Fuuck the Middle East and their oil

[Mish]

I have a bike for you Indi, you can offset your carbon footprint here in Sydney

[anachronistic]

How about we find a way to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and use that to propel all our vehicles and processes?

[IndiReloaded]

You do know there's an X-prize for that, LW?

Mish, I was wondering about bicycles. Was thinking of taking ours, but too much hassle I think. Will look into buying/leasing some, I think.

[anachronistic]

What exactly is an X-prize? Google didn't help.

[Gribble]

Sort of a scientific competition. For example, develop a relatively inexpensive means to exit and reenter the Earth's atmosphere, win 10 million bucks. In fact, that's the only X Prize I was aware of.

[anachronistic]

:-o I could do that...

This is going to take some research.

[Gribble]

It's all ready been done.

[url]http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/10/04/spaceshipone.attempt.cnn/[/url]

It's a very awesome story. These guys remind me of folks like Chuck Yeager, John Glenn and *gasp* Yuri Gagarin. Those guys were my childhood heroes.

I think Aldrin makes the list, too...
[ame]http://youtube.com/watch?v=mQKxAqpjroo[/ame]

[DoesntMatter]

It's all ready been done.

[url]http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/10/04/spaceshipone.attempt.cnn/[/url]

Damn those Americans, they're at it again

But I looooove that video Gribble. That guy deserved more than being punched in the face, he should have been skinned alive and dragged through a mess of bacteria and left to die at the bottom of a shallow well

[IndiReloaded]

Sort of a scientific competition. For example, develop a relatively inexpensive means to exit and reenter the Earth's atmosphere, win 10 million bucks. In fact, that's the only X Prize I was aware of.

There's several & more coming, many to do with alternative energy sources & cleaning up the environment. Put your thinking caps on ppl:

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Prize_Foundation#Spotlight_on_Energy_.26_Environ ment[/url]

[url]http://www.xprize.org/[/url]

[IndiReloaded]

Damn those Americans, they're at it again.

Yes, DM & that is what I was referring to when I said that private programs were in danger of being squeezed with US gov't policy on things like the Ares project. Stupid politicians & administrators too dumb to understand what they are undermining. NASA should just let these companies do their thing & buy their projects off-the-shelf. Put the funding back into basic research where it belongs & leave the development stuff to these excellent groups. They do it way better anyway.

[anachronistic]

I couldn't agree more, Indie.

[DoesntMatter]

Yes, DM & that is what I was referring to when I said that private programs were in danger of being squeezed with US gov't policy on things like the Ares project. Stupid politicians & administrators too dumb to understand what they are undermining. NASA should just let these companies do their thing & buy their projects off-the-shelf. Put the funding back into basic research where it belongs & leave the development stuff to these excellent groups. They do it way better anyway.

Not completely. They do a better job of commercializing things. But that is something I would love to see more and more of in the way of alternative energy which is why I had a link to Syntroleum. GM is underway to mass produce hydrogen powered automobiles. THOSE are the areas best left to private companies because they have incentive (yay for capitalism!)

Mars rovers are kind of a different story

[Tone]

G that video was awesome.