Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by alanctgardner2 4576 days ago
> CAT is currently at NASA Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3, meaning we are in the midst of performing experiments to probe its feasibility, thanks to private sponsorship

Clicking on the link, 3 is a really far way from actually flying. Like, they haven't successfully demonstrated this in a lab yet. For reference, there are 9 stages, the final one being "it's in space".

It seems like an interesting idea, but I'm with the other commenters in asking why this needs money from outside the traditional channels. It's the kind of long-winded and technical writeup I would expect from a grant proposal, not a Kickstarter.

1 comments

TRL 9 is "we have nothing more to learn about it."

"It's in space" would be TRL 6. I think this is the appropriate level at which to be running this kind of kickstarter.