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It was a bit of a shock to read, in my old local newspaper, that F-15 fighter/bomber aircraft used by the US Airforce are suffering quite so much from wear and tear. They are currently based at RAF Lakenheath, west Suffolk.
At one stage, East Anglia, the flat bit of the UK, was rather like a gigantic airfield with more than 100 airfields for British and American fighters, bombers, recon aircraft and transportation. Even after WW2, when the Liberators, Flying Fortresses, Mustangs and Thunderbolts no longer buzzed around, the area played host to the jets of the Cold War era. It was a common experience on my parent’s farm to be walking around and suddenly, at about 100ft above the ground, a pair of Jaguar jets or an American A-10 “tankbuster” would come over (the latter was eerily quiet, and had an enormous 30mm cannon mounted in the nose). Now it is almost all gone. In a silly sort of way I rather miss the din of jet aircraft. But then, we won the Cold War. It is never a mistake to remind ourselves of that fact.
With a little help from her friends, Japan has sent a loud and clear message to North Korea.
The interceptor fired by the JS Kongo knocked out the target warhead about 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean, said the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, which carried out the test together with the Japanese and U.S. navies.
Tokyo has invested heavily in missile defense since North Korea test-fired a long-range missile over northern Japan in 1998. It has installed missile tracking technology on several navy ships and has plans to equip them with interceptors.
The SM-3 is certainly a good enough interceptor to handle the appropriately named North Korean ‘Nodong’ ICBM. I say that because they seem to be as likely to fail as to get where they are going.
Most of us grew up expecting the flying car would eventually come to pass. One of the more successful attempts occurred in the 1950’s but although some were produced, it never made it into the mass market. Although I cannot substantiate it, I understand the FAA of the time was rather horrified at the thought of such large numbers of people flying. Whether true or not, there are very real problems associated with aircraft which one does not face with a car: you cannot pull an airplane over to the side of a cloud when something goes BONK in the night.
Another issue is flying requires a pilot. Even with the new US FAA sport flying category, getting your ticket is no mean feat. Being a flyer does not just mean you know how to point the thing. It implies you are conversant with the rules of a three-dimensional sea, one whose buoys are marked with radio waves and whose small craft must stay out of the way of large aircraft not just for their own safety but for the safety of the heavy iron as well.
This is not to mention knowledge of meteorology, the jargon required to talk to towers and other pilots in order to communicate critical information quickly through sometimes noisy radio systems and all the rules and regulations which encode the hard won wisdom of a century of flight and the loss of thousands of lives. I could go on for a very long time but I will just say that being a pilot right now requires a skipload of skills and knowledge.
However, as we move deeper into the 21st century, some of these problems are abating. With smart systems and eventually self-repairing systems we will get flying machines which either won’t take off when there is a problem or get you down before it gets serious. With autonomous AI systems development moving along the way it is (think UCAV’s!) the knowledge base of the pilot will more and more be embedded in the avionics and the ‘driver’ will simply point the thing.
For all this to happen there has to be a Transition that opens up the market. And that machine may finally be here:
An aeronautical startup called Terrafugia has developed a small airplane called the Transition that it says can take to the sky as easily as the road. It is about the size of a large SUV and features innovative folding wings that collapse with the press of a button. Terrafugia calls it a “personal air vehicle.”
The team behind the Transition still has to design a drivetrain to propel the craft and a mechanism to transfer power from the propeller to the wheels, but it expects to begin flight tests late next year.
Production could begin as early as 2009, and Terrafugia says it’s already received more than 30 orders.
You will still need to be a real pilot, but at least you can save on the hangar or tie down fees.
Diamond Aviation, a UK General Aircraft company, has test flown its single engine private jet.
Oh, if I were a rich man…
The following is a short story I penned for a theme issue of Ad Astra magazine. It did not make the cut on that particular issue so I have decided to share it with our Samizdata readership instead. It was, by the way, written before the accident at Mojave Spaceport… Dale Amon, Samizdata Editor… and Chair of the National Space Society Conference Coordinating Committee
Another load of tourists arrived last night (we run UTC here) so I am just getting up and having my morning coffee, or what passes for coffee here in Heinleintown, the main residential tube of Luna City. You see, I work at the Bigelow, and new arrivals are so biologically confused and excited to be here after the two day cruise on the big Virgin cycler that we just keep the bar open until they finally fade off to their rooms. Depending on the age group, that sometimes takes awhile, but they tip well so I can not complain.
