This is the “special announcement” from Flight School - not quite as exciting as I had hoped.
Brant Sponberg, Program Manager at NASA announced 2 new Centennial Challenges. One is for beaming power through space, and the other is for high strength-to-weight materials.
Read the Wired article for more info, or see my notes in the extended entry.
Vision for Space Exploration - document at NASA site that sets priorities and approach: NASA
Key points: create a predictable environment and sustainable budget Transition from government assets to private assets and services contracts New prize competitions
Centennial challenges: Build on Longitude Prize, X-Prize, DARPA Grand challenge, etc. Competition for non-federal teams led by US Citizens. Goals: stimulate innovation, high return on investment, inspire and educate the public
Have prize ideas in 4 categories:
Two challenges announced today:
Spaceward Foundation administers Challenges, Centennial Challenges provides prize purses
High strength-to-weight materials; Wireless power transmission at high power densities
2005 Beam Power Challenge:
2006 same, but
Tether challenge:
2006 same but
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 SocietyOne 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 recoverWe 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 didn’t 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 don’t 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 – interestingBrad 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 engineeringJeff 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 peopleJess 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 incrediblePeter 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 businessEric 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 themCharles 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
I’m at Flight School, and blogging some notes. The marginal utility of turning this in to readable prose is not very high to me, so for what it’s worth, here are the raw notes, in the extended entry.
Andrew Steinberg, General Counsel to the FAA: New equation: VLJ + advanced avionics + 5000 airports + the Web + $$$ = Disruptive Tech? Important questions: How do we guarantee your safety? Who’s responsible for your travel? Will you get there on time? Promise: service to small communities, pt to pt business travel, relief for congestion at major airports Models: shared ownership (fractional), air taxi, distributed services Safety paradigm: more robust regulation as moving from: Personal, non-commercial, piston power, GA airports for hire, complex jets, major hubs VLJ breaks rules: single pilot ops, not cert as transport jets, complex tech, but current rules: cannot carry passengers in sched service Mult and joint ownership all fit under part 91, fractional too, now even subleasing Question: treating fractionals more like scheduled air carriers? Airports ready? Safety requirements for commercial air carriers, environmental concerns, enhanced security post 9-11 Responsibility: must have commercial operating certificate, also a common carrier cert from DOT (lots of rules) Could imagine ebay/craigslist for private jet travel, but current regulatory environ would prohibit this Only the cert holder can operate a flight – operational control is key, FAA determines who is in charge – serious stuff Efficiency paradigm bedrock values: allow carriers and private aviators to go to/from any airport on any sched; all aircraft treated equally by air traffic, first come first served; ATC free of charge; build capacity through pavement, tech, and airspace redesign Traffic growing quickly, and light jets could be a big percentage Demand management: (carpool lane?); slot control airports (La Guardia expiring, O’Hare dropped, and reinstated); do you have a reservation? How many pax? Congestion pricing, and capacity auctions… Snow birds at Ft Lauderdale – winter weekend traffic from northeast delaying scheduled traffic Funding: financing the modernization of the airspace system; revenue system based on ticket prices; each new regional and light jet means less revenue per op for the Trust Fund; pits airline industry against general aviation Not now calling for user fees, but will be challenged to find the right revenue model He believes tech should drive regulation, not the reverse Pogo Don Burr Will have own jets He was at People Express, came out of deregulation in 1978 Same model reinvented in private transport format High productivity to drive efficiency Believe they can produce a seat-mile for $1 (with 4 on the plane) and sell it for $2. Real heavy lifting is on tech side, engines and aircraft They just have to find ways to produce it and distribute it seamlessly Who is the market? Believes he stimulates a new market, won’t steal traffic from commercial or even NetJets, but will take traffic from cars Peak price will be $6 per mile, even at peak demand times, and will be less than $6 most of the time Starting in the Northeast, possibly as soon as the fall of next year – bottleneck is certification of the planes Have received major financing for the purchasing of these aircraft, for the majority portion of their first 50 planes Jetson Systems Ed Iacobucci Have built a team of operations, programmers, researchers, demographers to build a model of how convenient air travel could work Long tail is a huge market, but poor for sched ops Working on some models to be able to do this efficiently, on-demand, within part 135, and profitably Profit depends on ability to aggregate demand, on demand, and be able to schedule backhauls His pricing may vary according to time available, but insists that price should be the same for each person who gets the same flight, and price shouldn’t change depending on how early you book, more depends on the time window you have available Corporate Clipper Gavin Stener Business was driven by the auto driver Move the smart people smarter Lawyers, consultants, high value people, travel plans typically 2-3 days in advance Target corporate travel depts. Have to be able to arbitrage, and manage demand Commercial transport: $150b, GA is $5-6b Segment $150b into refundable tickets Y-class people, get $30b, that’s their market 72% of high-end travel is driven by AmEx and other channels – can’t just do Orbitz They are not an operator, they do the arbitrage, drive the traffic, do the customer service Should be a cost plus model, consistent for everybody (nobody sits next to somebody that paid $300 less) Katherine Perfetti, FAA Have seen changes like this before: commuter aircraft