Armadillo Aerospace Takes Level 1 Lunar Lander Prize 50
jedibfa writes "Las Cruces International Airport came alive with applause and cheers yesterday afternoon as John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace took the first place prize for the Level 1 challenge of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, winning $350,000 and bragging rights. Adding to the excitement of the day, shortly before completing their second qualifying flight, Armadillo Aerospace and The Rocket Racing League announced a joint program to develop a sub-orbital tourist vehicle that will fly out of the New Mexico-based Spaceport America and cost less than $100,000 per ticket. On Sunday, the team will have three opportunities to go for the Level 2 challenge that more closely approximates the required performance for a real lunar landing. Good luck, Armadillo Aerospace, both on Sunday and in your new endeavor!"
We discussed preparations for the challenge last week. Several other readers have contributed additional coverage, including the Space Fellowship's live blog of the event, the website for Truezer0, another team participating in the challenge, and a VentureBeat article discussing the economic downturn in space exploration, and how the X-prize competitions figure in. Today's Level 2 challenge will be covered live via webcast.
Now for a mars rover (Score:2)
Carmack knows what needs to be done...it just needs to be able to go underground some.
Don't let Carmack win!!! (Score:3, Funny)
He has stated a few times in the past that he really starts liking the whole rocket-thing: Even more so than his coding brilliance.
Therefor I think it's in the best interest of gamers all around the world (or at least admirers of tech-engines
Preferably here would of course be that one of those rockets would be misfired, killing one of the crowd (or killing a father of someone who can then become Carmack's arch nemesis) ; And with some everlasting guilt on his part, we'll be guaranteed that Mr. Carmack's coding abilities will be put towards games.
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Well if he gets really good at the rocket thing, maybe you could live DooM rather than just play it.
Wait maybe that's not such a good thing...
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Carmack isn't a particularly brilliant programmer. He's just pragmatic and dedicated to putting in the effort to create something.
The code in Q1-Q3 is your standard stuff, nothing special in there and in fact it's too limited in many areas that could use a little more flexibility (ie. it was a bad design). It's basically a hacker's engine. You know, like what a kid would write in his garage. This is pretty much why he had to write a whole new engine from scratch each time. However limited in design, hi
Re:Don't let Carmack win!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. I didn't see you write it. Brilliance means having the vision and persistence to get the job done when it needs to be done. To know what has to be done, to be able to make the right compromises, etc. Carmack really is f*ing brilliant.
Looking at the job that somebody else has done successfully and thinking that you could have done it, now that you have seen it, is ridiculous. Technically I get the same thoughts what I look at Carmack's sources (or at the Linux kernel sources for that matter). But the point is, you or I didn't write those things.
Remember, most brilliant ideas appear obvious in hindsight.
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> I was writing 3D engines at the same time Quake1 was being developed. I work in the business too.
So its envy?
I dont see you posting with your name. So put up or shut up.
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I don't agree with you.
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So, if you were coding 3d engines at that time, you were following the carmack's .plan update at this time, didn't you ?
Just tell me that you were not impressed at the extraordinary /speed/ at which he rewrote the engine a couple of time, or when he hacked together a virtual virtual machine/jit for quake mods ?
Of course, his code is nothing extraordinary, and I have been impressed a few times by the fact that he didn't knew things I considered self-evident. But the truth is being able to actually sit down a
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I was writing 3D engines at the same time that Quake came out. Mine were written in high level languages, because code reusability was very important to the project's sponsors. Quake was written to do one thing and do it as fast as possible. Carmack wanted a high frame rate, and was willing to sacrifice everything else to achieve it. It turned out that high frame rates translated into high sales, meaning high profits. Other people at that time had other priorities, and were willing to sacrifice frame r
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Carmack isn't a particularly brilliant programmer. He's just pragmatic and dedicated to putting in the effort to create something.
The code in Q1-Q3 is your standard stuff, nothing special in there and in fact it's too limited in many areas that could use a little more flexibility (ie. it was a bad design).
The code in Q1-Q3 was "standard stuff" because "standard" in that era was defined as "whatever John Carmack does".
John Carmack had a strength most other programmers lack: reading academic papers and applying them. Hell, in that era, reading RFCs made one an above-average programmer.
If you think John Carmack wasn't brilliant, then you haven't examined the work of his contemporaries. Comparing the code he wrote 10 years ago against code others write today isn't fair.
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Sir, you can't be serious. You'd have somebody be killed so you can sit in your parent's basement and waste your life on computer games? I hope you're joking, but even if it's a joke, I find it rather distasteful.
Now don't get me wrong. A good game can be a great way to relax a bit. But wishing a group of people's lives to be pretty much ruined and another person's life to be ended for the sake of relaxing a bit? You need to get out more.
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ah, the battle of the Johns...
John Carmack:
John Romero:
Total:
Carmack 15
Romero 11
::sigh::, Romero could have scored at least another 10 points if he'd only kept his majestic pony-like mane. he's like Samson. his hair is the sourc
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While John (Romero) deserves every single one of the -20 Daikatana points, he should get at least as many points back for his Melvin comic strips [smugmug.com]. His site used to have quite a few of them, but now all the links go the smugmug homepage, and his gallery there only has this one.
Alright man! (Score:2)
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Agreed, congratulations, Mr. Carmack
Keep it up!, I knew Level 2 wasn't quite well, but things are finally awarding the efforts.
Armadillo (Score:2)
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Video? (Score:1)
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the videos are good but sometimes take a while to show up on their website. Found some on youtube though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSZBzIGg-ME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UrgoQRnej4
Re:Video? (Score:4, Interesting)
Matthew Ross
Armadillo Aerospace
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Focus is a matter of deciding what you're not going to do
(Jokes aside, gratz on the prize, well deserved after all the hard work)
Bad news (Score:3, Informative)
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I saw that, came back here to comment, and then got thoroughly confused because TFS says that they're trying on Sunday.
Obama's position on space prizes (Score:3, Informative)
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To be fair, it was probably just some (lame) election rethoric on Obama's part, even though Obama might be more inclined to go for big state funded programmes rather than offer incentives to private enterprise.
By the way, what is the deal with Obama...? Europe has always been leaning slightly towards Democrat candidates in presidential elections, but it's reached ridiculous levels this time. The media show nothin
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Are you really surprised? I'm Canadian so have a somewhat similar view that many of the Europeans do, in that the rest of the world is REALLY hoping Obama wins. After 8 years of bush threatening to put the USA into another depression and stuck in a war it can't win(and should not have started), it is small wonder the Europeans don't want someone in the white house that shares many of Bush's views and a vice president who makes Bush look like a libertarian. Not to mention the prospect of McCain surviving his
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Not really (Score:2)
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Well to be honest there are 5 people that have a public profile Obama, McCain and Palin, and Tina Fey and some guy called joe the plummer. The democratic vice president candidate (I know his name just) has no coverage I believe he is a man. Anything else would be a guess.
Obama seems like he would change things for the better, John McCain will ensure Obama has to justify his actions as president. That seems like a good outcome.
It's funny really but I think Obama would put his country first and his p
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Not only do the other posts below make points, but I use XBMC for my television, do not read the newspaper, and have Sirius radio (no ads).
There is essentially no broadcast news or advertising in my life (adblock as well of course) so the only information I have on your candidates is information I have gleaned from purposefully researching (mostly) American political news sources and web sites on the internet.
McCain had many of the same views as bush on key issues such as war, abortion, taxes the list goes
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