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Space Science

The Step-By-Step DIY Approach To The X-Prize 154

Posted by timothy from the step-one-write-doom dept.
HobbySpacer writes "According to this article, John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace team is making steady progress towards a X PRIZE rocket vehicle. Playing the tortoise to Burt Rutan's hare , the Texas team just might win the race to 100km altitude. At least if some of the other teams don't get there first."
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The Step-By-Step DIY Approach To The X-Prize More

The Step-By-Step DIY Approach To The X-Prize

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  • How long can this take? How hard can it be? There are just a few simple steps:


    1) Build spaceship.
    2) Fly it up to 100 km.
    3) Come back safely.
    4) -> 2)
    A good afternoon's work, damn slackers..
    • I'd think you were Da Bomb if you did that. :-)
    • 1) Build spaceship.
      2) Fly it up to 100 km.
      3) Come back safely.
      4) -> 2)


      This is Slashdot. I expect to see, at the very least, pseudo-code that's free of infinite loops. Try adding a break condition:

      0) $maxTrips = number of trips you want to take; $numTrips = 0;
      1) Build spaceship.
      2) Fly it up to 100 km.
      3) Come back safely.
      4) if ($numTrips <= $maxTrips) {$numTrips++; goto 2;}
      • This is a Slashdot autopost informing you that your message, Re:Dragging their heels. [slashdot.org], in response to Dragging their heels. [slashdot.org], by grub [slashdot.org], has exceeded the maximum dork level for this system. The specific violation(s) were:
        1. Use of pseudocode.

        Please rephrase your post to include less dorkiness. If you have any questions, please contact the admins [mailto]. Thanks,

        Management

    • You forgot 5) Profit!!!

      I suggest McBride takes part in the testing. I would like also to say that other technologies profit from the same simple DIY.

      How to visit the nearest star:

      1) Take 10 times the mass of the universe in fuel.
      2) Light it uo
      3) Wait halp a million years
      4) Profit!!!

    • You fool! You forgot to set a condition to break out of the loop! You used a GOTO statement! Now you'll just keep launching the ship over and over again until somebody remembers what the escape sequence is!
  • (From the days when astronomers ground their own mirrors).

    "The fastest way to grind a large mirror is to first grind a small mirror, then grind the large mirror."

    In other words, some problems are so complex that you can only solve them one at a time.
    • First of all, you will be happy to know that astonomers (at least amateure astronomers) Still grind their own primary mirrors. I have ground four. (an 8 inch f8, an 8 inch f6, a six inch f8 and an elipticaly figured 2.5 inch secondary)

      The quote you reference is good advice often given to a first time mirror maker. The point of the advice is the it will take you less time to grind a (small) 6 inch mirror and a (medium) 12 inch mirror than it would be to grind a 12 inch mirror as your first effort, because i
  • Mom: That's a spaceship son. Son: Kewl!!! Can I ride in a spaceship one day? Mom: If that's what you want to do, go right ahead! Spaceship: KABOOM! Son: Mommy!... nevermind, I'll be a police man again.

  • NASA/ESA are just not the right guys (Score:3, Insightful)

    by the man with the pla ( 710711 ) on Sunday October 12, 2003 @01:06PM (#7194761)
    It always makes me laugh when I see this comment about letting the private sector take over space exploration.

    How would you feel if for the sake of arguement the eventual winner of the X-Prize were to become the MS of space exploration, with almost total control over who does what in space. The private sector is not about bettering mankind, its about profit and many private sector companies are not averse to using very dubious, and in many cases downright criminal methods to achieve their aims. Suppose they discover valuable caches of materials. Do you think they are going to share them with the rest of the world or make us pay thru the nose ? What will the visa requirements be for landing on Planet Microsoft I wonder ? Suppose you are vacationing on Mars and disaster strikes, what do you reckon the odds would be the highest bidders get the first seats off the planet.

