want TRUE heavy-lift capability, if we really want TRUE long-distance propulsion, fission se
        • The closest we have to fusion is... zip?
          No, scientists have been able to create fusion in many ways, including H-Bombs, those mega-watt LASER facilities that you mentioned, and various cold-fusion means (such as cavitation, etc.).
          The problem has been that either the energy released is too much at once (H-Bombs), or has required more energy to initiate/sustain than is recoverable in a useful form (LASER facilities and cold fusion).
      • 2) Fusion engines are very efficient and would allow not just single stage to orbit vehicles, but single stage to Mars surface and back to Earth without refueling and taking only a couple of months for the round trip.

        Humans have achieved fusion of the breakeven sort: where the amount of energy output has equaled the amount of energy input required. Existing facilities should be able to actually get some net power output in the next few years, as their ability to control plasmas and "burn times" increas
      • Why do we need space for this? Realistically, fusion is being sought after by many organizations. The dilemma is that radioactive materials are so closely regulated and guarded, there isn't a lot of room for private individuals and companies to see better solutions.

        Replied with:

        1) Fusion doesn't require any radioactive materials. 2) Fusion engines are very efficient and would allow not just single stage to orbit vehicles, but single stage to Mars surface and back to Earth without refueling and taking
        • The sort of fusion for rocket engines is different... you don't contain the reaction, you expel it out of the back -- mixing the products of the reaction with a hydrogen (hydrogen is the working fluid which gives most of your thrust). This means you can't fuse radioactive things because they will get into the atmosphere.

          However, fusion engines can give off neutrons while they are running, which will require shielding and may make the engine itself radioactive.
    • True enough on all your points.
      I do believe that a moonbase is possible and could be profitable (more so than an Ln space station).
      There are several raw materials there through which we could build a tunnel based station cheaply (relative to an above ground or space based station).
      low gravity manufacturing and/or energy production, etc.
      -nB
      • I agree with that, but I see so many reasons we can't get there, and many of my reasons revolve around government regulations, not true market cost concerns!

        In the end, I believe that we should be supporting private competition like the X-Prize [wikipedia.org] rather than trying to shove information down the throat of kids who don't really care [64.233.161.104] what they're learning in school, especially at taxpayer's expense.
        • Fair enough and I quite agree with you . . . except:
          [rant]
          I think that we (the USA, just in case you're "them") should ram a classical education down our kids throats with a tire iron if we have to. I am afraid of our schools, which will pass a child up to the next grade when they are not ready, schools that have all but eliminated all vocational education, for those who college is either not an option or choice.
          [/rant]
          • The problem is that when we "ram" a product down a consumer's throat, we have to initiate some force to do it. Only government is legally allowed to use force, so when government gets involved, you can be sure that the unions will get involved as well. And when the unions get involved, you can be sure that what is in the best interest of THEIR customers (the teachers in this case) will be the outcome.

            Isn't it funny that our own government, that can do no wrong, has the biggest percentage of union workers
            • And from your argument comes the result:
              My children are going to be home schooled, supplemented with a "conservative" (and hopefully not overly religious) private school for grades 7-12.
              -nB
              • I wish that was the answer, but I don't have kids yet for expressly this reason. Property taxes are my reason for not having kids -- I don't believe I could afford to raise them in an environment they need while I'm still paying to nanny over other peoples' kids. :)

                I'm no conservative, but I am religious. I just don't mix my religion with my politics, ever. I also believe that grades 7-12 are mostly worthless when you can mix a mentorship program in industry as well as specific education related to a car
    • One day some company will announce they are going to conquer the moon, mine it and sell the materials on earth. 6 months later the world economy will change and that company will be worth more than the GDP of every country on earth.
      • Haha. In a free market, you can't "create" new money via inflation as our government do. If a company found a way to market a product that everyone needed, it would be nearly impossible for the money to all go to one company/industry/product.

        I don't really see it being possible for one company to harness any new product or service forever. Competition always drives people to chase after big ticket items.
        • Blah, if a single company started dumping platnium on the market in 10 tonne lots it would completely destroy the platnium producers of today. It would redefine that market. Every car would be required to have a 10x more efficient catalitic convertor (contains platnium) as the cost would no longer be an issue. Fuel cell cars would now be affordable.. meaning nuclear power could be used in everything (including trucks and planes) completely breaking the world's dependancy on oil. That would have knock-on
    • You just need to open the tap to get deuterium. It is distributed at very low cost to almost every household in North America and Europe...
    • By failure I mean: way more expensive/lower quality/slower than if created by open competition rather than public funding.

      The troublle with that pro-market statement is that the market only does something if it is profitable. Unless you arbitrarily limit activities in the public good to only activities that are profitable, a moment's reflection will identify any number of unprofitable activities that the market won't touch but are essential, not just contributory, to the public good.

