The International Space Development Conference (ISDC) continued today with the second full day of talks and panel presentations. Today, there seemed to be a bit more activity and more people milling about, both in the hallways and in the sessions. As we found out, both places have tended to be great places to make new contacts and exchange ideas.
Escaping the tyranny of the rocket equation (by Wes)
Ok, so I admit the title is a take on a quote from Paul Spudis, the lunch speaker today. Traditionally, the "rocket equation" has to do with burning fuel in an accelerating rocket. This equation is the cornerstone of rocket science and governs the mass you must start with to place any given payload into orbit. It derives directly from the laws of physics, and the fact that we live at the bottom of a gravity well. The rocket equation governs almost every engineering decision that has to be made about spaceflight, but it appears that the concept may even be bigger than that. I think today's Foundry experience and hallway conversations proved it.
"The Foundry" is a two day workshop at the ISDC. All of the participants show up with ideas, a desire to share, a desire to listen, and a passion to just move forward. After two days of presenting, planning, and refining our ideas, we finally presented our concepts to a panel of very impressive individuals and received some great feedback which typically got right-to-the-core of what we are trying to accomplish. Since all of us had to sign non-disclosure agreements, I can't give you any details, but I can tell you there was a lot of passion in the room. Passion to do something different. Passion to get new ideas heard. Passion to escape the tyranny of the rocket equation.
Last night and today I spent quite a bit of time in an unexpected chat. At the start of dinner we were complete strangers, but our common passion for space exploration made conversation flow easily. We talked about propulsion (naturally), space, science, my Part-Time Scientists work, his time in the US Marine Corps, ITAR issues, and generally anything space geek related. It turns out that he is coming to space in a non-traditional way. He worked with the military then went to school for management and now is growing his skills in IT and aerospace engineering. He worries though about the trajectory his career has taken him on. Will his skill-set, and especially the trajectory, be accepted by other aerospace professionals? Will he be able to escape the tyranny of the rocket equation?
It all got me thinking about the Google Lunar X Prize. The general rules seem simple: assemble a non-government funded team, send something rover-esque to the moon, and prove that you can move about on the surface at will. The goal is to demonstrate that private groups are capable of getting to the moon without the resources marshaled by a national government. If they succeed in this task, they will also succeed in finally escaping the real tyranny of the rocket equation. As the contest pushes on, and we see the steady progress of so many groups pushing forward, mankind may just hit escape velocity.
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