Canadian X-Prize Entry Gearing Up 147
lommer writes "The Globe and Mail has a piece up about the Canadian Da Vinci team which is making a bid for the X-prize. The team has finalized a launch location (Kindersley, Saskatchewan) and will announce a launch date this month. Meanwhile, Burt Rutan and Co. over at Scaled Composites appear to be back on track with a succesful test flight on March 11 after their December crash. One has to wonder, with launch dates being set, will some projects step up and attempt a flight without being fully ready for it?"
Blast off thong (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Blast off thong (Score:2, Funny)
"Do you have anything in a delta-V style?"
Re:Blast off thong (Score:1)
They better look for different funding then.
Ashcroft is going after pr0n! [slashdot.org]
Quick! Everybody Panic!
Re:Blast off thong (Score:3, Insightful)
Disturbing claim found in your link:
This product is designed to fit juniors.
I've also heard you can get "Porn Star" brand t-shirts in 10 year old sizes. There's something really wrong here.
Re:Blast off thong (Score:4, Informative)
IANFBIAAF (I am not female but I am a feminst)
Re:Blast off thong (Score:2)
Good job being a feminist, suggesting that 40-year old women can't look hot in a thong.
Carmack (Score:4, Funny)
End this spaceman nonsense once and for all, and get back to work finishing Doom 3.
Re:Carmack (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Carmack (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Carmack (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Carmack (Score:1, Offtopic)
Shit, the mods must be smoking something to give that guy an insightful. Can we meta-mod the mod itself yet? That gets a +1, Funny Mod, easily.
(hoping to get an insightful mod for nothing just like the parent poster)
Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Will any of them really be ready for it?
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
I think Scaled Composites could launch tomorrow if they wanted to. They've got the full system working, they're just going slowly to make sure nothing unexpected crops up.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
Don't worry too much (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:3, Insightful)
Jeroen
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:2)
Do they have a spacecraft at all?
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:3, Informative)
Do they have a spacecraft at all?
Spoken like someone who hasn't been paying attention. Right now, they're testing the *big motors*. i.e. The one's that are going on the full sized craft. And they're testing them both bolted to the ground, and with captive tests of the craft. Once they get some of the engine kinks worked out and finally work out a control board they can rely on, they'll be ready to fly. Go check out the videos on their
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:2)
Spoken like someone who hasn't been paying attention. Right now, they're testing the *big motors*. i.e. The one's that are going on the full sized craft. And they're testing them both bolted to the ground, and with captive tests of the craft. Once they get some of the engine kinks worked out and finally work out a control board they can rely on, they'll be ready to fly. Go check out the videos on their site. You can see the big armadillo craft in some of them.
Not to mention that they've been doing paralle
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:2)
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:2)
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:2)
Who told you that? Armadillo is in advanced stages of engine testing. The primary kink they're trying to work out is getting the engine to consistently light without warmup. They were actually going to try a simple flight of the full craft a few days ago, but a piece of equipment didn't arrive in time.
The thing that has me worried most is another poster's mentioning of their decision to ditch the nose cone approach. Last I knew, they were going
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:2)
I'm a little concerned that the powered landing thing will slow them down enough to miss their chance at the prize, but I think in the long run it will give
Something's going on at Scaled (Score:2)
Whatever it is, something's got them held up.
Re:Something's going on at Scaled (Score:2, Interesting)
-- scsg
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:2, Interesting)
-scsg
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:3, Interesting)
You're making a key assumption here: That the tanks, engines, and airframe are all proven for an 80+ kilometer ascent and 100 km descent. So far these tests are trying to determine whether that assumption is correct or not. Applying Murphy's Law, they'll probably need to build a new version of the craft before they'll be able to fly the craft.
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:2)
If it was anybody else, I'd wonder about their ability to make their first prototype reach the target. Supersonic high-altitude flight is not exactly an easy environment to simulate on the ground.
But as it happens, Scaled has previous experience in this very environment. They were involved in the engineering and production of structural flight components for Orbital Sciences' Pegasus [orbital.com]
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:5, Informative)
Scaled has flown their vehicle under power, and to supersonic speeds. Apparently all non-propulsion systems are fully flight-qualified. They have ground-tested their rocket for the full duration necessary for an X-Prize flight, and fired it in flight for a short duration. The initial supersonic flight of SS1 appears to have been a complete success, except for the scrape they got on landing. That damage is now repaired, and they have flown again since, albeit unpowered. They're not nearly as open about what they're doing as Armadillo, though. They may well have taken another flight or two and not announced it yet. It wouldn't surprise me much if they actually accomplish a 100km flight before announcing that they're ready to fly for the prize.
