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"On the surface of the Earth, the escape velocity is about 11.2 kilometers per second ... To leave planet Earth an escape velocity of 11.2 km/s is required" - wiki
I just noticed something. See the bright areas in the jet? Is that an artifact of the type of engine used? I've heard of pulse-jets but I was thinking they only "pulsed" at speed. Any aerospace guys know?
When will NASA just fold and let the real pioneers take over --- granted I am thankful for everything NASA has done for our nation in the space race to the current day however the gov't just doesn't care anymore. Power to the people!
@BergenCountyJC: Ummm, the government is the people. If you want more out of NASA then tell your congressmen. They are not standing in the way of private space trips. If you want to invent a new space craft, go ahead, more power to ya.
@Xeno: Is the government really the people? The only time our congressmen pretend to listen to us is when they want to get re-elected. After the honeymoon is over it's back to politics as usual. With power comes great responsibility -- something that our gov't figures tend to abuse
@Xeno: Agreed, but I believe that many governments have passed laws banning private ownership of land on the moon and the other planets in our solar system, limiting the incentives for private space exploration. Tourism is only going to take it so far...
NASA has realized that they CAN'T do everything. Their budget is continually cut and or misdirected by Washington into projects the "less than brilliant" politicians decide they want to spend money on.
So Nasa decided to put some of their budget into these challenges to help SOMETHING get done. Personally i think all of the NASA challenges are awesome. It really gives an incentive to entrepreneurs to try things.
Armadillo and Carmack are great in that they didn't start with existing knowledge. They have tried a ton of things that no one did before or thought wouldn't work. I love that up until this year they had a continuously running blog that showed all of their successes and failures. It was awesome to watch.
@BergenCountyJC: Let's not freak out here, chief. They built a vehicle that can fly into Moon orbit from the Moon. That's not a hell of a lot, when considering space travel. And nobody's really out there building any more advanced technologies.
The only way to get enough smart people together is to fund them properly. And the only ones who will bother funding them properly is the Government.
@Pope John Peeps II: I agree to disagree on the proper funding aspect. Also I fail to find where I am freaking out. In regards to the gov't as the only people being able to fund things properly -- let's take a sec and look back on TARP, Social Security, etc.
Now John Carmack has made a ton of progress over there years and they have a couple of contracts with NASA and some other large space contractors that they are actually being paid for.
There is another "Prize" Out there right now too. Bigelow Aerospace - Owned by the guy who owns a big chain of hotels and motels - has a $50 Million prize for someone that will build a ship that can dock with their inflatable habitat they put in space. They have 2 up there now. www.bigelowaerospace.com
Big stuff out there in the world of Private Space. I love it!
@BergenCountyJC: You're freaking out on thinking that these people are "space pioneers" and are going to be able to do anything with this technology. Space race prizes are fundamentally novelty prizes. They produce cute things, but it's not really at the caliber required to do anything with. To fund proper trips to other planets requires tremendous resources and huge amounts of man-hours. Way more than any private investor is going to commit.
If you disagree, then why don't you link me to a single, private organization that has a serious chance of making something like this happen. What, you're going to link me to something like Richard Branson's idiotic "space tourism" venture? Puh-leeze.
And as for your bringing up TARP and Social Security....wellll.... that just goes to show what line of the political spectrum you happen to fall on. And what line of the intelligent spectrum. Since those have not a single frigging thing to do with the issue at hand.
@SGTalon: If you go further through that link, you'll find that Bigelow airspace is trying to build a lower-cost, lower-tech version of NASA's next gen spacecraft, and investigating using NASA rockets to launch their next craft. So looks like NASA's still the gold-standard. Although it's pretty cool to read about Bigelow. It's a good achievement to put a little room into orbit.
@Pope John Peeps II: if the government trimmed itself waaaaaaay down (as it should) and allow the free market to work, there'd actually be MORE money available in the free sector to fund such projects, and yes, there IS money in space (mining ore on the moon, creating new compounds in zero gravity, not to mention all the wonderful stuff that came out of NASAs work over the past decades).
as for you equating one's intelligence with where they fall on the political spectrum, that = BIG FAIL
We should be able to respect each others right to have personal opinions about politics/religion whether we actually respect those opinions or not. You may need to take a good hard look in the mirror FIRST, before you start casting stones.
