Lunch With George!

Agenda

• X-Prize Update
• The View from Everest
• Underwater Hockey
• Free MIT
• T-shirts
• Survival
• Clean Films
• Visa Card for Amazon Nuts

X Prize Update

White Knight with SpaceShipOne attached

I had forwarded an e-mail to George earlier to let him know about the

Scaled's system is composed of a "mother ship" named the White Knight, and the spacecraft it carries to high altitude called the SpaceShipOne. This project was kept secret by Scaled Composites until its unveiling in April of this year, complete with a demonstration flight of the White Knight (see this story).

Armadillo's New Suit

Rutan and his team are competing with 23 other teams (so far) to be the first to put three adults (or the equivalent) at sub-orbital altitude (around 62 mi.), bring 'em back safely, and do it again within 14 days, re-using 90% of the non-propellant mass of the spacecraft (see the complete rules here). The winner takes home the X Prize, or $10 million.

What I didn't know even when I had lunch with George was that Scaled had already staged a second flight test of SpaceShipOne, in which they tested the re-entry mode, or "feather" mode. SpaceShipOne was detached from the White Knight at an altitude of 48,200 feet, and after a few moments began testing the wings in "feather" mode. During "feather" mode, the tail booms and aft wing fold up to an angle of nearly 90 degrees relative to the vehicle body. The craft dropped nearly vertically, descending over 10,000 feet in about 70 seconds. Everything went very well, and you can read a complete flight test report here.

Rutan's company is clearly the class act of the X Prize contestants, all of them seem to be making a serious effort. Some teams are using a balloon to get their rocket to a sufficient altitude to launch, while others are building conventional-looking rockets which launch vertically and return to Earth by parachute. See all the teams at the xprize.org team page.

One team, Armadillo Aerospace, has acquired a Russian space suit to provide redundant protection for their pilot... on ebay! They have encountered some difficulties (the gloves initially were missing, there are several leaks), but they have successfully performed a pressure test on the suit.

If you want to keep up with what's happening in the X Prize competition, you can sign up for their monthly e-mail newsletter.

The View from Everest

Underwater Hockey

George was reading one of

The competitors wear swim fins, a swim mask, and a snorkel (and a swimsuit, as well). Their hockey stick is much smaller than that used by their ice-bound brethren-- it's more like a spatula, really. The puck is a rubber-coated piece of lead, which keeps it on the bottom of the pool.

Although the sport is serious, it's not always taken seriously. The Moldovan women's team applied to compete in the world championships at Calgary, and were accepted. But once they arrived, the entire team immediately asked for refugee status without playing in a single game-- some members of the team reportedly do not even know how to swim!

Free MIT

I poked around a bit, and found class materials from such areas as

• Mathematics
• Ocean Engineering
• Urban Studies
• Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Economics
• Physics

So what materials are provided? For Anthropology of the Middle East, I found a syllabus, the course calendar, required reading, lecture notes, and other resources. The syllabus is quite detailed, and provides the required reading assignments for each session.

Check it out!

I'm Feeling Shoppy

George showed up at Samurai Sam's wearing his new Baroque Cycle

George further surprised me when he produced a black t-shirt for me! It displays the Google logo on the front, and the phrase "I'm Feeling Lucky" on the back. Now this is a cool t-shirt. I will always feel lucky to have it.

Survival

In 98.6: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive, Cody Lundin's main point is this: People who die in the wilderness after an accident do so because they let their core body temperature get too high, or too low... not because they starved to death.

Clean Films

Among the edited titles I saw on their site:

• The Shawshank Redemption
• Phonebooth
• Enemy of the State
• 12 Monkeys
• Road to Perdition

George's response:

Visa Card for Amazon Nuts

Enter the Amazon.com Visa card. Not only does it have a low interest rate of the prime rate plus 5.65% (currently 9.65%) and no annual fee, it also allows me to earn reward points I can use.

For every dollar I spend at Amazon using the card, I earn 3 points. for every dollar I spend anywhere else, I get 1 point. Whenever I reach 2500 points, Amazon sends me a reward certificate for $25!

There are also a couple of incentives for signing up: I pay no interest for the first 6 months, and I get a $20 coupon to use at Amazon.com when I pay using the card.

If you have any interest in applying for the Amazon Platinum Visa, please click here to apply, since I'll also get a referral fee from Amazon. Thanks in advance!