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For those who prefer to get their news from industry-specific sources rather than general media, or for those who are boycotting the Microsoft-owned MSNBC, this space.com article might help.
I hadn't heard about this new project till I read the article. It's neat that Spaceship One's "White Knight" is being used to haul a DARPA-sponsored project into the Ether! This truly heralds a new age of independent aeronautics.
This truly heralds a new age of independent aeronautics.
Independent how? Scaled Composites has already done enough Pentagon projects to fully qualify as a member of the Military Industrial Complex.
Other than market share, are they really different from Boeing in any significant way? Both companies make civilian aircraft and rockets, and both do defense contracting.
Being a part of the US Military Industrial Complex is an honor.
Wow - that's incredibly simplistic.
There's a reason that Dwight Eisenhower was worried about the growth of the military industry - when it reaches (reached?) critical mass, it becomes self-perpetuating.
I once worked for a DoD contractor. It wasn't pretty.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "simplistic" -- or what in your post is "insightful." But I have worked for both the government and for government contractors -- and it was/is an honor. I was surrounded by bright people working on projects that they believed in -- projects that provide my nation (any many others) the security we enjoy today. These people are making a difference. I'm sorry your experience "wasn't pretty" but without more information, I can't really comment on the experience. Pe
Other than market share, are they really different from Boeing in any significant way? Both companies make civilian aircraft and rockets, and both do defense contracting.
Yes. Boeing makes high reliability commercial aircraft while Scaled Composites specializes in experimental prototypes and airplane kits for hobbyists. Boeing also picks up a lot more pork (ie, public funding with little risk or strings attached).
Both companies make civilian aircraft and rockets, and both do defense contracting.
Sure, and both have vowels in their corporate name, and both are run by men who wear pants to work and not togas. But on what many see as the key point of whether a company is willing to try radically new and different ways of getting into space, ways independent of the heavy hand of NASA bureaucratic design requirements -- and this is the "independent" I suspect the OP meant -- they're as different as chalk and cheese.
Boeing, like all aerospace majors, has tended to be very cautious about space vehicle design, perhaps in part simply because the cost-plus nature of major NASA and DoD contracts has meant there's less incentive to innovate. Why try some weird new design that may fail if the same old boring design, just multiplied by sixty, will work fine? So what if costs $bazillions? Your profit margin is guaranteed no matter how bloated the budget gets. And that does not even get into micromanagement by Congress, changing the mission requirements every 9 months at random, and institutional conservatism in NASA/DoD.
What many people hope is that a small company that is independent of this process, in the sense that they don't have any long history with the Feds, or gigantic conventional-warfare contracts to preserve, can be more innovative, and break the apparent barrier to lowering access to space costs that seems to have solidified in the past 20 years. It seems to these people incredible that it costs no less (or at least not much less) to put x pounds in orbit in 2006 than it did in 1969. They suggest it arises from fossilization in the big aerospace industry, fused with too-close a relationship to NASA/DoD, who are themselves paralyzed by the fickleness of Congress' support and the lack of any clear vision from the President.
Whether this is a true diagnosis of the situation remains to be seen, and people like Scaled, SpaceX, X-Cor, Virgin Galactic, et cetera will prove it one way or the other fairly soon.
What many people hope is that a small company that is independent of this process, in the sense that they don't have any long history with the Feds, or gigantic conventional-warfare contracts to preserve, can be more innovative, and break the apparent barrier to lowering access to space costs that seems to have solidified in the past 20 years
Innovation? In aerospace, where everything positively has to have wings, including spacecraft? I'll tell you the innovation I' like to see: standard buses for satelli
Academia uses non-rad-hardened stuff due to cost. If you don't need it to last for X years, and you don't mind it resetting occasionally at random intervals when the RAM glitches, and you don't mind the odd bit of noise on your CCD, then you can make your microsat for several orders of magnitude less. This is important for academia, which doesn't have the pork budget that defense does. Wings are only important as a way of getting down safely. Chutes are OK but there are problems steering them to land at a
Boeing, like all aerospace majors, has tended to be very cautious about space vehicle design, perhaps in part simply because the cost-plus nature of major NASA and DoD contracts has meant there's less incentive to innovate. Why try some weird new design that may fail if the same old boring design, just multiplied by sixty, will work fine? So what if costs $bazillions? Your profit margin is guaranteed no matter how bloated the budget gets.
Actually, when I worked for the DoD, "cost-plus" contracts (short for
Hey, thanks for the insider's perspective. It was very interesting reading. One of the reasons I enjoy/. at random moments. As a taxpayer and space enthusiast from the Apollo days, I'm not that unhappy with government and NASA. I figure they do pretty much as best as they can, given what Congress and by extension we the people tell 'em to do.