Armadillo, on the other hand, does not yet have reliably relighting engines, which is kind of a big deal for them. (Or they didn't have 'em a couple weeks ago, anyway.) Given that their vehicle design makes this a life-safety issue, I expect they're gonna need many tests to validate their operation before they do a manned flight over 50 feet. Once they're ready to do that, they will still need to do enough test flights to ensure they understand the vehicle enough to try for the prize.
I think Armadillo's got an excellent shot at making a 100km flight, but I don't think they're going to beat Scaled. It's too bad about their previous fuel difficulties; that cost them a lot of time, and it looks to me that the delay may have cost them the prize.
Re:Don't worry too much (Score:3, Informative)
OTOH, I don't think they have a full-scale vehicle even started, though a close-to-that flight tester is mostly ready for the engines.
I'd guess they're a couple months away in the absolute best case scenario.
Suppose Armadillo is first, then what? (Score:1)
OK, let's try on the supposition that Armadillo makes it up first (twice in 2 weeks, yada, yada, yada) and claims the X Prize. Then what?
Seriously, Armadillo's design looks to have little or no continuing commercial potential other than as a joyride for people with more money than brains. Using a parachute for return to Earth and a crumple nosecone for landing? Why isn't Estes a big sponsor for them?
Of course, not winning the X Prize will likely have no effect on Scaled Composite's effort except for a los
Re:Suppose Armadillo is first, then what? (Score:2)
On the same token as Armadillo's design, I don't think any of the X Prize designs are, themselves, aimed at long-term viability. They're steps along that road, but the first hurdle is the X Prize itself, and you don't have to make it commercially viable to win that. You just have to make it fly.
Real commercial potential will come after the X Prise is claimed, when we're
Of course! (Score:5, Insightful)
One has to wonder, with launch dates being set, will some projects step up and attempt a flight without being fully ready for it?
Of course - this sort of venture always comes with risk, and one of 'em is pushing your timetable up because the other guy looks like he's about to win. Given what happens when you screw up with space flight, I'd expect to see a fatality or two occur in the next couple o' years.
And one should keep in mind: It's all fun and games until someone gets killed. Then it's a SPORT! :-)
Re:Of course! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Of course! (Score:2)
people have died playing golf (and not just
from old age). You would be hard pressed to find
anything which includes people and/or things moving
at a high rate of speed that hasn't killed someone.
Re:Of course! (Score:1)
Cue the Thunderbirds theme! (Score:2, Insightful)
All these various projects gearing up is excellent, hopefully with one successfully taking the prize. (I only hope the rest don't just pack it in when one team wins.) Woohoo!
Excellent (Score:1)
To far North for Intra Orbit Trajectory... (Score:1, Insightful)
Who picked Saskatchewan as a launch site??
Don't they understand that the closer to the equator they are, the greater the natural velocity of the vessel? By picking a trajectory so far North, they will have to burn more fuel to get the vehicle up to a speed which they would've gotten for free if they started somewhere closer to the equator.
The rotation of the Earth could help 'fling' the craft into the air, but instead, by going so far North, it's just going to help the craft spin (imaging launching a cra
Re:To far North for Intra Orbit Trajectory... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:To far North for Intra Orbit Trajectory... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't they understand that the closer to the equator they are, the greater the natural velocity of the vessel? By picking a trajectory so far North, they will have to burn more fuel to get the vehicle up to a speed which they would've gotten for free if they started somewhere closer to the equator.
This only applies if you're going for orbit. For an up-and-down suborbital flight, no place has a particular advantage over any other. (Slight exception: Launching fr
Re:To far North for Intra Orbit Trajectory... (Score:1)
Re:To far North for Intra Orbit Trajectory... (Score:5, Informative)
Same reason why 80,000 US pilots trained there in WWII, and many NATO nations train there now.
(1) Note; there are a few places with comparable or perhaps a bit more sunshine over 12 months, due to less sun in winter as you go further north. For the summer months, with even longer days, it's way more than anywhere in N America.
