Space Forum / Space Policy / June 2004

Instead of spending millions of tax dollars on carbon-nanotube
and space elevator research, I think we would be better off
with a prize of $1 million for the first person/group/company to
demo a rope for each GPa from 1 GPa up to 50 GPa.  If someone demoed

Burt said something like, "I used to make airplanes but I got
bored with that and now I am making spaceships.".   This is from
memory, so the exact wording could be different.  But it sure
sounded like SpaceShipOne was just the first to be announced

Instead of spending millions of tax dollars on carbon-nanotube
and space elevator research, I think we would be better off
with a prize of $1 million for the first person/group/company to
demo a rope for each GPa from 1 GPa up to 50 GPa.  If someone demoed

What's the general consensus on the rest of the world's launch
monitoring capability?  We know that the DSP apparently detects things
all the way down to Backfires on afterburner, but DSP is a large
enough program that it's hard to keep secret, and I haven't heard of

I'm wondering if anyone here in this NG is going to see the launch of
SpaceShipOne in the Mojave desert June 21st. Anyone taking the whole family?

The Mojave Airport is a perfect place to test
airplanes and sounding rockets, but it is probably
the worst place on Earth to locate the space rocket
launch site -- Manhattan would be better. There is

http://www.space.com/news/kerry_report_040616.html
An excerpt:
“The most critical element of our space program should be reducing the
costs and increasing the reliability of space transportation to and from

I know nothing on this subject but have been recruited to help
someone with homework - the question is - Has there ever been a
rocket or cracft used called 'Alander'?
I have done a search, but cannot find this mentioned amongst

"The technology isn't the hard part," Diamandis said. "The hard part
is the money."
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20943~2237427,00.html
If that were true, the hard part would be over since NASA spends

Last week I discussed how we would start to terraform Mars. How will
we finish?
For me, I think that completion of terraforming means that (a)
conventional agriculture is possible over a sizable part of the

First off, major congrats to the Scaled, Vulcan and SpaceDev crews. I
saw the CNN web video, and it was great to see SS1 flying like that.
I'm wondering if this flight was an actual X Prize flight? Did they
carry the extra weight to simulate passengers, or was this another

I worked these out, and thought they might interest some here.  They are
just meant to be BOAE calculations, and you may want to design differently,
but they should be fairly realistic. They certainly support the idea that
fuel prices should be ignored as a design consideration, at ...

"the American people would rather reach for the stars than reach for
excuses why we shouldn't."
(http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1984/90384c.htm)

That's what Rutan's SpaceShip One is, AURORA!  It's the prototype to ensure
that the public don't think too much about seeing these things flying all
over the world all of a sudden - it's a cover!
See, _now_ the USAF/CIA (same thing isn't it?) can fly anywhere in the world

It struck me the other day that we might be ruining the solar system.
Let me explain.  Our use of gravity assist to speed up and sling
probes such as Cassini doesn't come for free.  It slows down the
planet we are using to sling the probe (conservation of momentum).