      On the flip side, many

  • Universal Warming (Score:5, Funny)

    by fragmentate ( 908035 ) <jdspilled AT gmail DOT com> on Monday September 26, 2005 @06:37PM (#13654340) Journal
    Thank God it's clean. Last thing we need is Universal Warming. Imagine if the universes Vacuum Layer had a hole in it!

  • not much content (Score:5, Informative)

    by Liquid Tip ( 672473 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @06:41PM (#13654357) Homepage
    I was expecting a lot more from this website. It looks nice you first load it up, but the information content is quite sparce. Not even pretty pictures or informative diagrams to explain concepts. Section 6.2 on aging stars as an example is dismal.

    The CASCA Education website is much, much better:

    http://www.cascaeducation.ca/files/index.html [cascaeducation.ca]

    Check it out.

    • Re:not much content (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      some of the basic science is just plain wrong. in the "fundamentals of rocketry section" it claims that a rocket's exhaust "pushes on it's environment", which in turn pushes back - and that's how rockets go! it claims that in space, where there's nothing to "push against", a rocket must carry its own "resistive medium". this is pure rubbish, and reasoning much like this led many to claim that rockets could never fly into space in the early days of space exploration.

      which such deep flaws, i have no confidenc
      • To (probably mis-) quote Wolfgang Pauli: "This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."
        --
        I know what you're thinking, but I am not a nut-bag. -- Millroy the Magician

  • redesign? (Score:2, Troll)

    by eobanb ( 823187 )
    This is a pretty bad redesign. Take a look, for example, at this typical page [spacenow.ca]; the text is an IMAGE, probably because they haven't heard of unicode or the subscript HTML tag. Awful, just awful.

  • Space: it's time to go back and revisit it again. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @06:45PM (#13654389) Homepage Journal
    When I was growing up, astrology was becoming a keen area of study. Theoretical science became applied science as the weapons of war were turned to plowshares of exploration and propelled us into space, to the moon and back to Earth.

    Then we stopped.

    Some may say that it was a waste of time and money, but a great deal of practical good was done by the space program. Many space-age foods, polymers and foams were created and found to do as much for our planet as they did for those who orbited it. Besides the ocean, it is the last frontier available to us, and unarguably the one whose exploration will do the most for us.

    I applaud the concept of bringing these ideas to a new generation who will, hopefully, not forsake them as ours has. I was just thinking about this today during my ruminescing about the crazy and sometimes haphazard ways in which the scientific process is refined -- in it's own way, the question about continuing space exploration is tied in inexorable fashion to the battle against entrenched interests that new theories must undergo before they become the accepted norm.

    Take, for example, the struggle of Galileo against the church to permit society to recognize the fact that the world is round. Or perhaps the modern day battleground of evolution against the challenging new scientific theory of intelligent design, which suggests that certain biological features such as the flagellum are irreducibly complex and therefore could not possibly have been developed by increments as evolutionists would have it -- answers and proof to the contrary must be found out there, because like the proverbial blind men describing the elephant we find ourselves struggling with only our piece of the jigsaw puzzle to determine the complete picture.

    • Astrology? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Scareduck ( 177470 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @06:50PM (#13654423) Homepage Journal
      Hey, is that a Virgo rising or are you just happy to see me?
    • When I was growing up, astrology was becoming a keen area of study. Theoretical science became applied science as the weapons of war were turned to plowshares of exploration and propelled us into space, to the moon and back to Earth.

      I do not wish to offend, but was this comment posted by a human or a new version of Racter?

    • Some may say that it was a waste of time and money, but a great deal of practical good was done by the space program.

      At what cost? Did the extra cost create better value for the speed of delivery of these new products?

      Transistor radios and tiny televisions predated NASA's "inventions" by a decade.

      The world's first telecommunications satellite (Telstar) was launched in 1962 by a private company, not our government.

      Motorola's radio technology was a key factor behind the cellular phone, not anything NASA had
      • Shuttle is a stupid and poorly designed program, and it should have been scrapped 10 years ago. Same for ISS. They're a waste of time and money.

        However, space exploration is, literally, the cheapest insurance we can buy. Yes, the Space Race was a PR campaign to Beat Those Russkies, but the collateral advances in sciences and technology are unparalleled.

        There is one option for guaranteeing the long-term survival of the human race: Get off this rock. If that's not an evolutionary imperative, I don't know
        • I was laughing today about some news article that says our country's initiative to ask for donations to fund the War on Iraq only netted $600 total. I'm not sure how true this is, but it was funny.

          I wonder if we cut Federal and State taxes to bare minimums and asked for private donations to support many of these "needed programs" how much people would donate. Not much, likely. Which means the programs aren't deemed necessary.
          • The question is, is space exploration a good national investment? I happen to think "yes", you think "no".