Now I'm older, and have experienced more government for myself, I think maybe it just has to go into private hands. You need someone like Musk or Branson at the top
I'll bet that the White Knight is expensive to operate. Maybe NASA should use the X-4000 [uncoveror.com] to launch the X-37 once they are done with these tests.
Ether? So it's going from the minds of rocket scientists, to reality, and then to the minds of 19th century physicists [wikipedia.org] and scholars from ancient greece [wikipedia.org]? Impressive!
NTSB Transcript: WK Capt: Release! X37: Shit! Shit! Like flying a goddamned brick! CWS*: (Warning!Warning!)(Decent rate)(!WHOOP!)(!WHOOP!) X37: Come on, come on, nose down you fuck! RSO*: Xray three seven is Flight Level three two zero, droping like a brick! LA CTR*: rgr Xray three seven, would you like to declare?! X37: Negative LA, Xray three seven is A.O.K. CWS: (!WHOOP!)(!WHOOP!)(Decent rate!) X37 (intercom): Come on you piece of fucking shit!...
*CWS - Cockpit Warning System *RSO - Range Safety Officer *LA CTR -
I don't want to seem insincere here, but I really liked this bit
"The author was insuccessful in spelling "successful"."
How are we to measure success (or the lack thereof) in this context (or is it a contest?) ? How are we to make a comparison between 2 dumbasses ? Their relative success in the speciality must be remarked ! What is the correct plural form of "dumbass" ? The need of a plural form is a worry !
Oh s**t, never mind !
Damn metric/standard conversion! Was the lenght of the runway measured in meters or feet? Get the guy that worked on the Mars orbiter, I know he knows how to convert this stuff correctly.
Ahh yes. The joys of subcontractors. The braking system was not done by Boeing, but rather a subcontractor.
Anyways, I have had the opportunaty to work with the X37 team at Boeing. The landing is all automated. I've seen the simulations run on Suns at my work. cool stuff and congrats to the flight software folks.
The shuttle has no breaks, neither does SpaceShip 1. Extra weight which has no or little use. The former uses parachutes to break and the latter uses a slide instead of a front wheel which doubles up as a friction break. Dunno about Buran, but I would not be surprised if it has no breaks either.
The former [the Shuttle] uses parachutes to break and the latter uses a slide instead of a front wheel which doubles up as a friction break.
Actually, the parachute the Shuttle deploys on landing serves mostly to keep the nose landing gear off the ground until the Shuttle slows, it's quite capable of landing without it. (The parachute was added after the Shuttle was flying.) This reduces the loading on the rather fragile nose gear.
The shuttle has no breaks, neither does SpaceShip 1. Extra weight which has no or little use. The former uses parachutes to break and the latter uses a slide instead of a front wheel which doubles up as a friction break. Dunno about Buran, but I would not be surprised if it has no breaks either.
How did you manage to misspell "brake" when the post you were replying to even supplied the correct spelling?
Also, all of those examples you gave actually do have wheel
Actually, the grandparent post was about as close to a literal LOL as I allow myself at work.
I pictured an unmanned space object at the end of its life being deorbited, and then as it enters the atmosphere, shooting parachutes out from all sides like some bizarre space flower. The resulting stresses shatter the spacecraft into pieces, therefore it "uses parachutes to break".
True as that may be, I will always prefer a nice smooth touchdown and a leisurely taxi to the gate as opposed to trying that cool looking slide with the sounds and lights of emergency vehicles.
Air travel is bad enough without lowering the bar any further.;-)
Since the flight took place at Edwards AFB where the laid runways are several miles long and the rest of the desert is smooth and flat for miles around, either running out of runway was a non-event, or else it has a landing run of a hundred miles or more... which might need some work to fix. Like fitting brakes.
One look ath this beastie's tiny wings and it seems likely that it has to land a lot faster than a conventional plane or risk stalling. The space shuttle lands at about 200 knots, and this thing probably is even faster. So, if they were approaching at something like 250 knots, they're eating a mile about every twelve seconds or so. It'd be easy to to overshoot their intended landing point by a few miles, and since they don't have the option of aborting the landing and coming around for another try, it's no
Stuart Witt, manager of the Mojave Airport, was clearly pleased... "It's been good to see synergistic tests springboard off previous successes and capitalize on national assets like the White Knight for other uses," Witt said.
This guy must've managed a dotbomb company before taking a job at the airport.
i wouldn't say that necessarily, i've heard language like that from managers of everything from small manufacturing companies to huge industrial conglomerates
Apparantly the X-37 wasn't properly distracted at the critical moment. Either that, or one of the project's critics jumped out and said "You can't possibly be flying!", at which point, it became true.
