20,000 Show up for X-Prize Expo 87
Zacharski writes to tell us that the X-Prize Cup Expo was held Sunday in Las Cruces New Mexico in front of about 20,000 people. John Carmack was there with his team from Armadillo Aerospace. From the article: "Armadillo Aerospace got their rocket-powered, vertical takeoff, vertical landing vehicle off the ground. Blasting off into the sky then hovering for a few seconds, the craft began lowering itself to the ground - but tipped over on touchdown. The wet ground due to overnight rain was the cause, although the craft appeared undamaged in the fall. An internal hose was punctured, however, causing subsequent flights to be scrubbed." The expo also ended with quite a bang when Starchaser's Churchill Mk2 rocket engine blew up.
Wow... (Score:1)
pics of the armadillo exercise? (Score:4, Interesting)
where are the pics of the armadillo test flight? this is more interesting than the failures!
Flight Videos (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/H
-everphilski-
B-Rate Movies IRL (Score:2)
Props to Carmack's webserver for withstanding the
$20 million will do that (Score:2, Insightful)
Carmack referred to rocketry as plumbing but with the volume turned up. Guess it's not quite that easy.
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:2)
I'd say that view is a little extreme. Carmack has a ship that flies. Untethered. Granted it is unmanned. But it flies and it is scalable. The Canadian Arrow team isn't too far out.
As far as non-X-Prize teams are concerned, XCor has a rocket powered airplane that flies in excess of 10,000 feet routinely while they work out the kinks in their propulsion system. Their hope is to make that the main propulsion system in a suborbital craft.
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:3, Insightful)
It's barely scalable to X-prize-req's. It's not really scalable beyond that. His ISP is too low and mass is too high. Plus, his design methodology has produced one disaster after another.
Don't get me wrong - I've always been a huge Carmack fan, and was in awe of his programming skill in my childhood. But following the diaries on Armadillo Aerospace, they keep repeating one widely known rocketry problem after another, and taking every dead end in the book. They can't even decide on what propella
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember - they aren't chasing after a prize, they are a bunch of guys having fun and learning.
His Isp isnt that bad - he's hitting 200 with lox. That's not any worse than Rutan had. And he's working with throatless, a throated vehicle will get anywhere from 20-40% gain in performance.
Again, you can't compare Carmack to Rutan. Rutan is a business man who set out to win a prize with venture capital. Carmack is developing this with friends as a learning experiance. And he's not doing too shabby, especially after he figured out that peroxide sucks
-everphilski-
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:3, Informative)
They only switched propellant formulations once
They tried no less than various peroxide mon
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:2)
From an injector standpoint, yes. But at every station downstream - the chamber, throat and nozzle - for an engine with the same thrust and throttling capabilities the engine design is damn near identical. The laws of thermodynamics don't change because you change propellants. (the chamber temperature varies slightly and the mol wt of the propellants is slightly different, but your chambers wind up looking a
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:2)
Not true. LOX engines run hotter than peroxide engines, and run fuel-rich instead of oxidizer rich. This completely changes the materials and cooling challenges, which are the primary engineering constraints of the chamber, throat, and nozzle. And the injector, as I'm sure you're aware, is incredibly di
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:2)
Not for an amateur project. This is where we are running into communications problems. An amateur project is going to use commonly available metals. You tweak the mix to run it cooler. John has expressed his distaste for custom aerospace alloys, both on his site and in private forums we both frequent.
And on the second point
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:4, Insightful)
What, get a rocket to blow up? And another to lift off a few feet and then tip over? NASA can do that too.
> Shit, we can't even go to the moon if we wanted to.
Sure you can. It's a question of money. A lot of people would like to pay less taxes rathern than more. It's a question of priorities. Talk to your congressman about that.
> All the tooling for the saturn rockets was DESTROYED.
An urban legend that just won't die. Some facilities were converted for new uses (e.g. STS). No, NASA engineers do not randomly go whacking equipment with axes. Some equipment can rust if there is no program (= money) to store it properly. Some equipment just gets old and no longer relevant (room-size computers with less computing power than your cell phone, electronic equipment for which nobody manufactures the required vacuum tubes, etc.)
A rednecky "the government is big and bad and can never do anything right" paranoia game is a fun game to play. Lets you work up to a nice adrenaline rush. Feel like a big man when you get to look down your nose at others. But don't actually believe it when it matters.
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish ppl would get past this crap.
