NASA Exploring $1.5 Million Unmanned Aircraft Competition 38
coondoggie writes "NASA today said it wants to gauge industry interest in the agency holding one of its patented Centennial Challenges to build the next cool unmanned aircraft. NASA said it is planning this Challenge in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Air Force Research Lab, with NASA providing the prize purse of up to $1.5 million."
The next cool unmanned aircraft (Score:2)
Whatever you do, don't call it Shirley.
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Car shaped? (Score:2)
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Unmanned and still unnamed (Score:2)
Whatever you do, don't call it Shirley.
I propose they call it the Tereshkova. Well, either that or "Larry" Wachowski.
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Leverne it is then.
I've probably spelt that wrong.
/me Opens Freezer Door (Score:2)
BONSAI!!
Re:NASA doesn't do the war fighting stuff ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually I expect you to be fooled again. Its probably a recurring thing in your life.
Clue: NASA doesn't do the war fighting stuff. They do the civilian aviation stuff. Aviation and safety research, keeping track of accidents and incidents, etc. See: http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
Clue: That in no way means any tech innovations won't be immediately adapted/adopted by the military for their use. Or by DHS for domestic civilian population monitoring/control and suppression of dissenters, for that matter. New tech/discoveries/etc have always been shared both ways between NASA and the military throughout NASA's history.
You can rest assured anything NASA and/or groups working with NASA develop that the military/DHS/TLAs think might be useful they'll use.
Besides, the government isn't the only one that can build drones. If it came down to it, drones could be built in a garage that could intercept/down things like the Predator-class drones.
Take a look at this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTHWBSluUjU [youtube.com]
It was laser-clocked at 586KPH/366MPH.
That's not even the largest engine the maker, JetCat, produces. They've got one that's rated for 52 lbs thrust.
http://www.sitewavesstores5.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=JetCat&Product_Code=P200-SX&Category_Code=TURB [sitewavesstores5.com]
Have it power a drone carrying a pound or two of HE, and a simple guidance system tuned to the opposing drone's uplink frequency. Launch it straight up to ~60K ft altitude so it's above the opposing drone (to be in the satellite uplink signal path from the other drone) and have the guidance system kick in when it acquires the signal and guide it straight to the other drone.
No more Predator-class drone.
Of course, bringing down an autonomous drone would be more difficult and require a different type of interceptor-drone, possibly one with remote-video and a remote pilot.
Strat
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You can rest assured anything NASA and/or groups working with NASA develop that the military/DHS/TLAs think might be useful they'll use.
The same holds for anything made by anyone with possible military application. The real question is whether this research was done with at least partial intent that it be used by the military?
Great idea (Score:1)
For those who don't know... (Score:2, Insightful)
An unmanned aircraft is *much* easier to program than a unmanned car.
No bumpy road, no complex wheel behavior, no forced curves, barely and obstacles, and nothing that can occlude them (assuming your sensors obviously go through clouds)... and you have only one axis to care for.
Every big plane already has automated cruising and landing for emergencies.
The navigational aspects also are already mostly automated away in regular planes.
Once you have the flaps and engines abstracted away, and have a working rada
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Given how long it took to develop and deploy those drones... maybe it's not "child's play" as you seem to think.
Patented (Score:2)
patented Centennial Challenges
A quick search of uspto shows that no such patent exists under that name...
How about taking another 150 million... (Score:1)
... from the military budget? I am very sure there is a possible dual use (this time civilian -> military) of easily and cheaply getting a payload very, very high...
While I do not want Space Warfare, Rods From God, or even only Very High Altitude Bombing... if those are the price I have to pay to get 1 or 100 billion more into the research of a civilan space program then at least I am willing to pay it.
No such thing... (Score:1)
As a "cool" unmanned aircraft.
True fact.
Prior art (Score:2)
Patented? I understand the journalistic need for spicing up stories (hell, I was an admin on Fark) ... but even if this was a patentable idea and doesn't fall as a "buiness method", NASA had to go through hoops to even be allowed to do it. (I guess there's no room for earmarks when you can't be sure who's going to get the money).
The NASA program didn't start 'til 2005, and was modeled after the Ansari X Prize (which was *awarded* in 2004, after years of eff
Hey NASA (Score:2)
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How about building a manned mission beyond LEO?
The first A in NASA is for Aeronautics. This is entirely within their scope.
An idea (Score:2)
The See and Avoid problem (Score:1)
So, uh, is anyone actually working on this? (Score:2)
... and are you hiring? :-D
Otherwise, I think I'll just slap an android phone onto an ARF R/C plane and go to town... it'd be funny if the platform ends up costing less than half of the $800 ADS-B receiver it has to carry :P
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Here's a more interesting read of NASA's competition rules [DRAFT] :
http://prod.nais.nasa.gov/eps/eps_data/154025-OTHER-001-001.pdf [nasa.gov]