and code-sharing, fractional aircraft ownership Facing some similar challenges with VLJ Are not totally reacting – have been involved from the beginning Now the challenge is how to integrate business models with the new tech Part 135 was written in 1978, mix of aircraft has changed substantially since then One tool: ARC Aviation Rules Committee, get recommendations from industry Should VLJs be operated by single pilot when commercial? DOT has issues too, currently enforcing against some aggregators Right now the rules don’t prohibit these new business models, but probably still need some adjustments Bruce Holmes, NASA Langley Likes a mental model related to the ISO stack Provides a model that has scalability, aids in thinking about the system Physical: airports Transport: aircraft Operations: ?? Applications What does scalability look like? Non-scheduled, distributed Delivered plan for nextgen air system to Congress in Dec 2004 Had 5 scenarios to plan for June 5-7 Danville VA, full demo of SATS system, whole system is in the vehicle New aircraft in this market are ready-made for this capability Both Ed and Don believe that the operator must own jets, both for business and regulatory environment – pushing back on Gavin Gavin responds that he has some biometric authentication and other IP, relationships with corp travel managers Moving to a variable cost market, they have operators lined up who want someone to manage the front end, willing to capitalize the aircraft and fly them, but don’t have the channel
At PCForum Flight School I just saw a pretty inspiring movie clip about the Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner missions made by George Butler, and have been listening to Bruce Holmes of NASA Langley talk about the future of both aviation and the space program. Bruce had an interesting idea I’m not sure I agree with: each revolution in communications has an accompanying revolution in transportation. He cited the telegraph and the railroads, and linked the telephone with the rise of the automobile. An interesting idea.
I’m at PC Forum and wanted to jot a couple of ideas that I heard here that I thought were worth writing down.
John Seely Brown and John Hagel led a moderately interesting discussion of loose coupling vs tight integration. Their main example was Chinese motorcycle companies, which were competing with Honda for the world motorcycle market. By loosely coupling with their suppliers, and working collaboratively, they were able to quickly innnovate the price of a motorcycle down from $700 to $200, while Honda was still at $900. There were two major reasons it worked: loosely coupled modules in a business process can be rearranged or reintegrated to form new things or try new ideas much more quickly than tight integrations. Also, innovation within a module is possible without disrupting the entire system. One other caveat: this mechanism needs a reference model to work from, in this case a Honda motorcycle. Other cases cited include Linux (working from the Unix reference) and Apache (from NCSA, among others).
One interesting company was SoloMio. They provide services through cell operators to allow quick response to an incoming call without necessarily answering it. Imagine when a call comes in from your wife, you can quickly select an option that responds with “I’m in a meeting - can I call you back in an hour?” This is a great idea, and it’s too bad it requires so much work on the part of the operators to implement. One idea I want to add to this is one that’s been kicking around in my head since about 1999, for a Bluetooth watch. No, I don’t want to get the time via Bluetooth. I want to know who is calling (caller ID) and have a set of 3-5 responses I can send with one touch. That way, when someone calls, I can just glance at my watch, and possibly press a button, to respond - with minimal interruption of the conversation or meeting I’m currently in.
There was also an interesting open source panel, with Kim Polese (CEO of SpikeSource) and Mitchell Baker (Chief Lizard Wranglers of the Mozilla Foundation, and boy does she look different from her picture in the program). They both represent large Open Source projects with corporate sponsorship. One thing we didn’t explore in too much depth was the shift (or maturity) from random developers from scratching their own itches and gratifying some ego, to real enterprise application development. To my mind, there is not always much of an intersection between the people with domain knowledge in an enterprise business process, and people with development capability. So, what is interesting is that in the new models it’s companies that are altruistic, not just people. Some companies have the farsight to realize that it is in their long term best interest to pay for the development of software that will be given away.
I’m at PC Forum, and I just missed an opportunity. I didn’t get much sleep last night, but that’s no excuse. There was an entire panel discussion on metadata and tags, with audience participation encouraged. I missed an opportunity to get on my favorite soapbox, and ask why photos don’t the ability to embed user-created metadata. I wrote about this before.
Basically, I always want the metadata to be closely coupled with the data itself. My big problem with Flickr is that if I take my photos somewhere else, I don’t get to keep my metadata. I don’t understand why we can’t store the tags in the EXIF, the same way we store ID3 tags in the MP3 file.
I got in late from golf^H^H^H^Han important business meeting, and all the dinner tables were filled except for the kids table. I had a very enjoyable dinner with about 7 14-year-olds. What was really nice was that for the most part these kids were mature and extremely smart.
To pretend I was working, I polled them for their technology habits. As expected, they were all quite computer literate, and used their computers (mostly Macs) a lot for school and play. However, I found a couple of surprising things.
One was that they all use AIM for instant messaging, without fail. Another was that none of them use email, at all. They all had cellphones, and considered them much more important than their computers. They do some SMS, but consider it too hard for real conversations, and mostly just call their friends, leaving voicemail if they need to. They do play computer games, and sometimes get really into them, but then the interest fades as they get into other things.
Not a scientific sample, at all, but I was surprised that for them IM and cellphones had made email irrelevant.