            I'm serious: We're talking about survival of the species here. One big rock, and we're all boned. We need to get off this rock, and we need to not be jacking around. The costs are trivial (relative to, say, farm subsidies, or the defense budget) and the payoffs are, like, uh, big.

            Humans are at their best under adverse conditions. Does it make sense to get technological advancement from fighting ea
    • When I was growing up, astrology was becoming a keen area of study

      Uhhh what? I find it difficult to listen to people who don't know the difference between Astrology and Astronomy.

      As for the site, what exactly constitutes a "clean" interplanetary propulsion system??!?!?!? It's SPACE. I'll give you a million dollars if you can tell me how exactly a propulsion system is going to "pollute" interplanetary space and how that'll differ from the fictional fusion engines.
      • I suppose "clean" could refer to a few things. When something launches through our atmosphere, naturally the environmental impact must be considered. In deep space, radioactive material would not be considered a pollutant, but might prevent the crew quarters to be located remotely near the engine. Even on dead planets, having radioactive dust lying around could be a negative thing, as it could get tracked in, and might interfere with some instruments.

        Orbitally speaking, "clean" refers to orbital hazards.
    • intelligent design

      Oh gawd. Big mistake. Someone's going to spot that eventually, and what will ensue can only be called, in the words of Linus Torvalds, a wankfest.
    • For christ's sake, this post is a bag on crap posted by a moron. +5 Insightful? Jesus.
      • I agree... this has all of the hallmarks of a troll... I wish moderators had to undergo some sort of training before being set free on the world. "troll" doesn't mean someone you disagree with, troll means posts like this one that are crafted to incite arguement... 'astrology' bait and all.
    • Many space-age foods, polymers and foams...

      You are aware that the term "space age" is just an advertising gimmick right? If not, I've got a space age car I'll give you a deal on. It's got some space age ventilation holes in the floorboards, and the motor is definately space age. $40k obo. I'll even throw in a free Russian Space Writing Impliment*.

      *Pencil
    • "Or perhaps the modern day battleground of evolution against the challenging new scientific theory of intelligent design..."

      Since when was "intelligent design" a scientific theory?? Don't they know that "god" is just an excuse for the yet unexplained?? Take for instance comets. I'll bet you dollars to donughts that the explaination for comets back in the day ,back when we were even dumber than we are today, was that comets were angels riding chariots in the heavens. Same thing here. Only now the ones

    • One can't help but wonder whether the hilarious irony of someone who doesn't seem to know the difference between the real science of astronomy [wikipedia.org] and the pseudoscience of astrology [wikipedia.org] and who at the same time whines about the 'better' science of days past, has been lost on all the moderators today. The fact that this person seems to also not be able to distinguish between the real science of biological evolution and its phony superstitious doppelganger "ID" is also quite telling. Hint: If scientific inquiry as a
    • I grew up in the glory days of Apollo and I'm usually about as pro space exploration as they come, though I'm more pro Transformational and Rutan than NASA. But lately I really have switched to the camp that there are a lot better things to be doing with the money now.

      In the 60's the U.S. was on top of the world economically and it could afford Apollo, though Apollo + Vietnam did severely tax the nation. Today the U.S. is about to top $8 trillion in debt and its current account deficit, which is all the mo
      • Fix the broken American education system... Unfortunately there are a myriad of camps in the education system which will also frustrate fixing it.

        That's an understatement.

        However, I think that you see two different goals as contradictory when they are not. We can both improve the abilities of the best and brightest, while also bringing up the ability of the 'normals' (for lack of a better word).

        In other words, if we tell the special interest groups and the "self-esteem is the most important part of school"
        • " while also bringing up the ability of the 'normals' (for lack of a better word)."

          I think the key problem here is you can't make people learn or want to learn. Fact is some kids are gonna drop out, they are going to be stuck on welfare or minimum wage jobs. "No child left behind" was designed by the Bush administration to make public schools fail by making them teach kids who don't want to learn, and when the can't, they defund the public schools, and give kids vouchers for private schools. most of the
          • Vocational schooling in many other countries still includes more 'hard academics' then many high school programs in the US.

            And I agree that 'no child left behind' as a Federal program is STUPID because education should be a LOCAL issue. If we allowed school districts to do what the local community wants, and then different communities can look to 'models' that are actually DOING something RIGHT, well then we'll finally have a good system.

            The first thing to do, as we both agree, is to get all the 'experts'
  • From the main page: SpaceNow's ultimate goal is to elevate the levels of public knowledge and debate regarding space exploration and its potential benefits for humankind. In the final analysis, we either become spacefaring or extinct - and today, we stand at a crossroads where both possibilities can be seen on the horizon. Really? Supporting evidence? As usual for these sorts of advocacy groups, what they're after is, "we have a fantasy and you need to pay for it."
    • In the final analysis, we either become spacefaring or extinct - and today, we stand at a crossroads where both possibilities can be seen on the horizon.