Actually I have very little to complain about. I am here, and I am alive, and neither of those would have seemed very probable to someone 50 years ago. I sometimes remember a friend of mine, Gary Barnhard, writing an article for Ad Astra about what it might be like now. No idea where he is off to these days. Last I heard he was off in the asteroid belt on a project to convert an asteroid into a commercial simputer, a gadget to model pretty much anything you could ever want to model. An entire asteroid as a computer. The mind boggles… but then the nanotechnology which allows that is the reason I am here at all. One hundred and seven. Imagine that. I sometimes repeat it and shake my head in disbelief that we actually have managed to create most of Dr Leary’s “SMI^2LE” [Space Migration, Intelligence Increase and Life Extension]. Perhaps even more amazing was that we actually survived the nanotechnology transition. I guess it helped that the superpower competition between the USA, India and China was ‘mostly peaceful’, to paraphrase a long forgotten humorist.
It did help being in the center of it back in the ‘oughties’ and early ‘teens’ when things really started cracking open. I was there watching it happen. Hell, I was there helping to make it happen. I can still remember the sight of those early contraptions lifting off from our spaceport in the Western US. Rocketplane Kistler, Virgin Galactic, Masten, Armadillo, SpaceX, BlueOrigin, XCOR and the
rest. Household names now. Some of them anyway. Some failed, some merged… and one fell apart after the big accident. I had known the guy for 30 years. We all had because in those days the whole business was a small family. We had all quite literally grown up together. I wish I could say that was the only close friend I lost to satiate Murphy, but it was not. There were and will be more. Perhaps me some day. I am in great health still thanks to the nanocritters that cleaned me up from the inside out. It has been a long life and I am sorta catching my breath and smelling the daisies here in Luna City, just working the hotel bar and playing the old favourite songs of space flight. They figure I am part of the atmosphere because I lived those songs. They are not dusty history to me like to the party-hearty youngsters of last night.
Yep, I just might be getting ready to move out again. The moon is still empty but it is too close to Earth and I always did say “Happiness is the Earth in your Rear View Mirror”. A couple days ago I was talking to some of the guys from the Interstellar Consortium. Yeah, a bit early by a few centuries, but I like their style. A bunch of the guys from the early days, John, Elon, Jeff, Jim, Dave… people who know how to make things happen. Hell, they even got George Whitesides to front for them and help raise the capital. Got a big chunk from the National Space Society Exploration Fund, so we would be carrying their flag to the edge of the solar system.
The idea is to prove that Kuiper Belt Objects could provide the fuel and structures for a ‘slow boat’ to the nearest stars. As I said, I think they are a bit premature, but hell, how could I pass up a trip to the edge of the solar system? Even if we just stick the NSS flag on a few iceballs, it is a pretty cool thing to do.
And why bother living a few centuries if you do not have a dangerous adventure or two? I never was the stay at home type so at a hundred and seven this old space dog is not about to learn to stay in the doghouse. Besides which, I always did tell friends I intended to go downhill skiing on Europa at a hundred and twenty.
I just might manage to do that thing.
A fund has been set up to help the families of those killed and injured at Mojave. If any of you are interested, you can find out more at the July 29th entry here.
Scaled Family Support Fund
c/o Scaled Composites
1624 Flight Line
Mojave, CA. 93501
Acct # 04157-66832 / Wire xfer ABA Routing # 0260-0959-3 (Bank of America) /
Please make your check payable to “Scaled Family Support Fund”.
This is not a tax deductible donation.
Many will fall on the road to the stars. We must remember them as best we can.
Yesterday was a terrible day in the Mojave Desert, as many of you may have seen on the news by now there has been an explosion at space technology company Scaled Composites during testing of a propellant system. Three are dead and three more are in the hospital with injuries of varying severity.
This is a dangerous business we are in and we all know it. I feel somewhat relieved that none of them were people whom I knew well, but at the same time share some of the sense of loss which must be nearly overpowering to their co-workers.
If any of you at Scaled drop by here during this time of sadness, know that you are part of something greater. Your friends will be remembered.
As to the facts of the accident, I have little to add beyond what my coworker Rand Simberg has said.
Things were ‘mostly quieter’ for me on May 28th, the Sunday of the conference. I had my one and only chance to run about the exhibitor areas to pick up flyers, buy shirts… and acquire a few DVD’s of sessions I really wanted to see but could not due to being in demand elsewhere.
I briefly met Dr. Kistler of Rocketplane Kistler earlier but did not get a picture of him until he came by their exhibit for a photo op. I happened to be chatting with a friend who was manning their company table next to it so I joined the others. The hotel lighting in the public areas was rather problematic for my camera and few of the photos I took there were satisfactory. But hey, this is a really serious old school rocket scientist with a German accent.
