[SpaceProgram] Very good news from discussion with the DARPA 100YSS program manager tonight

Mon Jan 9 12:13:53 CET 2012

Hi Alex,

Thanks for the reply and reminder!

I've just sent an email to Paul's address, so you can rest easy there. :)

Yes, essentially this is the 'selling points' I think we should write to
pitch to DARPA, but all should bear in mind that we need not constraint our
planning for programs to be limited to these objectives only (e.g.
transforming education, spin-off projects for terrestrial applications, HSP
Symposium activities).

Warmest regards,
Huei Ming

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 5:11 PM, Alex <alexcg at gmail.com> wrote:

> 1. I don't think anyone's sent an email to Paul yet. If no one has
> objections I'll get on it right away. We are emailing the address in the
> announcement, right? (DARPA-BAA-11-13 at darpa.mil)
>
> 2. Agreed we can move away from 100YSS goals. I think keeping a large
> overarching goal (with achievable milestones) would be good in terms of
> building interest and finding more participating hackerspaces/sponsors.
> Your a, b and c can encapsulate many such big goals with strategic
> applications.
>
> On 8 Jan 2012, at 01:10 AM, Huei Ming Tan <tanhueiming at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've been thinking about how we're going to do this, and here are my
> thoughts:
>
> 1) *Rewriting the proposal*: I've taken a look at the BAA submission
> guidelines and have concluded that major revisions to our document will be
> needed to comply with the new requirements. Problem is these BAAs are
> tailored for applications with very specific research objectives or
> capabilities, which is radically different from our current proposal (i.e.
> to create an organization to change the paradigm for space related research
> and engineering).* I'd suggest that we bounce an email off Paul to see if
> we can be exempt from the requirements to provide Technical Rationale and
> Approach*. I can do it by Monday if it's not resolved by then.
>
> 2) *DARPA Funding and HSP's Relationship to DARPA*: Let's face it, DARPA
> is about the only organization that can quickly provide credibility and
> initial funding to start something as insane as this. So, from my
> standpoint this argument is pretty much settled for practical and realistic
> reasons. Now, if we're still strictly pitching to DARPA an organization to
> achieve 100 YSS objectives then generally we're still fine because DARPA is
> committed to provide seed funding for that and nothing more. *Some of us
> has started to recognize that since we're no longer bound by 100YSS
> criteria for our proposal submission, this is a game changer. *To realign
> our proposal for relevance to DARPA's objectives yet still remain
> 'civilian', I'd suggest that we avoid the more tactical focus outlined in
> the BAA and pitch the following strategic relevance:
>
> a. Augmenting the 100 YSS effort (since that's still a TTO program) in the
> area of open-source, crowdsourced funding, research and engineering.
> b. Working towards the: '*strengthening of safety, stability and security
> in space*' (via projects on orbital debris surveillance and reduction,
> stimulating international coorperation in space on a community level and
> promoting the use of space as an 'open' commons) as well as '*Energize
> the space industrial base that supports U.S. national security*.' (by
> stimulating demand for space and providing an alternative
> education/manufacturing base for space technology) as outlined in the
> DoD/DNI National Security Space Policy 2011.
> c. Supporting the goal of '*Pursue human and robotic initiatives*' as
> outlined in the White House National Space Policy 2010 and relevant goals
> supported by part b..
>
> Warmest regards,
> Huei Ming
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 6:21 PM, Alex Cureton-Griffiths <alexcg at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Are there any existing licenses we could base projects on? This would
>> help in setting out rights, legal issues, etc
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 5:50 PM,  <psytek at alphaonelabs.com> wrote:
>> > I'd like the document to be more explicit  about ownership of rights.
>> > I would like to retain ownership of my part of this.  Especially now
>> > that we're opening this up to more potential sponsors.  Thanks.
>> >
>> > On Jan 7, 2012, at 4:28 AM, Alex Cureton-Griffiths <alexcg at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Myself and James Coombs (another Xinchejian'er, who'll be joining this
>> >> list soon) were discussing contests/prizes, along the lines of a micro
>> >> version of the Ansari Prize. If we had been accepted for 100YSS we