    In typical fashion the private sector will not become a serious player in space travel until NASA and the other space agencies have made serious reductions in the cost of entry with lots of tax payer research dollars. The private sector will then demand access and want to cherry pick the most lucrative aspects. Remember, there was a time when Bill Gates was an entreprenuer.
    • Not trying to nitpick, but how many truly positive monumental advances in the human condition were made by a government entity? Mass production? The Industrial Revolution? The cure for Polio?

      To paraphrase the parent post:

      The Government sector is not about bettering mankind, its about power and many public sector bureaucrats are not averse to using very dubious, and in many cases downright criminal methods to achieve their aims.

      A benevolent Gov't may sponser and fund the private sector if the advances ar
      • Not trying to nitpick, but how many truly positive monumental advances in the human condition were made by a government entity? Mass production? The Industrial Revolution? The cure for Polio?
        >>>>>>>>>>>>
        If you consider the Industrial Revolution to be truely positive, then I'd say lots advances have been made by government entities. Read up on how Napoleon, by bringing in beuraucrats (and other people we love to hate) turned France into a world power. More recently, there
      • Not trying to nitpick, but how many truly positive monumental advances in the human condition were made by a government entity? Mass production? The Industrial Revolution? The cure for Polio?

        Well, the Internet (via DARPA) for one ....

      • Re:Private vs Public sector innovations (Score:4, Insightful)

        by koreth ( 409849 ) * on Sunday October 12, 2003 @07:19PM (#7196689)
        The Internet? Universal postal service? Free education? Eradication of smallpox? Abolition of slavery? Going to space and landing on the moon? Weather satellites? Transcontinental highway systems? The banning of "whites-only" shops and restaurants and schools?

        Nope, nothing valuable there, you're right. Because everyone knows that they don't let you apply for even the lowliest government job without passing the Power-Hungry Would-Be Dictator Test. All the altruists in the world are forced to sit in corporate boardrooms, while our most sinful megalomaniacs cackle with glee on the way to their jobs running county homeless shelters.

        • Yeah, but besides all that, what have the Romans ever done for us? Nothing!

          Oh, and you forgot the Manhatten project.
        • What have you seen at NASA that leads you to think that they will be the ones to lead us into space? The NASA mindset is that only Airforce pilots with college degrees can go into space. All it really takes to go into space is the ability to sit in a chair and to be able to hold onto your cookies in microgravity. They are also very unilateral in their approach to space. They pick a method and just use that. With a bunch of small launch companies, you get a bunch of different approaches and the best one
        • Huh?

          The Internet - first created by government agencies, only really useful once the private sector got in. Maybe we ought to do THE SAME THING with NASA!

          Universal postal service - incompentently run and maintained by force. Want to start your own first class mail service? They'll shut you down! (this happened in Buffalo some decades ago)

          Free education - you get what you pay for. The government can keep that one, thanks.

          I'll give you a point about the eradication of smallpox, as I don't know enough abou
          • "The Internet - first created by government agencies, only really useful once the private sector got in. Maybe we ought to do THE SAME THING with NASA!"

            Who said we shouldn't? The point is that at first, it's much to expensive to do as a private enterprise. Just as the massive exploration attempts in the 1400s were mostly funded by governments, but later you were certainly able to make commercial trips. (The Internet is another perfect example of this; probably only the government would have had the resourc
      • Government initiatives that advanced the human condition? How about mass distribution of the polio vaccine? Public sanitation and clean water systems?* The patent system (before it turned evil)? National parks? Environmental protection? Fundamental scientific research?

        Let's play the s/// game:

        The private sector is not about bettering mankind, its about power and many private sector businesspeople are not averse to using very dubious, and in many cases downright criminal methods to achieve their ai

      • ...every government on this earth knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Horseless carriages and the Aeroplane were nothing more than rich man's toys.

        Well, not really, at least for airplanes. The press was mocking them all like hell, but the Smithsonian and the War Department had put up about $100,000 between them, and were either ahead or just behind the Wrights depending on how you look at it. The Wrights' design actually worked, but if you compare it to the things the Smithsonian had been sinking in t
        • Of interesting note is the fact that the Smithsonian was funded and conceived of by the private sector, Mr Smithson.

