science

Rick Tumlinson

Rick Tumlinson is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Rick Tumlinson rather than just read about it. In short: Rick Tumlinson is the co-founder of several space companies and non-profits including Deep Space Industries, Orbital Outfitters, the New Worlds Institute, and the Space Frontier Foundation. In 2004, Space News magazine listed Tumlinson as one of the 100 most influential people in the space industry, stating.

Key takeaways

Rick Tumlinson belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Rick Tumlinson to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Rick Tumlinson from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Rick Tumlinson is the co-founder of several space companies and non-profits including Deep Space Industries, Orbital Outfitters, the New Worlds Institute, and the Space Frontier Foundation. In 2004, Space News magazine listed Tumlinson as one of the 100 most influential people in the space industry, stating.

Biography Tumlinson produced a series of animated videos used to gain funding for the Air Force's DC-X rocket project, the International Space University, the X-33 rocket program, the Air Force's Space Command and created the first ever paid political announcement for space, which was featured on NPR's All Things Considered. Tumlinson worked for scientist Gerard K. O'Neill at the Space Studies Institute and was involved in starting the Lunar Prospector project which discovered hints of water on the Moon. Over the years he has been a witness in six congressional hearings on the future of NASA, the US space program and space tourism. In early 2004, Tumlinson testified before Senator John McCain and the Senate Space and Technology Committee on the Moon, Mars and Beyond program.

Contributions and projects Tumlinson founded the Permission to Dream project, which has over the years placed dozens of telescopes in the hands of schools and groups around the world in hopes to educate and inspire interest in space. He co-founded the now dissolved firm LunaCorp, which teamed up with Radio Shack on a proposed mission to send a robot rover to the moon to confirm that ice exists at its poles. He led the team which turned the Mir Space Station into the world's first commercial space facility, and was a co-founder of the space firm MirCorp as profiled in the documentary film Orphans of Apollo. Along the way he personally signed up Dennis Tito, the world's first "citizen explorer," and has assisted in numerous other such projects. Rick was the Executive Director and co-Founder of the Foundation for the International Non-Governmental Development of Space (FINDS), a foundation with the objective to fund breakthrough projects and activities such as Helium 3 research, laser launch studies, and asteroid processing projects. The organization provided the first $100k in seed money for the founding of the Mars Society, operated the Cheap Access to Space Prize and supported such projects as The WATCH asteroid search program. FINDS also underwrote and co-sponsored a very successful series of Senate Roundtables on space issues in conjunction with the Foundation and the lobby ProSpace over the last few years. A regular contributor to the space industry paper Space News, Tumlinson's writings and quotes have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Reader's Digest and other publications around the world. He has appeared on such television programs as ABC's World News Tonight, the CBS Morning Show, and Politically Incorrect. In 2004, Tumlinson was one of 20 guests invited by the White House to hear President George W. Bush announce his plans to return to the Moon and explore Mars. He has been a consultant to the Robert A. Heinlein and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust. He is editor of a book entitled Return to the Moon, a collection of papers by leading professionals in the space industry regarding the future of space exploration and the privatization of the return to the moon. In 2006, Tumlinson started his own space firm, XTreme Space and Orbital Outfitters. Tumlinson is a member of the Leadership Board of For All Moonkind, Inc. a nonprofit organization committed to creating an effective and enforceable system to manage and protect human heritage in outer space.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rick Tumlinson

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rick Tumlinson claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Rick Tumlinson before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Rick Tumlinson ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Rick Tumlinson

In research: Rick Tumlinson appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Rick Tumlinson in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Rick Tumlinson is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Living people, People from Texas, Space advocates, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rick Tumlinson outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Rick Tumlinson in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rick Tumlinson means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Rick Tumlinson out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rick Tumlinson in simple terms?

Why does Rick Tumlinson matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Rick Tumlinson?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Rick Tumlinson.