Flight School II
More notes from Flight School afternoon sessions, in the extended entry. Anybody know how to make MT preserve hard line breaks, but still do word wrap?
Why space? Louis Friedman, Planetary Society Michael Simpson, International Space University Robert Zubrin, Mars Society One major product of space is inspiration NASA is doing this well with Mars and Saturn missions Sun-sail is the only viable interstellar mode of transport Space is unforgiving, so what is your failure model, how will you recover We have a chance to change humanity as fundamentally as those first who left east Africa and colonized the rest of the world Burt Rutan and X-Prize didnt touch very many people space shuttle and government programs are what people hear about Barry Bonds is having more impact in Scottsdale today than this conference [seems overly pessimistic to me] George Dyson: On the Orion: He was 5, Esther 7 when Freeman was on Orion another guy was going to take his kids, Freeman was not Plan was that Freeman grandkids would be born on another planet Final reports have been declassified, and heavily censored Now we know what we dont know They built a flying model, with 1kg charges of c4 At the time physicists were allowed 400lbs of c4 without adult supervisions not any more Lots you can do without people The war business is about killing as many people as possible as reliably as possible, whereas the space business is about killing as few as possible as reliably as possible, but they use the same technology interesting Brad Edwards Carbon Designs Space Elevator First elevator 20ton capacity 13 ton payload Cost $10b,15 yrs Operating costs $100/lb to any earth orbit Doing testing now on carbon nanotubes, believe they are much less explosive than Freeman believes Carbon Designs is working on carbon nanotube based materials, 5-7 Gigapascals right now, going to 20-50 soon, striking distance for SE Industry is still small, a few hundred, and a few from Europe, China, etc China does have a lot of carbon nanotube research, they could potentially do this Soon someone will build a space elevator, and then the question of who owns the moon and Mars will have been answered Carbon Designs is going after terrestrial market for now, golf clubs, etc - not focused on space elevator On the Space Elevator, working with foundations to set up centers for tourism, merchandising to fund some engineering Jeff Greason Xcor Aerospace Believe that private sector exploration is a good partner for public sector Space has an abundance of vision, but lacks execution and tactical focus Located in Mojave, 14 people Jess Sponable Air Force Research Lab Nice survey of technologies explored, billions of dollars expended Have the tech today to do space exploration Need a few things: 1. Thermal Protection Systems: Come back through atmosphere, need to dissipate a lot of energy to do that and stay alive Have systems today 10-100x more durable than shuttle 2. Propulsion: rocket engines are 10-100x what jet engines are, still need advances here 3. Tanks are the key thing design ships as flying propellant tanks 4. Avionics and software: lots of people who think they can apply computer tech to launch systems for much less $ Peter Diamandis X-prize - the prize works They had a really hard time raising the $ Good story - went to an ins company, made a multi-million dollar bet - if the prize isn't won by Jan 1 2005, then they keep the $, but if it is, they pay the whole $10m - leverage They went to Boing, Lockheed, and figured nobody would win Tried to renegotiate in 2004, but they got through it Leverage was incredible Peter is also CEO of ZeroGravity Cost is $3750 per person Convert a DHL cargo jet during the day to do zero g flights with 27 people per flight Do lots of corporate events, television and movie work Going national Only pay for the plane when they fly it, so make $ every time they fly Looking for funding, have raised $4m so far Revenues in first 6 mos about $2.5m, expect about $6m in first year High margin business Eric Anderson Space Adventures Were the ones who did Dennis tito, Mark Shuttleworth, have 2 more clients in the pipe - only company to send tourists to space Also sell experiences in MiGs, ZeroGravity, astronaut training in centrifuges, deep sea submersibles, etc Working with some other providers to do suborbital flights Founded 1997 Claim that there are 15,000 people who would pay $100k to go to space Raised about $2-3m 3-4 years ago They were a broker for Dennis Tito's flight, but changing model to rep the seats - bought them in advance, and now re-selling them Charles Miller Constellation Services International Space cargo services Comment to Bruce at NASA: we don't need tech partnership, we need you as a customer - please go outside NASA for services