          It was in his will. Adams took up the cause, and the gift was deemed a permanent loan at 6% interest.

          Again we see the private sector doing what the government could not. However, it went from wholly independent funding to 70% government funding. That's government for you.
          • Again we see the private sector doing what the government could not. However, it went from wholly independent funding to 70% government funding. That's government for you.

            And you're saying you'd rather have seen... what, exactly? The government not funding the Smithsonian, leaving it with only 30% of its present funding? I for one am glad it's there and has the resources it does.

        • Plus, if you're willing to excuse that the last Smithsonian flight worked fine, except for some damage during launch that made it list to the left so much that it was only "controlled" in the sense that they could control how big a counterclockwise circle to make, the Smithsonian actually beat the Wrights by a week or so.

          That's exactly the same as saying that NASA's quality control policies and procedures don't need to be examined because we excuse a damage made during launch. That plane flew into the po

    • Re:NASA/ESA are just not the right guys (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      See the first comment on advances made by the private sector.

      And as for a 'Microsoft' in space, that will never be allowed to exist. There's a big difference between space and software - mainly, space is *space*. That is, area to be controlled. Planets and asteroids, which are veritable land to be dominated over and taxed.

      Look at the New World. The private sector made the journeys, but the flags they flew were that of England, Spain, Portagal and a few others. And those nations wisely stepped in and
      • And those nations wisely stepped in and prevented private monopolies.

        Not quite true. The state stepped in and set up state-sponsored monopolies (i.e. The Dutch East India Company, The Hudson's Bay Company, etc.).

      • Look at the New World. The private sector made the journeys, but the flags they flew were that of England, Spain, Portagal and a few others.

        Yeah, I still think that was a bad idea ;) Can we undiscover it now...
      • Besides the technological problems, there's numerous treaties (signed by all the nations with a serious chance of 'colonization' of any celestial body in the next century) against the appropriation of any celestial body. For instance :

        the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind;

        outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States;

        outer space is not subject to national appropriation

    • And good for us all that it is.

      If you want to get truly screwed find someone that says theyr'e doing for the good of all humanity. Or better yet if you want that kind of space travel you can join the Promise Keepers or the Raelians.

      Yes virginia men will go to space to make money and those that are successfull will get obscenely wealthy. The next wave of robber barrons may own planets.

      The truly funny thing is that whiny loosers whose only real complaint is that its the other guy being successfull no
      • See. This was the "misunderstanding" of capitalism I mentioned earlier :)
      • Well, I guess I might benefit immensely from moving to a planet owned by a greedy bastard in muttonchops...

        Anyway, I still don't know where the hell all this money is supposed to come from. Here, somebody fight me on any of my assumtions:

        1) Transportation doesn't get you a fuck of a lot without a destination.

        Look, I would not pay for an X-Prize flight. Maybe that's just me, but I'm not going to pay, even if it's only $10,000 or so, to go straight up and then back down. Used Civic, or 10 minutes of we

        • Until it's cheaper to move a ton of steel from the moon than it is to dig deeper into Canada, no moon mines, not to mention asteroid mines.

          Whose going to make it cheaper to do what you have proposed? Wasteful governments (The US government is usually cited as the biggest player in space, and the most wasteful in the world)? You can sit around and wait for it to magically be cheaper to build shit on the moon and send it back. In the meantime, those that can, will make it happen. The only thing your arg

    • Hey if you are going to steal my previous comments and post them as your own you might have at least taken the time to fix my fucking spelling mistakes.
    • 100 years ago: ``It always makes me laugh when I hear this comment about letting the private sector take over air transportation. How would you feel if for the sake of argument the Loughead brothers new "Lockheed" corporation were to become the US Steel of space transportation, with almost total control over what is done in the air. Suppose they develop valuable services. Do you think they are going to share them with the rest of the world or make us pay through the nose? Suppose you're flying over the Atla

    • Re:NASA/ESA are just not the right guys (Score:5, Insightful)

      by adeyadey ( 678765 ) on Sunday October 12, 2003 @01:58PM (#7194978) Journal
      Well you can take normal air-flight as an example. The Military (Air force) did a lot to improve designs, but it took private companies and innovators to open up the skys to all. Sure there are problems - regulatory bodies have to ensure fair trade practices, but its still better than none at all.