Yes, yes, I know the issue wasn't exactly with the flight, but with the landing. However, landing is arguably part of flight, and still needs control...
"USA will likely use this project for warfare and opression." You're probably right about that. From the article:
DARPA picked it up in 2004 for its potential military applications. As far back as 2001, NBC News producer Robert Windrem reported that the craft could be adapted to serve as a "space bomber."
Considering they are thinking about adapting it into a space bomber, I think we can safely say that it will be used for "warfare":)
"USA fears Chinese millitary so it tries to develop weapons that Chinese army cannot shoot down or destroy"
Personally, if I were China, I'd spend less time worrying about Buck Rogers and more time worrying about the Seventh Fleet. You know, something far more terrestrial, closer to home, and something the Chinese military really can't do much about. But that's just me.
There really isn't any answer to your post. You've said it all. Perhaps the US might give away such equipment ; they would thus render the nuclear bomb obsolete and world peace closer. Perhaps you should stop watching "Star Trek". Perhaps you should get out more. I just don't know.
"Perhaps" was as far as I wanted to go - my feeling is that limits are required if you're dealing with other people's ideas. Didn't (and don't) want to disagree with anybody - just express my thought - if possible quietly.
Since this is Slashdot however, we do have the "because you can" syndrome. So, "because I can", I'll come down with my firm opinion about something - no perhaps.
Nobody, my cheerful old sir, should watch more television - it is bad for the health (mental and physical).
"A couple of well placed nukes would finish the 7th fleet."
Including the submarines? A single Ohio class carries 24 SLBMs, and any nuclear attack by China would result in a nuclear response from the United States, which China would assuredly loose (China's nuclear arsenal is nowhere near parity with the United States).
China's nuclear arsenal is about as much a meaningful threat to the US as space-based weapons are a meaningful threat to China. Again, it would make more sense for China to get back down to
Why would we care what's going on in mainland China? Without an effective counter to the US Navy, China can't realisticly threaten anything that would involve crossing water. The closest thing we have to an ally that shares a land border with China is India, and they have their own nuclear weapons. Forget Japan, PRC can't even stage an amphibious invasion of Taiwan if we were to decide to intervene. Control of the Pacific Ocean means it would be far more likely for the US to invade PRC, not the other way
well... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:well... (Score:2)
Re:well... (Score:2)
Sure beats the heck out of our missile shield, anyway
Re:well... (Score:1)
Not sure how to apply that to a robot...
Re:well... (Score:2)
10 do: walk
20 if: motion = yes, say "whew, all is well"
30 else, say "ow"
40 goto 10
50
60 profit!!
Better article source... (Score:2)
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/060407_x37_d
Re:well... (Score:1)
X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:2, Informative)
On a positive note, there are some excellent pictures of the White Knight and X-37 at Alan's Mojave Weblog [mojaveweblog.com].
Re:X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:5, Interesting)
Independent how? Scaled Composites has already done enough Pentagon projects to fully qualify as a member of the Military Industrial Complex.
Other than market share, are they really different from Boeing in any significant way? Both companies make civilian aircraft and rockets, and both do defense contracting.
Re:X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:2)
Re:X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow - that's incredibly simplistic.
There's a reason that Dwight Eisenhower was worried about the growth of the military industry - when it reaches (reached?) critical mass, it becomes self-perpetuating.
I once worked for a DoD contractor. It wasn't pretty.
Re:X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm sorry your experience "wasn't pretty" but without more information, I can't really comment on the experience. Pe
Re:X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. Boeing makes high reliability commercial aircraft while Scaled Composites specializes in experimental prototypes and airplane kits for hobbyists. Boeing also picks up a lot more pork (ie, public funding with little risk or strings attached).
yes, but let's ask about things that matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, and both have vowels in their corporate name, and both are run by men who wear pants to work and not togas. But on what many see as the key point of whether a company is willing to try radically new and different ways of getting into space, ways independent of the heavy hand of NASA bureaucratic design requirements -- and this is the "independent" I suspect the OP meant -- they're as different as chalk and cheese.
Boeing, like all aerospace majors, has tended to be very cautious about space vehicle design, perhaps in part simply because the cost-plus nature of major NASA and DoD contracts has meant there's less incentive to innovate. Why try some weird new design that may fail if the same old boring design, just multiplied by sixty, will work fine? So what if costs $bazillions? Your profit margin is guaranteed no matter how bloated the budget gets. And that does not even get into micromanagement by Congress, changing the mission requirements every 9 months at random, and institutional conservatism in NASA/DoD.