Dr. Kistler, on the left, founded Kistler Aerospace. This merged with Chuck Laur’s company, Rocketplane, to become Rocketplane-Kistler. They have a contract from NASA for space station cargo delivery.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Late Sunday afternoon there was a demonstration which friends had told me about: Faster Than Light signal propagation. I am rather skeptical of such things but the demonstrator was a serious research physicist from Germany, I believe, so I had to go and see for myself.
All I can say is, I think I saw FTL comms. Nothing practical in real life as the difficulty increases with distance. This rather negates the reason you would want it in the first place. But over a distance of about 3 meters the return signal with the ‘barriers’ in returned faster than it did with the barriers out (normal light speed) as shown on an OScope synced to the outgoing pulse. He could even modulate it.
I will not go into detail here. You can look for yourself at the photos I took of his presentation. Look for photo numbers around dsc00616. I am still skeptical… but not quite as skeptical as before the demo.
Was it or wasn’t it? Demonstration of faster than light signal propagation.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Sunday night we had our closing banquet with Harrison Schmidt, the geologist who flew on Apollo 17 and one of the three Apollo guys at the conference. Actually this is not unusual as Harrison, Buzz and Rusty Schweikart are regulars and Buzz served as the Chairman of the Board through part of the nineties. Harrison has long been a promoter of human settlement and was given our O’Neill award in recognition of his efforts. Excuse the defect in the photo: I think the professional photographers flash went off just as I took this shot. She was standing right next to me.
Mark Hopkins bows in unworthiness before one of the last men to set foot on the moon.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
At the end of the banquet George Whitesides, NSS Executive Director, presented Carol Johnson and Ken Murphy with tokens of appreciation from the Society for their hard work. As the Chairman of the NSS Conferences Coordinating Committee I was sort of their ‘boss’ so I can publicly state they were a pleasure to work with over the last two and a half years, besides the fact that they ran a magnificent conference.
Yes, Ken really did wear a black hat. Carol got the roses since they would not have matched Ken’s je ne sais quoi…
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
And then we partied long into the night…
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
We crawled out of bed for the Society Town Hall Meeting…
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
And then, for the 26th time, it was over…
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
After the conference I spent a week in Dallas with an old friend. That will take us up to the beginning of June. So tomorrow: Aviation museums!
Or I hope so. I take a train to NYC tomorrow, repack, fly out to Denver and on to Laramie on space business Monday.
There was much of interest in the program of the ISDC, but I missed seeing most of it and much of what I did see was covered at the time by Glenn Reynolds and Rand Simberg among others. As I have noted before, I am part of the National Space Society management so I see a very different face of the conference than most attendees. Much of my time there would be terribly unexciting to write about. I very much doubt a detailed discussion of the 2009 conference site selection meetings, presentations, politics and such would be of a great deal of interest.
Today i will look at the May 26th evening of the conference via candid shots of the people and proceedings.
There is more to the space movement than rocket science. Art and music also have a place. We have had Space Art shows at every ISDC I have attended, which is all but four.
We had a fine Space Art show, thanks to Teresa Patterson and Kaz.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
We have had everything from John Denver (speaking only) to a Space Improv Theater group. At the one I ran years ago, we even had a ballet dance interpretation of Zero G done to a live electronic music performance. As one would expect, there are often filkers lurking about ready to spice up a party with “Home, Home on Lagrange” or “Ron, Ron, Ron, Deuteron, Ron, Ron Ron”.
I caught Rand Simberg, Glenn Reynolds and Alan Boyle chatting before the awards banquet on Saturday evening. Oh, and there was a former head of NASA Ames with us as well, just outside of the picture. I discovered he is a professional musician on the side so we hit it off quite well.
Why is it bloggers always seem to congregate in the bar?
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
The NSS annual award banquet is a big event for our community. We have several major awards: the Heinlein Award, a working model brass cannon on a hardwood base; the O’Neill award, a space colony replica; The Space Pioneer Awards, pewter lunar globes; and finally the Von Braun Award. The Heinlein and Von Braun alternate years. Both men were intimately involved with the founding branches of our society so this is a fitting way for NSS to honour extraordinary members of the space community.
Our Chairman of the Board of Directors (an Aussie), Kirby Ikin, bestows one of our highest honours upon Dr. Steve Squires of JPL.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Weeks before the event Mark Hopkins, one of our senior officers, asked if I could snap photos at the awards banquet. Even though there was a professional photographer, with equipment to die for also talking pictures in front of the podium, I did not realize I was being set up until my name was called…
Mark Hopkins bestows the NSS Exceptional Service Award upon a very surprised me.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
After the banquet came the receptions and a mobile party which finally settled in, with the tolerance of the hotel, in a 15th floor meeting area. This one lasted until dawn I believe, but I had to be up for the morning sessions so I only stayed until 3am. Or so.