>> >> were thinking about (along with other hackerspaces) putting together a
>> >> technology tree (like in the game Civilisation) detailing the
>> >> technologies needed to get to a starship within 100 years. Prizes
>> >> would be awarded for building the technologies on the tree that are
>> >> needed to achieve the goal, with achievable milestones set along the
>> >> way. Since we're no longer focused on 100YSS we can apply the model to
>> >> other goals, e.g. a human habitat on Mars or whatever.
>> >>
>> >> The above strategy may also have potential to attract sponsorship from
>> >> Ansari X Prize Foundation or similar. On the other hand, I think Ricky
>> >> mentioned that one of the things DARPA liked about the proposal we
>> >> submitted was that it was more about collaboration than competition.
>> >> Perhaps we could do both - give some grants for interesting projects
>> >> that are already furthering the goal, and award prizes for projects
>> >> that "fill in" the holes in the tech tree that aren't being focused
>> >> on.
>> >>
>> >> Agree we should leave out weapons, not just for liability purposes but
>> >> also because they are a dividing factor.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 1:37 PM, cole santos <cksantos85 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>> Its a little more selective in its space project categories than the
>> >>> 100yss. But instead of pursuing a particular project, it would be nice
>> >>> to just redistribute the money with our own micro grant process for
>> >>> the exact same RFP requirements. So the global hackerspace
>> >>> organization could hold contests on projects related to the RFP and
>> >>> distribute prizes to winners. We could start small with RFI contests
>> >>> with a few 100 bucks or so for the best idea for a particular
>> >>> technology track followed for an RFP to match the winning RFI. We
>> >>> should leave weapons out for liability purposes (explosives and
>> >>> firearms requires federal and state licencing and they should just get
>> >>> their own DARPA grant if they are organized enough to get one of
>> >>> those) unless it is a non leathal weapon (microwave, foam, whatever)
>> >>> or a combat enabling tech such as augmented reality HUD. I think that
>> >>> the platform category should however be included in our global
>> >>> hackerspace consortium challenges with the space stuff. Many makers
>> >>> are already making UAV and FPV aircraft, blimps, balloons, boats,
>> >>> tracked vehicles, and other craft.
>> >>>
>> >>> On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 12:45 PM, Luke Weston <
>> reindeerflotilla at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>> It's worth noting that DARPA contributes to heaps of cutting-edge
>> >>>> fundamental research that has no direct, obvious military value.
>> Heaps
>> >>>> of civilian scientists at universities across the world are happily
>> >>>> involved in valuable civilian basic science and technology research
>> >>>> that attracts funding from DARPA and occasionally other DOD agencies
>> >>>> such as the Army Research Office, and they're certainly not just
>> >>>> building weapons or building better bombs or anything like that.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Well known examples would include the DARPA Grand Challenge for
>> >>>> autonomous vehicle research, and a lot of quantum computing and
>> >>>> quantum communications research, for example a lot of the research
>> >>>> done by the universities affiliated with the ARC Centre for Quantum
>> >>>> Computer Technology in Australia (http://www.cqc2t.org/), as well as
>> >>>> this for example:
>> >>>>
>> http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2010/11/new-initiative-to-develop-a-system-that-controls-prosthetic-limbs-naturally/
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Cheers,
>> >>>>  Luke
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>> SpaceProgram mailing list
>> >>>> SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> >>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> SpaceProgram mailing list
>> >>> SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> >>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> SpaceProgram mailing list
>> >> SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> >> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > SpaceProgram mailing list
>> > SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>> _______________________________________________
>> SpaceProgram mailing list
>> SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SpaceProgram mailing list
> SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/spaceprogram/attachments/20120109/45ecdcaa/attachment.html>