Updating the Integrated Space Plan 65
garyebickford writes 'Space Finance Group (in which I'm a partner) has launched a Kickstarter to fund updating the "famous Integrated Space Plan", created by Ron Jones at Rockwell International in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and can be found on walls in the industry even today. The new Plan will be a poster, but also will provide the initial core data for a new website. The permanent link will be thespaceplan.com. As additional resources become available the website will be able to contain much more information, with (eventually) advanced data management (possibly including sources like Linked Data) and visualization tools to become a resource for education, research, entertainment, and business analytics. The group also hopes to support curated crowdsourcing of some data, and is talking to Space Development companies about providing data about themselves. They hope to be able to construct new timelines and show the relations between events and entities — companies, agencies, people, etc.'
So, the famous plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Never heard of it. Next time you pitch your project, perhaps explain what it is.
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I've been told that the B-52 planes flying today have almost no original parts in them - everything has been changed out, improved, updated. The fleet is right now undergoing a complete remake of tthe flight controls, with a new glass cockpit. Those are physical planes, not just plans. And tecchnology has come a long way - the new SuperDraco motors on SpaceX Dragon are 3D printed, saving something like 70% of the cost.
But you are right to an extent. In the original Plan, the Space Shuttle was in there,
Re: So, the famous plan (Score:2)
Sorry, I've been so involved. For those who aren't familiar the Maker Magazine article [makezine.com]is a good start. Of course the original link above has some info. And Google is your friend. :)
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Dude, you want my money. Don't tell me to Google what your project is about.
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There's a link to Maker Magazine there. And the original link [thespaceplan.com]. And somewhere here is a link to the BBC program ... ahh, here 'tis [bbc.co.uk]. This program inspired us to offer a "huge" version for schools.
Re: Job 1, fix the video's music on kickstarter. (Score:2)
I don't recall it, sorry. But the folks who did the TV commercial are just one of many who have given their time, effort and money to help make this happen, for which we are grateful!
Nope (Score:3)
There are much more useful things to donate money to. If these folks believe this this is something people would buy and pin up on the wall ay home or their office, they can invest their own money and sell 'em to the ThinkGeek folks...
Re: Nope (Score:3, Informative)
Back in the day there were several thousand printed and distributed, and that was just within the industry. Rockwell International used it as a pr tool, and a copy once hung behind the desk of the NASA administrator. We've been told by some in the space development community that seeing the original is what got them into it. BBC did a documentary on it in 2007. So it continues to be a big deal in the community.
The original was not just "blue sky" fantasies but a compilation of what the engineers of the ti
Re: Good use for the money (Score:2)
So I'm guessing you didn't write that on your sat phone! :D
Did you watch the weather today on your cable? Or perhaps you were lost in the woods - should have used your GPS!
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Besides a few cameras and clocks in orbit, what else can you do with space?
"What have the Romans ever done for us?"
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Not a big Monty Python fan I guess.
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Besides a few cameras and clocks in orbit, what else can you do with space?
"What have the Romans ever done for us?"
I never know what these supposedly clever replies from Space Nutters are supposed to mean.
It's a Monty Python reference (Life of Brian, to be specific). Reg gives a revolutionary speech asking, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" at which point the listeners outline a long list of benefits brought by the Romans.
Turn in your nerd badge as you leave, please; it's obvious you're in the wrong place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Send money to support our TV commercial! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is somebody asking for money for a TV commercial for an "integrated space plan"?
We're almost done with space. Seen the moon; it's boring. Seen Mars, it's boring. Seen Phobos and Deimos; they're just rocks. No off-earth life; might find bacteria someday. Venus and inward are too hot; outward of Mars is too cold. Satellites work fine, both at GEO and LEO. Sending people to LEO is expensive fun; might catch on if gets cheaper.
Mission accomplished!