      Really? Supporting evidence? As usual for these sorts of advocacy groups, what they're after is, "we have a fantasy and you need to pay for it."

      OK, supporting evidence? It's in the rocks under your feet.

      As astronaut John Young neatly summed up, "Single-Planet species don't last." There are simply too many documented mass extinction events that make it clear

  • Gasp! (Score:3, Funny)

    by wangf00 ( 901609 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @06:53PM (#13654440)
    Could this mean /.ers will actually know what they are talking about in science?

    Nah... (bye bye Karma)

  • How hard is this? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @06:56PM (#13654457)
    How standard rocketry works:

    1: Light fuse.
    2: Stand back.

  • "Clean" in space? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From TFA: clean, cost-effective way to travel between planets.

    Uh, space is full of nasty stuff like non-breathable atmospheres (vacuum), long-lasting large fusion explosions (stars), etc that'll kill you pretty quickly compared to most any polution we produce. Why the concern about cleanliness.

    (I know environmentalists'll mod me down, so posting AC)

  • A nice idea, but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Pchelka ( 805036 )

    I took a look at the "About Us" section of the SpaceNow website. The people who put together the site don't really seem to have a large team behind them. Judging by their photos, they are also pretty young - maybe just out of college or maybe recent Master's graduates.

    My own experience has shown it is incredibly difficult for someone in their 20s and 30s to really make a difference in government policies on space exploration. Society now has about 50 years of experience in space exploration, so there

    • ...that this is just a bunch of (Canadian?) kids (well, at least as much kids as I am) who like space and have an idea for a cool website, and they thought they'd see if the slashdot editors would help them promote it (which they did). If they're sharp and play their cards right, they might end up with the equivalent popularity of Slashdot or CNet among spacenuts. If not, well, a lot of us out here in Slashdot land have personal websites that never really go anywhere, so there's nothing to be ashamed of.
  • The astrodynamics section has no clear intended audience, as they note:

    If you're not familiar with calculus, we'll save you most of the headache and just write the final product

    ...which is still greek to someone who doesn't know calculus. Akin to that they provide "the rocket equation," whose concepts of pressure, m dot notation are foreign to anyone but college students who have already decided to study engineering.

    So what's the point of the site? It seems useful as a study guide for an intro astrodyn

  • ...I for one welcome our new fusion-powered rocket overlords.

  • Team America Rocketry Challenge (Score:3, Interesting)

    by StefanJ ( 88986 ) on Monday September 26, 2005 @07:22PM (#13654637) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, yeah, fusion drives will open up the solar system and mining asteroids will all make us rich.

    I've heard it all before, twenty five years ago when SF fans waddled around conventions wearing "L-5 in '95!" and "Lunar Mine in '89!" shirts and buttons reading "The meek will inherit the Earth, I'm going to live in space!"

    Actually getting into space turned out to be harder than making better concept drawings of space colonies and coming up with triumphalist slogans for buttons.

    You want our civilization to go to the stars? Raise your kids to be engineers! Let them read SF for inspiration, but not so much that they think that ranting about the Statists and Flatlanders and the Moon Treaty will do the trick. Make sure they learn calc and get good study skills and how to work with real-world materials and how to walk on dirt.

    Here's a cool place to start:

    http://rocketcontest.com/ [rocketcontest.com]

    A contest that requires real-life rocket science! They have a different goal each year. E.g., this year they had to build a rocket that would safely launch and recover a fresh egg in a flight that lasted as close to sixty seconds as possible.

    Teams of high school kids from all over the country participate. The best go to a national meet to compete with each other.

    Stefan
  • T minus 3.. 2... 1.... Liftoff! Ladies and gentlemen, SpaceNow.com has just officially.. OH MY GOD! Oh God, this is terrible.. Folks, it looks like SpaceNow.com has just come crashing back down mere seconds after its launch.*

    *Actually, it's doing just fine. Apparently space websites are not a popular destination for today's /. crowd.
  • "Or perhaps the modern day battleground of evolution against the challenging new scientific theory of intelligent design..."

    Since when was "intelligent design" a scientific theory?? Don't they know that "god" is just an excuse for the yet unexplained?? Take for instance comets. I'll bet you dollars to donughts that the explaination for comets back in the day ,back when we were even dumber than we are today, was that comets were angels riding chariots in the heavens. Same thing here. Only now the ones wit

  • So I click on the link... Registered and watched...the forums. Guess what...StarTrek... Wonderless Geeks...expecting Capt. Kirk to post. Another version of Deep, deep Space Nine.

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