      It could be the same with space - and Cheap Access To Space (CATS) is a critical step for so many other things we want to do up there, manned and unmanned. At the moment it costs way too much to shift payload into LEO - the Shuttle isnt even flying - $3 billion/year for 0 payload - and I am not convinced that NASA/Shuttle-2 will give us true CATS either.

      The US should stop wasting money on the Shuttle tomorrow - graceful retire the old hardware & put in in a museum with other 60's/70's vintage hardware. NASA could then build a simple Soyuz type capsule to fit on one of the best available/reliable commercial rockets for now, and set up X-Prize style competitions to generate true cheap re-usable vehicles.
      • Okay, you're right, the private sector has the potential to bring about monopolies such as Microsoft. Let's look a little closer at the birth of the computing industry, though. The alternative was the USSR, where investment was controlled by the state. They never understood the potential of computers, and as a result, they were left in the dust. Sure, we ended up with IBM, then replaced by MS and Intel, but that's a damn sight better than the crap Russia got.
      • Not exactly right. Until WW1 airplanes where little more than toys. It took the military and a war to get them to the point that they where usful. The first planes to cross the atlantic where the NC-4s flown by military pilots. The first non-stop flight was in a converted WWI bomber. The Engine that powered the spirit of St, Lous was developed with funds from the Navy. The first Airlines made there money not with passengers but with Air Mail. And the first successful jet airliner the 707 started life as a t
        • Well the first part is not too far off what I was saying. The military needs of WW1 really pushed the science and engineering of flight forward, but flight remained incredibly expensive. In fact the first Atlantic flights (Alcock+Brown, Lindberg) had X-prize style rewards attatched. The point is that it took a competitive environment to bring prices down to an affordable level. Often the same companies develop Commercial and Military aircraft, so you will see a lot of cross-fertilisation of ideas..

          The prob
    • For the love of sanity, the parent post has to be the stupidest one I've ever read!

      "How would you feel if for the sake of arguement the eventual winner of the X-Prize were to become the MS of space exploration, with almost total control over who does what in space."

      What you're describing, of course is NASA, an agency founded to beat the USSR and establish a monopoly on all space activity. Guess what? NASA succeeded! The only thing it failed to do is die gracefully when it accomplished its mission.

      "
    • "The private sector is not about bettering mankind" And governments are all altruistic? lol. Governments and Companies, same drek, different brush. "Total control", eh? As opposed to a us government monopoly on sub-orbital travel? skewed reality, my friend.
  • Rocket technology aiming at supersonic suborbital flights built by privateers using off-the-shelf components? Sounds more like Darwin Awards, especially after you take a look at the level of technology [xprize.com]. How do they even know that their rocket is aerodynamically stable? Building robust, real-time control systems to adjust the attitude during flight at a sub-millisecond rate can't be that easy either.
    • Rocket technology aiming at supersonic suborbital flights built by privateers using off-the-shelf components? Sounds more like Darwin Awards, especially after you take a look at the level of technology.

      When you consider that we went to the moon with Sixties technology, designed by guys (girls didn't do engineering back then) with slide rules, I don't think that the technology level poses an obstacle.

      How do they even know that their rocket is aerodynamically stable?

      I'll bet that Burt Rutan [airspacemag.com] knows. He's

      • When you consider that we went to the moon with Sixties technology, designed by guys (girls didn't do engineering back then) with slide rules, I don't think that the technology level poses an obstacle.

        Remember that only computers become more technologically advanced at the rate computers do. All mechanical systems advance on much longer time scales. There is nothing radically different between a new rocket engine fresh off the assembly line and those in museums. Most of the change is in lighter/stron
      • When you consider that we went to the moon with Sixties technology, designed by guys (girls didn't do engineering back then) with slide rules, I don't think that the technology level poses an obstacle.

        I don't know about that... do they even *make* Microsoft SlideRule (tm)?