The answer is obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Only once.....
Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:5, Informative)
Hence, launching anywhere works!
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:1)
Yes, the closer you are to the equator the less fuel it will take to power a rocket into orbit. Basically, when a solid object is spinning on any given axis, all points on the object have the same angular velocity. However, the parts furthest from the axis of rotation must be spinning faster to maintain that angular velocity at that point. Go outside and spin a basketball or something on your driveway. You can witness the phenomenon right there.
This increased velocity is utilized by space agencies to sav
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:2)
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:1)
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:1)
My dog ran away this weekend. I watched him go for three days.
Further north is cheaper for polar orbits. (Score:2)
I've read that it depends on the orbit you are hoping to achieve. If you are looking to get into an equatorial, geosynchronous orbit, it's best done from the equator.
Polar orbits, however, get little to no benefit from the location of the launch site. That's why places like Churchill Manitoba can look good for rocket launches...
Reference 1 [spacecentre.no]
Jason Pollock
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:3, Funny)
Although devoid of oceans, Saskatchewan is fortunately also devoid of populated areas too.
E.
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:2)
Having seen the original Apollo launch maps, the roughly triangular area described across the Atlantic from Cape Canaveral to just short of the African coast is termed "downrange" (similar to a ballistic firing range).
Florida was chosen for the south-eastern launch point, lack of appreciable downrange civilization, and then lack of surrounding civilization. There are a few islands scattered around the range, but the chances of hitting one (unintentionally) is pretty small. Likewise, if the rocket were t
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Launching from Saskatchewan? (Score:1)
What makes you think that all the money spent in those states had much to do with engineering or physics? ;^)
If the location sounds familiar to people... (Score:3, Informative)
Large parts are grassland plains, with very little water obstacles, and the road networks are about 1/5th of the total roads in Canada.
It also helps to have a Redneck population, in case of alien landing. Kidding, kidding, I kid because I love...
Russia has designated SK an emergency landing zone for cosmonauts. And a rich guy who circled the globe in his baloon landed in SK too.
Re:If the location sounds familiar to people... (Score:2)
The question is the risk worth it? (Score:4, Insightful)
I personally see humanities choice as between creating an economically viable presence in space-and gradually moving industry there-as Gerard O'Neill at Princeton proposed-or facing the probability of nuclear war or worse. In light of that, I _do_ think that a lot of risk is warrented to create a human presence in space.
Even if I'm wrong here, people risk their lives for far less worthwhile objectives(i.e. look at the folks that die after drug overdoses, drunk driving accidents or of AIDS).
The folks that say the risk here isn't warrented are generally envious, cowardly whiners that know that noone like them has a shot at ever winning a competition of this nature--and are afraid that if someone else gets a little bit of increases status it will be that much less left for them. Such cowards have taken the earth to the brink of disaster. Playing it safe-and avoiding the search for poritive sum technological solutions to humanity's major problems is a major root of the enormous decimation of species and genocide of entire peoples--folks don't even put sigificant effort into conceiving of truly positive sum approaches to humanity's future they are so stuck in a narrow way of looking at the world.
Errata (Score:2)
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, sure. Population growth can't continue indefinitely without running short of raw materials. (And room.)
But what raw materials are we talking about here? If I'm not mistaken, the only materials available in abundance in near space are metals, and we're pretty well set for them. Our future resource shortages are more likely to be along the lines of fresh water than iron ingots.
Given the energy expenditure involved in extracting additional raw materials and bringing them safely to Earth, it seems to me that the same energy would be better spent recycling the contents of our landfills, cleaning up watersheds, and slowing population growth.
(Besides, who said indefinite growth is even desireable? If we end up in a position where population pressure is forcing migration up the gravity well, a few rockets ain't gonna cut the mustard anyway.)
It's not that I'm not a space enthusiast; I am. I hope humanity does colonize off-planet one day. But I don't see how space is a necessary or sufficient component for positive-sum approaches.
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you mean by positive sum? (Score:2)
The basic problems with population control mechanisms:
Not all people want to have their population controlled
The folks doing the controlling have a nasty habit of seeing people like themselves as the
Re:What do you mean by positive sum? (Score:2)
[...] folks don't even put sigificant effort into conceiving of truly positive sum approaches to humanity's future they are so stuck in a narrow way of looking at the world.