@banmojo: as for you equating one's intelligence with where they fall on the political spectrum, that = BIG FAIL
That's not at all what I said. Why don't you take a second read, and this time read ALL THE WORDS I WROTE and don't just stop halfway through a paragraph.
allow the free market to work, there'd actually be MORE money available in the free sector to fund such projects
Hooray! Unprovable bullshit statements used to make an argument! How I love to see you on the internet!
and yes, there IS money in space (mining ore on the moon, creating new compounds in zero gravity, not to mention all the wonderful stuff that came out of NASAs work over the past decades)
Oh hooray! Even more unprovable bullshit statements based on imaginary facts with no concrete evidence to back it up! Oh there's money in space! We just have to set up an orbital space station to mine the rings of faerie dust that surround the planet! Yay! These are certainly factual things that anyone can take seriously, and not just the imaginings of over-science-fictioned minds.
@Pope John Peeps II: The TARP and Social Security comments had to do with somebody else mentioning infrastructure so me mentioning it as a reply to your post was a mistake on my part -- i apologize. And as for the political spectrum goes - tbh I don't have a viewpoint one way or another -- just contributing varied opinions.
09/14/09
"the escape velocity for the Moon is about 2.38 km/s, or about 1.5 mi/s."
[www.googlelunarxprize.org]
Big difference.
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Looks like at least Mach 5.
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I'm inclined to suspect the problem is infrastructure. Shooting something into space (safely) takes a lot of it. NASA has it. Everyone else... don't.
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09/14/09
NASA has realized that they CAN'T do everything. Their budget is continually cut and or misdirected by Washington into projects the "less than brilliant" politicians decide they want to spend money on.
So Nasa decided to put some of their budget into these challenges to help SOMETHING get done. Personally i think all of the NASA challenges are awesome. It really gives an incentive to entrepreneurs to try things.
Armadillo and Carmack are great in that they didn't start with existing knowledge. They have tried a ton of things that no one did before or thought wouldn't work. I love that up until this year they had a continuously running blog that showed all of their successes and failures. It was awesome to watch.
09/14/09
The only way to get enough smart people together is to fund them properly. And the only ones who will bother funding them properly is the Government.
09/14/09
09/14/09
09/14/09
They do not "fund" the applicants but they are offering these prizes. There are something like 10 or 12 prizes they put out a couple years ago.
[www.nasa.gov]
Now John Carmack has made a ton of progress over there years and they have a couple of contracts with NASA and some other large space contractors that they are actually being paid for.
There is another "Prize" Out there right now too. Bigelow Aerospace - Owned by the guy who owns a big chain of hotels and motels - has a $50 Million prize for someone that will build a ship that can dock with their inflatable habitat they put in space. They have 2 up there now. www.bigelowaerospace.com
Big stuff out there in the world of Private Space. I love it!
09/14/09
If you disagree, then why don't you link me to a single, private organization that has a serious chance of making something like this happen. What, you're going to link me to something like Richard Branson's idiotic "space tourism" venture? Puh-leeze.
And as for your bringing up TARP and Social Security....wellll.... that just goes to show what line of the political spectrum you happen to fall on. And what line of the intelligent spectrum. Since those have not a single frigging thing to do with the issue at hand.
09/14/09
09/14/09
09/14/09
as for you equating one's intelligence with where they fall on the political spectrum, that = BIG FAIL
We should be able to respect each others right to have personal opinions about politics/religion whether we actually respect those opinions or not. You may need to take a good hard look in the mirror FIRST, before you start casting stones.
09/14/09
That's not at all what I said. Why don't you take a second read, and this time read ALL THE WORDS I WROTE and don't just stop halfway through a paragraph.
allow the free market to work, there'd actually be MORE money available in the free sector to fund such projects
Hooray! Unprovable bullshit statements used to make an argument! How I love to see you on the internet!
and yes, there IS money in space (mining ore on the moon, creating new compounds in zero gravity, not to mention all the wonderful stuff that came out of NASAs work over the past decades)
Oh hooray! Even more unprovable bullshit statements based on imaginary facts with no concrete evidence to back it up! Oh there's money in space! We just have to set up an orbital space station to mine the rings of faerie dust that surround the planet! Yay! These are certainly factual things that anyone can take seriously, and not just the imaginings of over-science-fictioned minds.
09/14/09