      • I'll bet that Burt Rutan knows. He's designed some of the most impressive light aircraft in the world, some of them jet propelled.

        In the last few years, there's been a rocket-powered Long-EZ (Rutan designed canard plane) going around the airshows. It was a testbed for the kind of rocket technology Rutan is using on SpaceShip One.

    • Oddly enough, aerodynamic stability is pretty easy to assess. It's all about location of the CG and location of the center of aerodynamic force. Because both of those things are (approximately) scale independent, you can test stability with a small model and scale up.

      Active control systems were built in the 1930s by the Germans, and successfully used (on V-2's) to direct missiles from Germany to the capital of England.

      Rocket science just isn't, er, rocket science these days. Building robust, real-tim

    • I looked at the level of technology; the picture of the rocket hover chair was taken a long time ago, and now they've got some much more impressive stuff, like a rocket that they've safely dropped from a helicopter. They've been meaning to do hover tests of their rockets for some time now, but they've had trouble getting propellant. Apparently certain suppliers don't trust them.
    • Building robust, real-time control systems to adjust the attitude during flight at a sub-millisecond rate can't be that easy either.

      Gosh. If only Armadillo had a competent programmer to work on that.....
    • Rocket technology...built by privateers...?

      Don't lose that letter of marque, Johnny! Arrrrrr....

    • Carmacks design might be.
      After reading his webpage two things really scare me.
      1. His choice of propelants. HTHP and Alcohol mixed to form a monopropelant??? Please let me know when you are going to mix that up. I want to be a long way away from it.
      2. They still have figured out how to seat the people so they can survive the launch and the landing. Swivel Seats? Carmack has the makings of a great sounding rocket but he needs to do a lot more testing before they put a person in it.

  • Did I miss it or.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Y-Crate ( 540566 ) on Sunday October 12, 2003 @01:13PM (#7194793)
    Did the article totally ignore the whole "the X-Prize contenders must repeat their success within 2 weeks by using the same vehicle?" aspect, which in my opinion isn't exactly a minor point.

    A one-off launch is one thing, but to return the craft to service within 14 days is something else entirely.
    • A one-off launch is one thing, but to return the craft to service within 14 days is something else entirely.

      Especially if the pilot tries unsucessfully to perform a rocket jump.

  • If Microsoft tried this, the stratosphere would be on fire by now.
    • But they will argue to the judge that it was necessary for future flight and the good of the industry.
    • What the X-Prize and the whole low-cost access to space race need is an M$-class war chest. If Bill Gates and Co. started spending their research billions on the development of space technologies, rather than on selling the next pathetic version of Windows, we'll have a permament moon base in five years. Now, imagine if the other infotechnology companies started spending their billions, too.

      Unless we see massive leaps in nanotechnology (or perhaps psychokinietic research), information technology isn't go

      • If Bill Gates and Co. started spending their research billions on the development of space technologies, rather than on selling the next pathetic version of Windows, we'll have a permament moon base in five years.

        Obligatory comparison of Microsoft MoonBase (tm) to Microsoft Windows (tm).

        If Microsoft funded the research, yeah we'd have a permanent moon base in 5 years. But we'd have to keep patching the dome to keep the air from leaking out. We'd also have to continuously move everyone out of the base a

    • Paul Allen, the second largest MS stockholder and founder of MS is the major funder of Rutan's space plane. This one is considered the best candidate to win the X-prize.
  • Project Mercury wasn't that big a deal in the early suborbital phases. They got an ICBM from the Air Force, built a man-carrying nose cone, and shot it off. They were building something that was orbital-capable (25x harder, remember), but the first US suborbital flight (Al Shepard, 1961) was a rather low-budget operation. There are pictures of the capsule being taken to the launch pad on an old flatbed truck piled with mattresses.

    It's neat that people are doing this, but as a booster, Carmack's rocket ra

  • Armadillo = bunch of ex-games developers who have managed to lift a couple of bits of scaffolding pipe to a couple of thousand feet.....
    Scaled Composites = bunch of aero engineers with 20 years plus experience, including round-the-world flight (Voyager) who have already test flown the actual vehicle to 46,000 ft ....