Positive sum, or more generally non-zero-sum, is a buzzword that describes the benefits of cooperation in a system. See nonzero.org. [nonzero.org]
First off, it isn't a matter of bringing materials back to earth. The fundamental question is the surface of a planet the
Re:What do you mean by positive sum? (Score:2)
IMHO the thing that changed Japan was contact with a culture(i.e. the US) that was more pioneering in some key respects at the time than was Japan. WW II was a humiliating defeat-and it forced the Japanese to
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:2)
The point of rockets isn't to help mass transportion--we're still _really_ early in the development of space. There _are_ other proposals for things like space elevators--that are theoretically possible--and would make migration to space relatively inexpensive. There is a lot to do though between now and then. Rockets
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bunk and Hogwash! We have an entire planetful of resources right under our feet with a "class M" environment surrounding most of it. It will be decades, perhaps centuries, before we import more material from space than we export Space will not economically viable as a source of resources for at least a millennium. By that time we should have proper recycling in place,
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:2)
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:2)
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:2)
Even mining the moon or asteroids for metals could happen fairly soon. The type of teleoperated infrastructure you need for basic mining isn't all that great-as O'N
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:2)
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:2)
Now, I would agree that there may first be use of recycled orbiting "garbage" first.
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:1)
This method of providing a prize for the 'first' to me is also reminiscent of the Wright brothers, though in their case there wasn't any prize, just fame (Which is prize enough I guess), and also the failed DARPA challenge. Howeve
Re:The question is the risk worth it? (Score:2)
Chanute urged the brothers to try for some of the aviation prizes that were being offered for flights of specified times and distances, which would have established their dominance in the public's mind. They refused. "We would have to expose our machine more or less, and that might interfere with the sale of our secrets," they wrote to a friend in January 1906. "We appreciate the honor and the prestige that would
That's not the problem. (Score:2)
The other problem is that NASA is dealing with space exploration in the completely wrong way. I wish
Crashes (Score:1, Offtopic)
Not quite (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Crashes (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Crashes (Score:3, Interesting)
Not ready yet (Score:2)
Maybe... except that the rules state that it has to be a manned flight. Would you want to go up knowing your team wasn't "fully ready for it"?
I didn't think so.
We're 106km from outer space, eh? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:We're 106km from outer space, eh? (Score:2)
Sorry.
This won't be the first time (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm suprised that no one has made a movie about him. The following link is definately worth a look:
www.astronautix.com/articles/abroject.htm
Re:This won't be the first time (Score:5, Informative)
The motto of this story? Consider the source of your R&D funding, it may come back to haunt you.
Re:This won't be the first time (Score:2)
Re:This won't be the first time (Score:4, Informative)
They did. [imdb.com]
Bullwinkle (Score:3, Funny)
What do you say, Canada?
Fully Ready (Score:2, Funny)
Apparently only those run by NASA.
I'm there! (Score:2, Interesting)
Using my Celestron 9.25" Telescope with video camera, I'll give Slashdot a good update at www.spacecanada.org
Junkyard Wars (Score:1, Funny)
Way too cool. (Score:1)
Re:THANKS SLASHDOT (Score:1, Funny)
Re:THANKS SLASHDOT (Score:1, Funny)
Re:duh. (Score:1)
If it makes you feel any better, I'd mod you "redundant" if I hadn't already posted to the topic.
Re:What is the X-Prize? (Score:3, Funny)
What is it? Read a few links to inform yourself. What I really want to know is why this conspiracy keeps continuing. You know the one I'm talking about. Canada. Canada doesn't really exist. Want proof? Let me show you.
A few questions about Canada:
But I can see Canada! It's on our maps!
Ah, yes. You have been brainwashed by the governments of the world with their lies. Without the help of so called "map experts", would you really know what you were looking at? It could be Alaska
Re:What is the X-Prize? (Score:1)
Re:What is the X-Prize? (Score:1, Funny)
Hi.
(From Vancouver, British Columbia)
Re:Crappy journalism (Score:2)
Huh? What are you on about? The G&M article, as well as all the other news sources reporting this, all have it straight.
Wildfire = shipnam
Wildman = surname of spokesperson for Da Vinci project
Bill Gates = Chairman and Cheif Technology Officer
Paul Allen = CEO
Re:Crappy journalism (Score:1, Informative)