A 'nerd' shoots for the stars, and NASA comes knocking | Hacker News Reader

A 'nerd' shoots for the stars, and NASA comes knocking

theglobeandmail.com

43 pointsawk17 comments

How patronizing: "He goes to school dances (but not clubs) and has never had a girlfriend. Asked if his new science stardom might help land one, he replies: I haven't thought about that."

When will society ask the new starlets and Oscar winners how often they help out in the community or go to the library/museum/gallery when there isn't a gala on, or if they have ever written an academic paper which contributes anything to society?

Well...I think globeandmail's audience is probably more general and therefore more interested in character stuff more than academic papers. If someone gets interviewed on G4 they get asked what video games they play, whether or not they are known as gamers, and he's not asked that here either.

Also, it seems Eric needs to work on communication/social skills:

“Dude, you won a space station contest!” one girl said. “That's huge!” “Space colony,” Mr. Yam corrected.

By Thursday, the news had sunk in. “It's great,” he said. “Finally some recognition.”

Sounds like a smart guy though.

He might have made those comments in a socially appropriate way - by joking. It sounded to me like the author already decided "antisocial nerd" and fished for ways to make him fit.

And if he is an antisocial nerd with poor social skills, I don't see any reason to point it out in the article - it's certainly not going to help him. Saying he's never had a girlfriend isn't just patronizing, it's embarassing. Why even mention it?

Well, other than being slightly embarassing (if he even cares) to a bunch of people he will never meet, it could also get the attention of a nice nerdy girl looking for a 16 year old who designs space colonies.

> When will society ask the new starlets and Oscar winners how often they help out in the community

Society doesn't ask (much), but these folks often do such things, and not necessarily for publicity reasons.

But, it is fair to ask whether their efforts actually do any good. (They talk about "bringing attention" to problems but they're usually bringing attention to proposed solutions, which are often a disaster.)

Danica McKeller (Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years (great show)) wrote a math book for girls. She's a hot movie star that's doing something.

I went to the Kennedy Space Center a while ago to watch the Shuttle launch with my dad who works for a rocket propulsion company.

I asked him what he thought about the magnetic launch idea...err "launch loop" as the article says...and surprisingly he said the idea wasn't so far-fetched.

One of the main problems with getting things into space is that you have to pass through a zone called "Max Q" I guess, where the pressure is maximized and can literally flatten you. The Shuttle apparently throttles back when approaching this point.

So propulsion isn't always the limiting factor. There are many different problems that occur when getting things into space.

One interesting side-note. He also thought scraping the Saturn V rocket was a huge mistake. Not only could it carry a massive payload, but it was equipped with numerous abort modes which aren't present on the new launch vehicles. Oh, and it had 100% mission success, which isn't true for the "new" systems they developed.

If you read the PDF linked from that site, you'll see an amazing amount of work for such a young man. Seriously, this guy has put a ton of effort into this, addressing everything from materials, to construction, government, food, cost breakdown, to even a timeline for how long it will take. It may not be feasible and I'm sure there is a lot he hasn't thought of, but this man should be commended for what he's done. I'm impressed!

Yes it is very impressive, conceptually and technically.

But the finance section is WAY off... Which makes me doubt the rest of the material in which I have less experience.

Considering that colony/station should be created mainly from resources on the moon (very smart), the cost for 10,000 construction workers over 27 years would be according to him:

"10 000 x $34 130 x 27 =$9 215 100 000"

Try negotiating that low salary with someone that is supposed to work on the moon/in space and not get a pay that is inflation adjusted or never get a pay raise EVER for that matter...

I would hate to be one of the guys working at that project...

Otherwise good stuff, although the habitat cells should be square shaped to fully utilize the living space, I mean who needs 6+ meter in room height...

The $34'130 seems to based on the GDP per capita of canada or the USA. So 10'000 at the bell curve mid point of wages would cost 9.2 billion. Recruits in the military do get similar wages even though they work in pretty horrible conditions for example.

To be fair to the kid, he does state that the value is in 2008 dollars. But 27 years on the same real wage is still a stretch.

You could probably find a lot of people who would work cheap if you didn't limit your labor pool to Canadians. Working off-planet would arguably be no worse than doing construction in Dubai in 125 degree heat, and poor people from India do that for a lot less.

"filled with detailed drawings done in Google SketchUp, a program he downloaded from the Internet."

Is it only me are is that a weird detail to a weird factoid?

The guy went to my high school! That's cool, but not that surpsising since they have an excellent gifted enrichment program. That's also why I went there.

In the 12th grade I remember there was a couple people doing cancer research at the hospital and another dude doing some kind of physics research at U of T.

Myself, I was using FEA software to test model aicraft structures and skipping exams to attend competitions. Fun times.

There is no language called "Hindu" (page 76) -- ah the ignorance of the "western" world.

I think we can forgive a sixteen-year-old kid for confusing "Hindi" and "Hindu".

By the way, self-esteem is not a conserved quantity. There's no need to tear an obviously talented person down to make yourself feel better.

Vaguely, but not quite the same level of glory, but I basically dropped out of high school when I was 15, but they gave us a quiz to do in the holidays around that time, with a £25 prize.

Me and a friend won the quiz (there was no Web in those days!).

I became briefly popular when they announced the quiz results in assembly [a gathering of students and the headteacher], except I was absent (ironically). I got girls asking me to buy everyone a drink.

Ah, such glory!

I even bought a Spectrum +3 with some of the money.

[postscript: The kid in my class who later went to Cambridge came second in the quiz, something I feel proud of, even if it's a hollow victory]

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