What many people hope is that a small company that is independent of this process, in the sense that they don't have any long history with the Feds, or gigantic conventional-warfare contracts to preserve, can be more innovative, and break the apparent barrier to lowering access to space costs that seems to have solidified in the past 20 years. It seems to these people incredible that it costs no less (or at least not much less) to put x pounds in orbit in 2006 than it did in 1969. They suggest it arises from fossilization in the big aerospace industry, fused with too-close a relationship to NASA/DoD, who are themselves paralyzed by the fickleness of Congress' support and the lack of any clear vision from the President.
Whether this is a true diagnosis of the situation remains to be seen, and people like Scaled, SpaceX, X-Cor, Virgin Galactic, et cetera will prove it one way or the other fairly soon.
Re:yes, but let's ask about things that matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Innovation? In aerospace, where everything positively has to have wings, including spacecraft? I'll tell you the innovation I' like to see: standard buses for satelli
Re:yes, but let's ask about things that matter (Score:2)
Wings are only important as a way of getting down safely. Chutes are OK but there are problems steering them to land at a
Re:yes, but let's ask about things that matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, when I worked for the DoD, "cost-plus" contracts (short for
thanks! (Score:2)
As a taxpayer and space enthusiast from the Apollo days, I'm not that unhappy with government and NASA. I figure they do pretty much as best as they can, given what Congress and by extension we the people tell 'em to do.
Now I'm older, and have experienced more government for myself, I think maybe it just has to go into private hands. You need someone like Musk or Branson at the top
Re:X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:2)
Re:X-37 is a DARPA-sponsored project (Score:1)
But apparently... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But apparently... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But apparently... (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for Choo-Choo-Choosing to post that, Ralph.
Re:Why exactly is this Slashdot-worthy? (Score:2, Informative)
The article is about something that in fact hasn't been done before. This is the first time they were able to let it go from the White Knight.
Or is there some joke in your post that I'm not getting?
Re:Why exactly is this Slashdot-worthy? (Score:1)
WK Capt: Release!
X37: Shit! Shit! Like flying a goddamned brick!
CWS*: (Warning!Warning!)(Decent rate)(!WHOOP!)(!WHOOP!)
X37: Come on, come on, nose down you fuck!
RSO*: Xray three seven is Flight Level three two zero, droping like a brick!
LA CTR*: rgr Xray three seven, would you like to declare?!
X37: Negative LA, Xray three seven is A.O.K.
CWS: (!WHOOP!)(!WHOOP!)(Decent rate!)
X37 (intercom): Come on you piece of fucking shit!
*CWS - Cockpit Warning System
*RSO - Range Safety Officer
*LA CTR -
Re:Why exactly is this Slashdot-worthy? (Score:5, Funny)
So what did you mean to be? A dumbass who can't read?
Re:Why exactly is this Slashdot-worthy? (Score:1)
I don't want to seem insincere here, but I really liked this bit
How are we to measure success (or the lack thereof) in this context (or is it a contest?) ? How are we to make a comparison between 2 dumbasses ? Their relative success in the speciality must be remarked ! What is the correct plural form of "dumbass" ? The need of a plural form is a worry !Oh s**t, never mind !
Engineering problem (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Engineering problem (Score:5, Funny)
Incorrect. The real Engineering problem was that the plane was too long.
Re:Engineering problem (Score:3, Funny)
Damn metric/standard conversion! Was the lenght of the runway measured in meters or feet? Get the guy that worked on the Mars orbiter, I know he knows how to convert this stuff correctly.
Re:Engineering problem (Score:1)
Re:Engineering problem (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/swr0047l.jpg [cartoonstock.com]
'Not only is this the shortest runway I've ever seen it's also the widest!'
Re:Engineering problem (Score:2)
Ahh yes. The joys of subcontractors. The braking system was not done by Boeing, but rather a subcontractor.
Anyways, I have had the opportunaty to work with the X37 team at Boeing. The landing is all automated. I've seen the simulations run on Suns at my work. cool stuff and congrats to the flight software folks.
Overheard comment by landing gear engineer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Overheard comment by landing gear engineer (Score:3, Interesting)
The shuttle has no breaks, neither does SpaceShip 1. Extra weight which has no or little use. The former uses parachutes to break and the latter uses a slide instead of a front wheel which doubles up as a friction break. Dunno about Buran, but I would not be surprised if it has no breaks either.
Re:Overheard comment by landing gear engineer (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Overheard comment by landing gear engineer (Score:2)
Actually, yes it does [nasa.gov].