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I forget the name, but an economist came out a year or two with an analysis of the potential of space development. The result was that, if things like asteroid and lunar mining and space solar power are successfully developed, within 100 years the mean standard of living of every person on earth could be increased by a factor of 10. I'd be OK with 1.5 or 2. I'm somewhat skeptical of space solar power myself, mostly due to the political difficulties, but technically SSP could eliminate all ground-based po
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Sorry, wrong on all counts. :) I will say that one of the reasons I'm skeptical about space solar power is that (IMHO) to make it feasible will require using materials mined from space rather than shipping everything up from Earth - that makes it much more speculative. Others disagree on that. OTOH, solar panels seem to last a lot longer in space, and the sun is always shining. On the third hand, I see a lot of political difficulties.
Mining asteroids for aluminum or iron for use on Earth is not likely
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Interestingly, I just received a link to an article in IEEE Spectrum, about How Japan Plans to Build an Orbital Solar Farm [ieee.org].
Re: Send money to support our TV commercial! (Score:2)
No, we did the commercial, you can see it on the Kickstarter page.
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Nobody to care about the prettiness of it, or the morality issues of mining planets!
To the contrary, the less at stake the pettier the morality.
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I, and many others, have thought about this quite a bit. During the period when activities and people in space are still dependent on Earth, Earth politics will be controlling the policies. So for example, it might be that mining on the visible side of the Moon would be restricted.
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We're almost done with space.
We've barely begun. Just as an example, the amount of solar energy that passes closer than the Moon equals all the world's fossil fuel reserves every minute. How many Beowulf clusters could you run with that?
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There are many errors in his calculations. I was part of a team that studied Solar Power Satellites when I worked at Boeing, so I think I have better data than Mr. Murphy. Let me list the ones I spotted:
* He quotes the performance gain against one of the best places on Earth (the US Mohave Desert) at 3:1. For the world as a whole, the gain is more like 7:1. Most places have much more clouds and thus less available sunlight.
* He assumes geosynchronous orbit. This is not required if you have a constellat
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I'll just put this here: How Japan Plans to Build an Orbital Solar Farm [ieee.org].
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I agree that the sci fi style vision of humans in space will probably never happen, but it's entirely possible that with better technology, at some point the economics will shift do doing a lot of stuff in space instead of the Earth.
Poster already widely available (Score:2, Interesting)
A poster of the new integrated space plan is already widely available. It's a blank piece of paper - there is no plan.
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"There be dragons out there" - and beyond them, the New World.
Rumor has it that Planetary Resources has already found a good target asteroid for their mining plans. If they are successful, the price of platinum may drop from $1500/oz or thereabouts to $10/oz, turning it from a curiosity used in expensive jewelry and (in extremely small quantities) as a surface in catalytics converters into an industrial metal with huge numbers of valuable uses.
Space Solar Power (which I'm somewhat skeptical of, mostly for
Re: Poster already widely available (Score:2)
Now see, if your school had had a poster on the wall you'd know better! :)
NSS roadmap (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, the National Space Society already has a space roadmap:
http://www.nss.org/settlement/... [nss.org]
I will also unapologetically list my twenty-some-year old Footsteps to Mars, presented at Case for Mars V, Boulder CO, 26-29 May 1993.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com/... [geoffreylandis.com]
http://www.wired.com/2014/03/f... [wired.com]
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The NSS roadmap has a different focus, as does Dani Eder's Space Transport and Engineering Methods [wikibooks.org] Wikibook. This wikibook is a good basic reference to the many technologies related to space, so we want to incorporate links to his work to allow folks on our website to learn more when desired. Dani supports our project, and has graciously allowed us to include references and links to his work in the Plan website. With permission, we can incorporate multiple roadmaps as part of the website or by reference,
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I hit 'submit' too fast ... I'll be reading your papers later tonight. I am glad to know about them. We may want to include links to them in the website, and we'll also be assembling a community of folks who are advising or otherwise helping build the system.
Re: Advisory Board (Score:2)
Give us a fancy name, and we can be a counterweight to the National Academies' reactionary reports. They assemble panels of prestigious and *old* people to review NASA's plans, and usually conclude it can't be done, because they fail to include forward-looking ideas. We need to generate reports for the future, not the past.