    Not to put the Armadillo guys down, but like writing software, you need a bit of experience in the field (...stands back in expectation of flames...)
    • Im sure that's what EA said about Id when they first got started. Never under estimate the power of human determination. Yet on another note you won't find me volunteering to do test-flights.
    • Yes but did Scaled Composites create Doom? That's right! Enough said! If all else fails, Armadillo will just create the software to make the space tourists THINK that they're going into space...
    • Actually, from what I understand, Armadillo != bunch of ex-games developers, but Armadillo == 1 gamedeveloper & at least 1 former rocket scientist.
  • the Texas team just might win the race to 100km altitude. At least if some of the other teams don't get there first.

    In other words, they might just capture first place, if someone else doesn't.
    • Yeah, I'm sure glad they had to tell me that. Wouldn't have been able to figure it out otherwise. So you think they'll get second unless someone else gets it?
  • Just think, now those nice flight attendants will give their saftey lecture starting with... In case of an emergency your seat can double as an air helmet, suit, flotation and re-entry device... :-D
  • Is getting ALOT of undeserved publicity here.

    I have seen his website and the photos of his project and all I can say is that I very unimpressed.

    The rocket looks like something out of HG. Wells.
    And very unaerodynamic.

    My bet is on Ruttan's project.

    Carmack I am guessing is getting all this positive press because he's a software programmer unlike Ruttan who has true aerospace credentials.
    • I'm pretty impressed with Carmack's project. Rutan is certainly making good progress, but Carmack is focusing on the low-budget essentials: what works, what doesn't. It's the ultimate tinkerer's machine, and he's allowing everyone to see every step. It's fabulous.

      When Scaled Composites released their first publicity shots of their two hulls, they were just that -- hulls. No rocket engine, no mating assembly, no jet engines even. But they carefully photoshopped the images (see previous Slashdot covera

      • "Sure the product may be funny-looking and awkward, especially at first, but then so did our favorite open-source operating system"

        Classification of a penguin and shouldn't be of a rocket.

        Oh penguin, open source.

        I get it now.
      • Anyone who has ever done any serious coding knows that sometime you just need that quick and dirty solution. I'd rather fly on Rutan's machine, but Carmack may still get up there quicker.
        -aiabx

      • Re:Carmack's project (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "When Scaled Composites released their first publicity shots of their two hulls, they were just that -- hulls. No rocket engine, no mating assembly, no jet engines even. But they carefully photoshopped the images (see previous Slashdot coverage) to make it appear that they were farther along than they were at the time."

        Umm, i don't know who told you that, but they were mistaken. When Scaled announced the program to the public on April 18th 2003 they had already flown the White Knight 20 times. The first

        • Actually, no, I was the one who pointed out the photoshopping jobs. I'm too lazy to look up the previous Slashdot article, but the publicity photos on their website were heavily retouched with photoshop. In one case, the SS1 was parked under WK1 (on its own landing gear), and someone had "added" engine cowlings (on WK1) and a mating section between the two. The landing gear supporting SS1 had been clumsily photoshopped out. "Clumsily" because its shadow remained in the picture. Several of the other ima

  • Analogies (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cybpunks3 ( 612218 )
    What people seem to forget is that there is not a linear increase in challenges between air travel and space travel.

    The reason is that the energy required to lift an object into or beyond earth orbit is incredible, which is why the Saturn V was almost nothing but a fuel tank (or the Shuttle for that manner).

    That plus the materials science necessary to protect said object upon reentry.

    The most reliable manned launch platform remains the traditional multistage rockets currently employed by the Russians (an
    • ya you're right, we should all just give up and cower in the dark.

      It will be done, and it must be done. Until we have colonies in other star systems, we have all our eggs in one basket where just one idiot (hmm Dubya comes to mind) could destroy it all.

