For anyone in the DC/VA/MD area, I will be giving a talk on the OSM and Copenhagen Suborbitals as well, at the SpaceUP DC conference on the 27th and 28th of August.

Copenhagen Suborbitals Facebook page

Open Space Movement Facebook page

For anyone wondering, there's another little project in the works, designed to help support existing organizations such as Copenhagen Suborbitals, as well as individuals interested in manned space exploitation. Aka, the Open Space Movement.

The gist of this project is something akin to "sourceforge.net" for aerospace engineering, although that would be a gross oversimplification. The OSM operates on the principle that public involvement is the key to large-scale manned spaceflight in the near future, and operates as a service and organizational platform to help rally public interest, and direct their efforts towards a series of public space ventures.

The site is nearing completion, and should be ready for a beta test in the next week or two. When we begin operations, the first thing we have planned is providing a grant towards Copenhagen Suborbitals. We have raised ~1500 out of 5000$ so far. Having talked with Kristian von Bengstrom, this amount is roughly equivalent to the cost of the propellants used in the HEAT-1X motor. More importantly, providing a 5000$ grant now makes it possible to provide a 50,000$ grant in the future - since the primary incentive behind our donation model is to show exactly what we've spent money on, and what advances have come out of it.

(we intend to spend money on in-house user-submitted projects as well, but a grant is easier to perform at this stage)

OSM and Copenhagen Suborbitals thread here

FUN FACTS:

FY2010 NASA budget: 18 billion dollars
2005-adjusted cost of Apollo Program: 170 billion dollars.

Gross sales of cell phones in 2008: 38 billion dollars
sales of cell phones in a recent 6 month period: 65 billion dollars

We are currently spending more money on cell phones in one year, than the Apollo program spent in a decade.

Very rough estimate of Copenhagen Suborbitals' operating costs over past 2 years: 200,000$ to 300,000$

Sales of ringtones in the US market for 2008: 750,000,000$

Sales of "5 dollar footlongs" in Subway franchises in 2008: 3,200,000,000$

The public has more disposable income than the budgets of all space agencies and for-profit corporations combined. The OSM wants to put that to work.

After all, we already bought the Internet.

There's another thread of interest in there, involving an organization that aims to become the "sourceforge.net" of aerospace engineering. Their site should be ready within another week or so, as a collaborative development environment, skill-matching social network, and space science/engineering knowledgebase.

It also happens, their first official act will be a grant of approximately 5000$ towards Copenhagen Suborbitals. We have raised about 1500$ so far.

http://osm.chipin.com/osm-jul-2010

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3335167

The "Open Space Movement" supports Copenhagen Suborbitals.

Now why can't our personal information enjoy the same level of secrecy?

While the FY2010 budget for NASA is 18 billion, I find it interesting to note that the amount spent on cell phone handsets in 2008 was around 37 billion.

Or if you look at the past six months of cell phone handset sales from the top manufacturers - closer to 65 billion.

The public's disposable income could practically fund it's own space program.

Not yet, but soon.

It would appear that the tammogotchi has a thriving offspring.

And this is why I play games - not work them as a second job.

Something tells me that being able to take virtually any actor and use them virtually in a film is going to open up two rather annoying types of movies:

Porn movies with well known actors

Chinese alternative history movies where well known US actors find themselves on the losing side of World War 2.

Admittedly it's a bit argumentative, but the content on cellular processes was pretty top notch. I actually learned something new from it.

Much like someone who copies the content of their old computer straight over to a new computer every few years. Repeat this process a few billion times, and you'll be quite surprised at the amount of sheer useless crap that just keeps getting copied. Voila! DNA.

This is a fairly good little video that explains how RNA monomers end up naturally forming into longer polymer chains. Roughly 95% of our DNA is basically crap that only exists because at some point in the past, it was better at copying itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg

NASA's budget of about 17 billion sounds like a fair amount - more so than any private venture could hope to raise.

However, consider that the US market for cell phones and related service is expected to top about 37 billion for 2009. Ringtones alone account for about half a billion.

Sales of Subway's "5 dollar footlongs" have amounted to around 2.6 billion so far.

I really do not consider money to be the issue blocking space access. Remember, the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and shuttle programs were all funded by US taxpayers. And if you want a better example, realize that we bought the Internet with only 2 decades worth of disposable income. The public is the real driving force behind funding these sorts of things. We spend more on cell phones in 4 years than the Apollo program did in 10.

This is why I am developing the Open Space Movement. Basically, a collaborative development environment + educational resource/reference library + vendor marketplace + funding aggregation point to allow people to publish any sort of project which may be tested, prototyped, and produced for use within a series of public space ventures.

If anyone is interested in this, drop a line to openspacemovement @ gmail.com

We have recently filed for incorporation, and will file for non-profit 501(c)3 status upon receipt of our paperwork. Our website is currently under development at www.osmdevel.org. Register and make use of the forums if you wish. We plan to migrate things to the live site within the next few weeks.

We hope this will be useful for everybody.

Apis oBEEsity.

This actually sounds fun - but its going to make the physical brutality (exercise!) of certain Wii games look like a walk in the park (also exercise).

I can only wonder if there have been other deaths in this program that did not make the news.