Shit, we can't even go to the moon if we wanted to.All the tooling for the saturn rockets was DESTROYED. What a fucking great idea, eh? I don't say this much, but hooray for the private sector.So NASA could not do it in 20 years, eh? In under a decade, NASA got man onto the moon. And that was 40 years ago. Now, ask how many of these companies today could do that? Even today, few. And 40 years ago? Absolutely none. In fact, ask any of these companies to put 50 tonnes into space in under 5 years. How many? none. They are going through the exact work that NASA (and their quasi private contractors) did back in the 60's. That is they are putting together Engineering teams with some small RD teams. NASA has always done large amounts of R&D on the cutting edge. How many of the current x-prize teams are doing any? Absolutely none. They are all doing engineering (big difference).
BTW, Just as the current group of X-prizes stand on NASA's broad shoulders, NASA also stands on other giants shoulders. In particular, Russia, WWII germanany, and even the Chinese did HUGE amounts of research, that NASA used. Even getting into space was more cooperative than not; Canada, Original Europe (England, France, etc), and Japan have contributed directly and indirectly to NASA's effort.
Blame NASA for that?? Not even close. This is the fault of politicians. Nixon started us down the shuttle path. Interestingly, NASA wanted to build a craft along the lines of Rutans approach, but Nixons ppl killed it. They did not like the up front price. Once the shuttle was flying, Reagan had the saturn line killed. When funding was sought to preserve the info, they felt that it was not needed. We have learned the hard way that that kind of info is difficult to get back. BTW. if you think that Private enterprise does a better job on that, well then ask Boeing. Boeing would love to extend the 747 and make some major changes. But they can not. Why? because they do not have many of their core blue prints. The 747 was designed on paper in the 70s. And yet, they do not have the info either. Right now, the vast majority of the 747 depends on skilled craftsman, just as the Saturn did.
BTW, if you think that I say the above because I am opposed to the X-prize or something like that,
Oh Yeah, I am a fan of x-prize, but I also value NASA for what it normally does. Sadly, it has died over the last 5-6 years. I am hopeful that griffin can bring it back to what it should be; a front-edge R&D team that pushes the envelope that private enterprise can not and will not do. O'Keefe was an absolute disaster. Goldin was not bad, but allowed politics to take hold. In addition, he should have pushed outwards more than he did, esp. towards the end.
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:1)
Interesting fact. Could you provide a source for the info being trashed by the Reagan admin? Thanks
Re:$20 million will do that (Score:3, Interesting)
To be fair, they have got their ships in the air several times, it's just getting them down accelerating at less that 9.8m/s^2 that seems to have been giving them problems
I think they're doing quite well considering they're basically five or six guys working in their spare time.
When Carmack is involved... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:When Carmack is involved... (Score:5, Funny)
Yet you skillfully navigated directly past them. Astonishing precision.
For example, you could have expressed surprise that everyone was surprised when all he did was 'rocket jump'.
... can someone fill me in ... (Score:2)
My understanding was that Rutan got the prize, and TFA didn't give me much of an idea as for what this specific competition is trying to achieve.
It did talk a lot about states getting their own spaceports, which I find pretty cool.
If someone could point mt to a relevant link, that's be great.
Thanks.
Exposure for the alt.space community (Score:5, Interesting)
Starting next year there will be actual competitions (hopefully). But this year you prettymuch had XCOR (a airplane retrofitted with a rocket engine), Armadillo (vertical takeoff rocket) for functinal vehicles that flew. The rest of the companies had pieces. Wouldn't be much of a competition to be had. Next year there will be races (rocket racing league).
-everphilski-
Re:Exposure for the alt.space community (Score:2)
Re:Exposure for the alt.space community (Score:2)
Well, (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well, (Score:2)
Re:Well, (Score:4, Insightful)
Flight picture here (Score:5, Funny)
Warning to all those at work!!! (Score:1)
Re:Warning to all those at work!!! (Score:2)
my apologies.
Re:Flight picture here (Score:1)
Where's Boeing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that the rockets used by NASA are designed by third party commercial contractors, how come they aren't heavily in this game?
Re:Where's Boeing? (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA spends Billions and Billions of dollars to get something into the air. The contractors stand in line a capitol hill, sign a paper and provide wire information for their bank accounts. For every $100 of NASAs budget they spend, they receive $10 which they may keep as profit.
Why in the world would someone with this kind of deal throw millions of dollars into a project which may or may not end up to be commercially viable? It doesn't make financial sense.
Re:Where's Boeing? (Score:2)
Re:Where's Boeing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, consider this: The US spent $300 million to get to sub-orbital flights (That's almost $2 billion in today's dollars). The SpaceShipOne program cost $30 million.
Re:Where's Boeing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where's Boeing? (Score:3, Insightful)
The rocket contractors aren't in "this game" because it's a game. They have their gravy train, and they send payloads into space with some frequency, so they understand how hard it is to do. They're not interested in playing games.
