Could we win the X prize?

[stuperfied]

Did you ever just sit there wondering about new technologies, all the world's problems and galaxies far away only to say to yourself "Why don't they just do it." or "They have it so why don't they use it"?.

I think that if enough of us users got togeather, with all of the knowledge and specialisation unique to each of us we could actually take controll and do some of those things.

Some of us may just be contributing labor other's may contribute experience in a specialised area.

Suppose for a moment that we were going to, does anyone have any ideas as to what we might do?

[gorphon]

well, we'd need some budding physicists to go over the propulsion requirements, Im sure there is some kind of per pound propulsion formula.... then you'd need some aspiring engineers to work on ships systems- com, nav and things such as air and waste reclamation as well- and lets not forget hull integrity! that would be the most important aspect if you ask me. as well as power system redundancies, emergency measures of some sort......

yeah. we could do it. so now, the question is, do you have half a million bucks to throw around?

if so, send me a plane ticket. Im in.

[Ken17625]

Beam me up scotty.

[stuperfied]

Originally posted by gorphon
well, we'd need some budding physicists to go over the propulsion requirements, Im sure there is some kind of per pound propulsion formula.... then you'd need some aspiring engineers to work on ships systems- com, nav and things such as air and waste reclamation as well- and lets not forget hull integrity! that would be the most important aspect if you ask me. as well as power system redundancies, emergency measures of some sort......

yeah. we could do it. so now, the question is, do you have half a million bucks to throw around?

if so, send me a plane ticket. Im in.

At current times a vast amount of the weight of a rocket is due to the onboard fuel systems and it is estimated that it cost's around 1 half a million dollars to get 1 pound of pay load into space.

A team of researchers have been working on solving this problem and have come up with a new engine which attempts to reduce the weight problem by eliminating the oxygen from the fuel tanks. http://www.you.com.au/news/1038.htm

I am sure you can find other articles on this subject but put simply it injects compressed air from the atmosphere into the propolsion system

What I am trying to say is that the per pound propulsion formula you are refering to is about to change dramatically and the millions of dollars you are refering to is greatly reduced.

In reality such a venture would be sponsored by large corporations.

[gorphon]

Ive read about the X prize before. in essence, it is a prize (10 million USD I believe) offered to anyone who can send a manned rocket into orbt and back. and, if I remember right, have it ready for continued operation within 10 days. (I think)

basically, it was started to find a way to send a rocket into orbit for much less money then the figures you quoted above. and currently, smething like half the known teams competing are private- albeit with sponsorship from many people. however, no one is going to sponsor a project like that on your word, you woud need funding of your own to get the ball rolling.

edit: btw, I wasnt talking about price per pound.... I was talking about propulsion needed per pound of weight.

[stuperfied]

I think your right about the funding, It might be possible through donations of money and volunteered time to get the ball rolling on a small scale at first and work up from there.

Sorry, I thought you were refering to Propellant in lay-mans terms not pounds per square inch of Propulsion. I will try to find a formula (To satisfy my own curiosity).

[stuperfied]

The Energy required for a space shuttle weighing 50 tonne including rockets, boosters, fuel tanks, fuel and pay load (in other words the whole lot) to achieve escape velocity is just the gravitational potential energy.


E = Energy
G = Universal Gravitation
M = Mass of the Earth
m = mass of object (in this case a space shuttle)
r = radius of the Earth

E = GMm / r = 6.67x10^-11 x 5.98x10^24 x 50,000 / 6.4x10^6 = 3.12x10^12 Joules.

It's the closest I have been able to find to the propulsion requirements per pound and if you want it in per pound it's just a simple matter of doing the devission and conversion.
Just incase anyone is interested.

Anyone from australia, $10 million US, that's about $20 million Australian.

So, who's in?

[artificial_tiger]

He Is Basicly a Tripper
If ANY of u have austa u will notice that about TWO yrs ago there was a doco on the X prize AND the about the group that one it.... now unless there is a new one? (which there may be) i think that u better do some more research to see if it still exsists before u go any further..... and btw WAY to much of wat u said is "in theory" to get anywere come back to earth for a min and look at tech. we have today and then expands on it methinks..... anyways cya's all hope u got sumthin to THINK about...

[artificial_tiger]

Hey,
just a quick note.... the x-prize is still up for grabs http://www.xprize.org/ so it seems :-\ but i still think u got some SERUOIS work to do before even thinking about it......... anyways just wanted to correct that cyas

[stuperfied]

So now that we know it's still up for grabbs I think it's time we started planning, but first we need to know if there is enough people here in zeropaid that are interested in being a part of it.

As you said gorphon, first we need a physasist and just incase we can't find one I am reading up on HSC physics now and i'm enrolling in Tafe too.

I wonder if Zeropaid would like being host to an International X Prize Team.

If you think that the X Prize is too higher goal to start with then post some other suggestions for what we might do.

[ronniebravo]

I think you are right on the money. There is strength and knowledge in numbers and if we all got together we could accomplish a great deal.

[stuperfied]

Thanx, does that mean we can count on your support ronniebravo?