Some of our people are very dedicated to getting off the planet.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Excuse the darkness but I preferred that to the loss of mood my flash causes. I loath flash shots and do them as little as I can. Perhaps someday I will own a camera that is fast enough to match my photgraphic tastes. Stabilization during long exposures would be nice…
The party was brought to us by the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) with a bit of assistance from our expert speaker to hotel staff.
Serious partiers… check.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Food… check..
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Alcohol… check. 6ft 4in Dallas conference chair in a white cowboy hat???… check.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
After arriving in Manhattan on the Boston train, I had just enough time to repack and get perhaps three hours of sleep before heading for the airport. My May 24th NY-Houston-Dallas flight was early enough that I was able to attend the latter half of the Space Venture Forum morning track.
I had loads of time to schmooze with potential customers, as well as listen to ‘the suits’ discuss venture funding, deal making, IPO’s and pitfalls. I am sure many here would have appreciated the slide which noted:
“Addiction” to Government Business Alone: Problems have emerged for companies that aimed solely at government markets and had substantial timing delays. Companies should avoid developing an “addiction” to government business since these companies will need cash for commercial development”
Glenn Reynolds also had a few things to say about how much real business has taken hold at the ISDC’s. It is definitely true. I went partially (and successfully) for business contacts for many years but this is the first year in which I represented a space venture. I may have been one of the persons quoted by Glenn and others and I spent one entire morning ‘under the lights’ as a talking head for someone’s documentary.
I particularly enjoyed the lunch, partially because I finally met Esther Dyson whom I have known ‘virtually’ for over a decade. She introduced the speaker, Tom Pickens, son of the capitalist hero T. Boone Pickens. Tom is a man who learned business from childhood. He has a protein crystal product which can only be produced in quantities on orbit and which is highly valuable for medicine. His demand projections are such that told everyone in the room he can fill whatever they can launch or return.
Tom Pickens says “You’ve got 24 months to get a seat at the table”.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Now I could go on about all of the marvelous speakers and news events of the conference, or talk about all of the meetings I ran or attended… but instead I will show some of the fun side of the first few days of the conference.
While I was chatting with some old friends, someone commented that our Executive Committee Chairman, Gary Barnhard, bears a striking resemblance to Dr. Gerard O’Neill, the inventor of the L5 Space Colony concept, who died around 15 years ago.
Gary Barnhard attempts to channel Dr. O’Neill.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Armadillo Aerospace brought ‘Pixel’, one of the Moon Lander Prize contenders, to the exhibit room. It was quite a center piece of a reception for rocket scientists and activists. It reminds you why you are here, even after quite a few bottles.
It is amazing how difficult it is to talk, hold your bottle and enjoy the nacho dip at the same time.
No we did not tap the fuel tanks when the cash bar closed.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Glenn Reynolds. Rand Simberg and I have known each other for over 20 years so of course we had to get together to discuss blogging and how to fix everything. We were also joined for awhile by Alan Boyle of MSNBC.
What do you mean, “we drank it all?”
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
I was surprised to see a native Texas gal I’d not seen in a few years. Turned out Kaz had been in London while with the USAF.
The world of rocket scientists has been improving steadily,
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
I caught Glenn Reynolds in mid post just before the Space Blogger summit at the conference.
The blogfather at work plotting world domination,
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
This brings me up to May 26th. I will try to post on the rest of ISDC 2007 tomorrow. If you can not wait, you will find hundreds of photos of the event in the archives.
Just a brief note… You can probably find stories from Rand and Glenn who are also here in Dallas at the 26th International Space Development Conference. Alan Boyle from MSNBC is with us and Jeff Foust is acting as the cat-herder.
It is that time of year again, when a young (or perhaps not so young) spacers thoughts turn to thoughts of the International Space Development Conference (ISDC). This year it is in Dallas – Fort Worth at the Intercontinental Hotel, over the Memorial Day weekend. In total it will run from Thursday May 24th to Monday May 28th although the core events are Friday through Sunday.
You can find out much more at the web site. This is going to be a great event. Many of the principals of the new commercial space revolution will be there so it is a great place to network if for you “Happiness is the Earth in my rear view mirror”.
I will be heading there immediately after I finish my webcast edit job on a big JP Morgan Technology business conference in Boston.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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