As far as I can see the plan seems to be to create a blueprint engine/rocket which can be sold on the open market, this company seems happy with just making the "pre-cooler" part of it. I suppose the analogy is like Intel making the processor and anyone can make improve on the motherboard/PC
The BIOS on the original IBM PC totally made it easy to code a homebrew bare metal OS which could access all the peripherals. These BIOS calls exists today in i7 based motherboards allowing OS's coded in the 80's to still (mostly) function on a modern Motherboard, its biggest fault was being 16 bit which meant all newer OS's needed to write there own once they switched to 32/64 bit mode.
The BIOS layer made the PC easier. I find it frustrating that almost every new SOC I get, even from the same manufacturer requires me to re-code all my IO routines.
If a common BIOS existed across the ARM/x86 which emulated the simpleness of the original BIOS concept and not the API hell you usually get now, there would be a lot more adventurers in homebrew OS's
NASA has its uses in R&D and pure science but pleeeaaazzz, we need the money going to the SpaceX, Blue Origin and ReactionEngines of this world NOT the $10 million for a toilet contractors they currently have.
Its my big bug-bear when developing ARM embedded systems, having to re-learn and re-code libraries every time the chip changes. Just look at the guys struggling with the low level stuff on the Raspberry Pi
A low level BIOS flashed into the chip would be an absolutely awesome outcome for the embedded crowd.
I turn fifty in 3 months and love it more than ever. These days I get to design hardware on an FPGA that would take up several square meters of circuit boards in the eighties. Bring on the next thirty years I say..
Even if it doesnt give us a warp drive, the research should be encouraged as it may lead to better understandings of the universe, maths and physics.
Seriously though, beyond the "Fuck Yeah I want a starship" How does anyone make sensible comments on subjects where the concepts and Math are several levels above their ability let alone fund it.
If this hadn't come from a NASA source I would have ignored it.
There are quite a few arduino users waiting to make the move to 32 bit, arduino are not doing themselves any favours with their delayed offering, the appropriately named "due" and this is the third "arduino" like offering I've seen on kickstarter in the past month, the Galago, Teensy3 and now this, all trying to tease the developer scared of the raw GCC toolkit on to ARM.
The Raspberry Pi has actually emerged as the hardware of choice for the majority but while it has good support at the linux level, it is not so good down at the bare-metal level and the PCB layout, closed source drivers and choice of connectors were not the best for would-be hardware hackers (though many are trying and making progress).
Generally agree, it would be nice to say "fuck em" but if you dont have someone to support your fuck-em lifestyle then you still need to eat and have a roof over your head, pay for a passport, travel etc etc :-(