Dani Eder
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Indeed. I think this might be a very useful part of the project. I'll include it in the plan! And hopefully you and Geoffrey will participate!
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The basic goal for the Kickstarter is in fact for the poster - we are committed to making this poster a common sight. The primary purpose of the poster is to get distributed to schools, offices, homes, and dorm rooms and publicize the present state of the 'art' of space, and inspire folks about this great endeavor. So, after the various costs of Amazon, Kickstarter, and various other things, the money is primarily going into actually making and shipping the posters.
This is going to require substantial res
So you want to work in marketing, then? (Score:2)
>> cadre of people...vendor sponsorships
So...what you've basically set up is a Kickstarter internship that will land you and a few of your friends in the wing of a defense contractor's marketing department that pitches space dreams to the public to keep political winds blowing in their favor. (Even the original poster uses the word "market.")
Re: So you want to work in marketing, then? (Score:2)
Nope. The company's primary business is analytics and our primary interest is not defense but commercial space, particularly start ups and privately held companies that may become public. We are all 'space nuts' who have been working to advance non-government space for a long time. (Except me - I've been doing bleeding edge computer stuff most of my career. I've been more of a space groupie.)
We are doing this project because we think it's important. Development of space as an economic resource has more po
Re: So you want to work in marketing, then? (Score:2)
I should add - 'the company' is Integrated Space Analytics LLC, for which publication of analytical and reference data via the poster, the website, and subscription is the business.
Sorry, but this is silly (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about as sensible as Columbus producing an 'Integrated America Plan' for how America would develop, or someone in the 50s producing an 'Integrated Computing Plan' for how computers would develop until 2050.
All we need is cheap access to space, and plain old unplanned, couldn't-give-a-crap-what-you-think humans will do the rest.
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It all takes planning. The Space Shuttle took nine years from initial plan to launch. It took almost 10 years of a crash program to get humans to the Moon. We do need cheap access to space, or at least cheaper. SpaceX was founded in 2002, and now after 13 years is only a year or two from launching a human into space. And those are single programs, not an entire movement.
But in a larger sense, you are right. Our approach to the new Plan is that there are many entities, each doing their own thing in a c
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As the saying goes, no (battle) plan survives contact with the enemy. That doesn't mean such a plan has no use whatsoever.
An 'Integrated America Plan' or an 'Integrated Computing Plan' would of course be ludicrous in hindsight. (Just as is the original Integrated Space Plan). But such plans have the power to inspire people. To make people think "hey, I see a better option over here". To encourage people to make it so. To dream things that never were and say "why not?"
Sure, if we had cheap access to sp
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I disagree. What long range plans do is identify current technical deficiencies and priorities for research and development. For example, Elon Musk has a goal to colonize Mars, and is making great progress on cheap rockets. But even cheap rockets won't be enough. You can't afford to haul everything you need to live on Mars from Earth. So you need to develop local mining and production technology. Compared to rocketry, that field is severely undeveloped. Thus knowing that Mars is a goal in 20-30 years
I skimmed the front page too fast. (Score:2)
I skimmed the front page, and misread the title to this story as "Updating the Integrated Space Pen". Intrigued at what those ambitious scamps at the Fisher Space Pen company might be up to, I skimmed the summary for links and misread the address of the linked website as "thefacepalm.com". I still have no idea what the story is actually about, but I thought I'd chip in my contribution anyway.
All in all, the start of a perfect Slashdot Sunday for me...
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Funny! :D :) I'd say that there is a need for a site where folks who disagree with everything can go and agree that everything else is crap, but most discussion sites are filled with them already.
I even checked out thefacepalm.com - it exists, but the domain is parked. Maybe there's an opportunity for someone - a discussion site for skeptics, of everything? The motto could be "News you can ignore, arguments you disagree with."
Anyway, I enjoyed your comment. :)
Bingo! (Score:2)
>> visualization ...crowdsourcing ...analytics...Kickstarter...in the industry...BINGO!!!