Re:Where's Boeing? (Score:4, Informative)
SpaceShipOne went straight up and down, 367k feet. It peaked at mach 3 and reentry topped at around 5g's. Maximum reentry temperature was around 200F.
Shepard's flight was 612k feet, and 302 miles downrange. It peaked at mach 7.7, and on reentry he experienced nearly 12g's. Maximum reentry temperature was around 2000F.
Re: SpaceX (Score:1)
X-Prize in St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Score:2, Flamebait)
X Prize connection did little for region [stltoday.com]
Re:X-Prize in St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Score:2)
Starchaser blew up (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Starchaser blew up (Score:2)
But at least they've got the being consistent part down.
Re:Starchaser blew up (Score:1)
Re:Starchaser blew up (Score:1)
Gerald Bull's Super Gun (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be relatively cheap and I have to think it's going to be a bit simpler than building a rocket.
You do run into the problem of being limited on what you can launch. Not only is size limited, but whatever you're firing into orbit is going to have to deal with some pretty serious acceleration issues.
Still, it would be cool to see someone follow up on his work to see if it's doable.
Heat shielding (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Gerald Bull's Super Gun (Score:1)
I think I'll file it next to the space elevator literature.
Re:Gerald Bull's Super Gun (Score:4, Informative)
For more information on the remarkable story of Bull and his supergun, check wikipedia:
Gerald Bull [wikipedia.org]: Biography
Project HARP [wikipedia.org]: Bull's earlier work for the US gov't.
Project Babylon [wikipedia.org]: Bull's work for saddam hussein that eventually got him killed by the Mossad
Re:Gerald Bull's Super Gun (Score:2)
Re:Gerald Bull's Super Gun (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EADS_Phoenix [wikipedia.org]
Good idea if you ask me. Lob your hardware into orbit using this, then (if you want to man said hardware) send up your astronauts on a R7 and dock with it. Shame that I haven't realy heard that much about it.
Re:Gerald Bull's Super Gun - grrr fixed link (Score:2)
I think I'll file it next to the space elevator literature.
you mean Jules Vernes' idea... (Score:2)
I believe the reason people don't look into it is it cannot be done.
I didn't even search for a link, but there's just too much atmosphere on Earth to do it.
Re:Gerald Bull's Super Gun (Score:2)
Any idea what the max *actual* altitude reached by his gun designs was? Or are there charts showing velocity vs. elevation for these launches? Seeing mention of 60-miles in one of your links caught my eye... from 60 to 100+ miles, atmospheric issues have dropped off to nearly nothing compared to the first 60 miles
see SpaceShipOne (Score:2)
But all of that is NOTHING next to getting the speed you need to orbit.
Look at SpaceShipOne. It got to 62 miles. But it had approximately 0 horizontal velocity when it got there. In order to orbit, it needs well over 20,000 miles per hour horizontal velocity to orbit.
And since you did all the work at the start (you fired from a gun,
Re:see SpaceShipOne (Score:2)
Build a rail up the side of everest..rail gun style...By the end of it you are pretty damn high (well only about 6 miles now that i look it up doh) but still..going in the right direction! If you can hit escape velocity by the end of the rail without burning your unit out you're good to go!
Re:see SpaceShipOne (Score:2)
Thanks for your comment. The need to get up to 60 miles (to-near-vacuum) and then 'magically' add the needed radial velocity was the bit was what I was overlooking.
TANSTAFL.
Ad astra (Score:2)
worlds largest enchilada (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.twefie.com/ [twefie.com]
It's in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Re:worlds largest enchilada (Score:1)
Re:worlds largest enchilada (Score:2)
Hmmm...
1) Build world's largest enchilada
2) Get 20,000 people together to see/eat it
3) Harness all that pressurized gas for Rocket Fuel!
4) Profit!
Test flight! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nay Sayers (Score:1)
I was there (Score:5, Informative)
Moved out of Las Cruces too soon.. (Score:2)
Lived there 7 years and finally moved because .. well.. living there SUCKS! And now all this cool stuff shows up!
20,000 showed up, 5,000 by accident... (Score:3, Funny)
The expo also ended with quite a bang, it was told.
New Mexico, huh? (Score:1)
Re:New Mexico, huh? (Score:1)
I was there (Score:3, Informative)
And though they've done it before for air-show crowds, this was the first time I'd seen the XCOR [xcor.com] EZ-Rocket in action; truly awe-inspiring to see how easily it could maneuver. The loud rocket engines as it buzzed the crowd a few times didn't hurt the experience!
Anyway, not as exciting as if there'd been some real suborbital flights, but it looks like in just a couple of years that'll be a reality. Exciting times!