Actually, the parachute the Shuttle deploys on landing serves mostly to keep the nose landing gear off the ground until the Shuttle slows, it's quite capable of landing without it. (The parachute was added after the Shuttle was flying.) This reduces the loading on the rather fragile nose gear.
Re:Overheard comment by landing gear engineer (Score:2)
The shuttle has no breaks, neither does SpaceShip 1. Extra weight which has no or little use. The former uses parachutes to break and the latter uses a slide instead of a front wheel which doubles up as a friction break. Dunno about Buran, but I would not be surprised if it has no breaks either.
How did you manage to misspell "brake" when the post you were replying to even supplied the correct spelling?
Also, all of those examples you gave actually do have wheel
Re:Overheard comment by landing gear engineer (Score:1)
Actually, the grandparent post was about as close to a literal LOL as I allow myself at work.
I pictured an unmanned space object at the end of its life being deorbited, and then as it enters the atmosphere, shooting parachutes out from all sides like some bizarre space flower. The resulting stresses shatter the spacecraft into pieces, therefore it "uses parachutes to break".
Re:Overheard comment by landing gear engineer (Score:1)
sounds like it passed the test then (Score:2, Insightful)
any landing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:any landing (Score:1)
Re:any landing (Score:1)
Re:any landing (Score:2)
Well, if they can't leave again, then you're kinda stuck, and you might as well have crashed [:^}
Re:any landing (Score:3, Funny)
True as that may be, I will always prefer a nice smooth touchdown and a leisurely taxi to the gate as opposed to trying that cool looking slide with the sounds and lights of emergency vehicles.
Air travel is bad enough without lowering the bar any further.
Set It Free (Score:1)
It didn't want to stop flying.
Ran out of runway? At Edwards...?! (Score:2)
Re:Ran out of runway? At Edwards...?! (Score:2)
So, if they were approaching at something like 250 knots, they're eating a mile about every twelve seconds or so. It'd be easy to to overshoot their intended landing point by a few miles, and since they don't have the option of aborting the landing and coming around for another try, it's no
Spin (Score:1)
These guys need the White House spin doctors to make this look good...
"The test was successful because it ran off the end of the runway, after all, isn't "run" the operative word here?"
This quote says it all... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This quote says it all... (Score:1)
Seriously, though...I was thinking the EXACT same thing. This guy has corporate buzzspeak down pat.
Re:This quote says it all... (Score:2)
The Microsoft way (Score:1)
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
so? (Score:2)
Re:Successful? (Score:1)
Re:Successful? (Score:1)
Re:Successful? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Successful? (Score:2)
Re:Successful? (Score:2)
Ow, my head hurts.
Whoosh (Score:1)
Re:Successful? (Score:1)
Diamonds are forever (Score:2)
Our president, Dr. Blofeld, has already been working on this for a long time now.
Re:USA will use this project for war (Score:2, Insightful)
DARPA picked it up in 2004 for its potential military applications. As far back as 2001, NBC News producer Robert Windrem reported that the craft could be adapted to serve as a "space bomber."
Considering they are thinking about adapting it into a space bomber, I think we can safely say that it will be used for "warfare"
Re:USA will use this project for war (Score:1)
Personally, if I were China, I'd spend less time worrying about Buck Rogers and more time worrying about the Seventh Fleet. You know, something far more terrestrial, closer to home, and something the Chinese military really can't do much about. But that's just me.
Re:USA will use this project for war ... why sure (Score:1)
There really isn't any answer to your post. You've said it all. Perhaps the US might give away such equipment ; they would thus render the nuclear bomb obsolete and world peace closer. Perhaps you should stop watching "Star Trek". Perhaps you should get out more.
I just don't know.
Re:USA will use this project for war ... why sure (Score:1)
"Perhaps" was as far as I wanted to go - my feeling is that limits are required if you're dealing with other people's ideas. Didn't (and don't) want to disagree with anybody - just express my thought - if possible quietly.
Since this is Slashdot however, we do have the "because you can" syndrome. So, "because I can", I'll come down with my firm opinion about something - no perhaps.
But there, of c
Re:USA will use this project for war (Score:1)
Including the submarines? A single Ohio class carries 24 SLBMs, and any nuclear attack by China would result in a nuclear response from the United States, which China would assuredly loose (China's nuclear arsenal is nowhere near parity with the United States).
China's nuclear arsenal is about as much a meaningful threat to the US as space-based weapons are a meaningful threat to China. Again, it would make more sense for China to get back down to
Re:USA will use this project for war (Score:2)
Re:USA will use this project for war (Score:1)
Control of the Pacific Ocean means it would be far more likely for the US to invade PRC, not the other way
Re:USA will use this project for war (Score:2)
Re:Reminds me of my first time... (Score:1)