Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail?
I can't find the reference, but I seem to recall that Elon Musk has said that human beings can't do it. It's quite a trick, landing a 135.2 foot tall and 12 foot in diameter tube, with an empty mass of 56,423 pounds, on its tail on target.
The computing challenge is simple to describe and hard to execute: Plot the optimal path down to the target without running out of fuel. That’s complicated enough, but also consider the time constraint: The rocket’s computers need to solve this problem before they run out of fuel or crash into earth—in a “fraction of a second,” according to Blackmore. He and his colleagues developed one of the first algorithms to do this in three dimensions in that 2009 paper on Mars landings, receiving a patent on their ideas in 2013.
(A visualization of the rocket booster’s path back to earth)The solution involves solving a “convex optimization problem,” a common challenge in modern machine learning. In wildly reductive layman’s terms, it involves considering all the possible answers to the question of “what’s the best way to get from here to the landing pad without running out of fuel” as a geometric shape, and uses mathematical tools developed first by John von Neumann, the father of game theory, and refined by Indian mathematician Narendra Karmarkar in the 1980s, to quickly choose the best way down from that set.
(Via qz.)
It wasn't always so apparently easy and quick; here are some of SpaceX's less successful moments:
Science fiction authors have been utilizing their imagination in advance of engineering. In Redemption Cairn, by Stanley G. Weinbaum, published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1936, we read this description of trying to land a rocket on its tail:
"Those lousy reporters!” I blazed. "All of them seemed to think landing a rocket is like settling down in bed; you just cushion down on your underblast. Yeah; they don’t realize that you have to land blind, because three hundred feet from the ground the blast begins to splash against it.
I slapped her hands hard and grabbed the U-bar. I cut the underjets completely off, letting the ship fall free, then shot the full blast through the right laterals. It was damn close, I’m ready to swear, but we leveled, and I snapped on the underblast before we lost a hundred feet of altitude.('Redemption Cairn' by Stanley G. Weinbaum)"You watch the leveling poles at the edge of the field and try to judge your altitude from them, but you don’t see the ground ; what you see under you are the flames of Hell. And another thing they don’t realize; lowering a ship is like bringing down a dinner plate balanced on a fishing rod. If she starts to roll sideways — blooey! The underjets only hold you up when they’re pointing down, you know.”
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/2/2024)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
Beautiful Visualization of Dawn Spacecraft
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.' - Isaac Asimov, 1939.
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...' - Clifford Simak,
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Tactile Skin Supplier Map
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
Flock Stymied By 'Adversarial Fashion'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
ICE Buys Shock Gloves Like Batman's
What else is the Caped Crusader using?
Factories In The Sky Will Surpass Those Of Earth
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
Sleeper Drones Lie in Wait
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
3D Printed Organs From Space
'For a while your colonists will have to come up to the [orbital] Hospital...'
Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo
'At first I was struck by the large size of these bees..'
DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It
'...it raised its front end off the ground and waved its antennae at them, then raised one armoured claw as if to snip them out of the sky.'
How To Settle An Argument Between Two Robots
'Henry... assumed the curious absent look of a robot talking on the TBR circuits.'
The Wind Phone Calls Those Who Have Passed On
'Only I heard that!'
Don't Want To Wear A TIght Shiny Bodysuit?
'He looked a good bit like an elderly, fat beetle.'
Light Society: Simulates Earth-Scale Society With A Billion AI Agents
'The king, an old hand in the running of tyrannies, instantly grasped the directions...'
Satyress Centaur Robot Horror Reminds Everyone Of Something
'Fess was very dutiful'
When Colds Threaten You Can't Do This - Or Can You?
'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