      Re-entry and lift off will be moot once the Space Elevator is in place anyways. [space.com]
      • "Ten years later, this country---the original advoceas of the peaceful colonisation of space---decide to build giant space weapons. Strictly for defense, of course. One of their space flights blows up, killing---among others---a female teacher.

        Their space weapon shield proves to be impractical, and so they change the focus of their research... developing a weapon capable of causing large disturbances in the heart of the sun... disturbances large enough to wipe out the planets closest to her.

        They hold the

    • But since the X-Prize is for suborbital flights that require little heat shielding and less involved life support, I don't think it in itself is a good metric for the privatization of space. It's "space lite", not really the real deal.

      If the challenge were to launch a craft that could dock with the ISS, that's a different story. I know Nasa could use a vehicle like that right now ;)

      The Concorde went out of service because it had to compete with other flights that did the same thing, except slower

      • The Concorde went out of service because...

        Sheesh guys, don't bury the old girl 'til she's dead. Concorde still goes over my house every day, and will do for the next eleven days.

      • So the 100-km-reaching manned vessels could retire the orbit-reaching manned vessels, because they do the same thing, except lower and cheaper.

        If it's not reaching orbit, it's not doing the same thing.

        The Concorde wasn't replaced by a plane flying three-forths of the way from New York to Paris. Nor will heavy space launch systems be replaced by the new '100-km' class of vessels.

    • SpaceX is not attempting to go into the X-prize race, despite their name, but their launcher shows how much cheaper you can go if building it from the ground up with reusability in mind. They're a private company, and planning to go bigger and eventually, manned.
    • Remember, they just retired the Concorde. If we can't even create affordable supersonic travel, what makes you think we can have space tourism?

      Err... If Richard Branson has anything to do with it, Concorde won't be retired. Remember, Concorde gets across the oceans burning a lot more fuel, and hence costs a lot... What is needed is a supersonic plane for super-long haul flights like london to sydney, and for it to cost no more than twice as much as flying via standard jet. Or to apply a crap equation, if

  • It's not technology, not political, it's economics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Sunday October 12, 2003 @08:24PM (#7196956) Homepage
    I've studied space for a long while, and one thing I've found out: it's not the technology- it's the economics. The more people go into space per year, the cheaper it gets to go; and very much so.

    Forget reusable, nuclear rockets, space elevators; although all of these tricks work, and will help and doubtless will be used, but they are one-time tricks and the trick that has the biggest effect is simply to launch, and launch a lot. Economies of scale.

    Now, NASA cannot and will not be allowed to launch a lot. NASA takes a small(ish), relatively constant chunk of the American tax each year, and launches some stuff with that. There's a limit to what they can do with the money they have; which they reached about 2 decades ago. NASA as a government department cannot sensibly take a profit, and has built the wrong rockets for making money with anyway. That means that, unlike a business, they won't grow exponentially. Even if NASA were to be given more money, they still can't grow manned space flight- it would be a flat one-time increase. Only continuous growth works, and NASA can't do it.

    That means that they will only launch a fixed number of rockets per year, and hence the economies of scale cannot be utilised more than they are at the moment. Since economies of scale are the most powerful way of reducing the costs of spaceflight, this means that NASA cannot take us to space; it can only take a lucky few chosen by a bunch of bureaucrats to be termed 'elite'.

  • Rutan the Hare? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Sunday October 12, 2003 @09:37PM (#7197204) Homepage Journal
    I find it odd to call Rutan the Hare? He has designed many airplanes over the years from small but very cool homebuilts: the VariEze, Long Eze, and the Quickie. He got out of that because of the lawyers. He also built the first plane to fly non-stop around the world with out refueling. He is without a doubt very good at what he does, make flying machines. Rutan has already built stuff that flys into space. Look on his page www.scaled.com they help design and build the Pegasus. I am sure that John Carmack himself does not think that Rutan is rushing his program unwisely. My money is on the Rutan team. If they can get the stability issues solved quickly they have a good chance to win. No matter what they will have a good craft that can do the job.
  • "the Texas team just might win the race to 100km altitude. At least if some of the other teams don't get there first." .. Isn't that what a competition is? If I don't win, somebody else will?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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