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Space Science

Armadillo Rocket Makes A (Short) Manned Hop 167

Posted by timothy from the 6-seconds-is-still-cool dept.
riney writes "w00t! John Carmack and crew at Armadillo Aerospace have gotten their first man in the air. Six seconds of perfectly controlled flight with human passenger. See their site for details and video."
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Armadillo Rocket Makes A (Short) Manned Hop More

Armadillo Rocket Makes A (Short) Manned Hop

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  • One small step for man... (Score:4, Funny)

    by BTWR ( 540147 ) <americangibor3NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:17PM (#4363515) Homepage Journal
    One giant leap for an armadillo!

    But seriously, this is great news for the industry that a private company has such success.

    • We really need some British input on here.

      There used to be an ad for Dime bars in the UK, where they were compared to Armadillos (Harry Enfield did it I think)... in that they were soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside... Armadillos!!!

      Pity since the sites has been ./'ed, I couldn't see what the soft/crunchy ratio was regarding the test flight.

    • The Pilot's Remarks (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "It was a fun couple of seconds. When can I do it again?"
      Russell Blink
      First Amateur to ride a fully guided ballistic rocket?

  • 6 seconds! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Telastyn ( 206146 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:18PM (#4363524)
    the time it takes to drop their web server?

  • 6 seconds (Score:5, Funny)

    by JediTrainer ( 314273 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:19PM (#4363533)
    That's about as long as the server managed to survive a good, old-fashioned slashdotting!
    • I got re-directed to a page that said this:

      Too many users... blah blah blah

      Probable cause: http://www.slashdot.org

      Try again in a few seconds...

      -xian@idsoftware.com

      END COMMUNICATION
    • Have the great minds at slashdot ever thought about using their superior servers and excess bandwidth to host a mirror of the site, including video and image content, automatically when the article is posted? Just an idea, but it probably violates some nasty copywrite law somewhere, then again google does it in cache. Think about it and get back to me.

  • Oh my God... (Score:5, Funny)

    by uberbrownout ( 611444 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:19PM (#4363535)
    You slashdotted John Carmack! You bastards!

  • repeat (Score:5, Informative)

    by Thomas A. Anderson ( 114614 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:19PM (#4363540) Homepage
    I hate to be the one...

    This was posted this morning. [slashdot.org]

  • Cool. Outer space here we come. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by no reason to be here ( 218628 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:19PM (#4363541) Homepage
    More projects like this need to come to fruition. especially speculative commercial enterprises looking to make some kind of money off space exploration (like mining the moon or mars or something).

    the age of discovery when europeans (for better and worse) started traipsing all over the globe was driven by monetary interests above all else. it's great to do scientific experiments in space, but the prospect of making cold hard cash will get us a colony on the moon much sooner.
    • like mining the moon or mars or something

      Not on my land [lunarembassy.com] they ain't! Of course, mineral rights can be acquired for a fee...
    • Not that this isnt very cool in itself.. but, Six Seconds in the air is in my eyes, a LONG way away from space by any streach of the imagination, its a first (Or second, or something) step, but nothing to get carried away with. - And its for that reason you don't see more people investing in it. No one has proved it can be nearly done, yet alone done.

      Once one group has made a very significant breakthrough, then other people will start to take notice and try to follow, or get there first. But I think thats a good few years off.

      Perhaps investing in life extending products is a better bet if you want to see the first moon base. ;o)

  • Other side of the fence. (Score:5, Funny)

    by unicron ( 20286 ) <{ten.tencht} {ta} {norcinu}> on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:20PM (#4363546) Homepage
    Meanwhile, across town, John Romero is working hard on a prototype BFG to blow said rocket out of the air.

    • ...and the time comes when Romero tries to use said BFG, Carmack flips a switch and a la holodeck styleee, the BFG turns into a copy of the Daikatana: Offical Strategy Guide (that was released 3-6 months before the game), and inside is a pink slip from Eidos/Ion Storm (which is being used as a bookmark). Thus rendering the attack futile!!!

    • Luckily his BFG will be 3 years late, run waaaaay over budget, and be so full of bugs nobody will actually be able to use it.

      Romero will still claim it's the best BFG ever made, however.

  • /.'ed already (Score:4, Informative)

    by MountainLogic ( 92466 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:20PM (#4363551) Homepage
    Armadillo Aerospace News Archive Lander modifications, Man in the air!, misc September 24 and 28, 2002 meeting notes Lander modifications I made a separate aluminum plate to bolt the CPU board to, and mounted it to the electronics box with PVC grommets. This should keep the board from flexing, and provide some vibration and shock isolation. The memory SIMM is probably still a weak point for us, but there isn't much we can do with this board. http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/sho ckMount.jpg We now run power and ground to the CPU/PC104 stack through three independent routes: two separate lines at the power connector, and also through the PC104 pins at the top of the stack. We built a manual cutoff box for the manned flights. The box has a switch and a self-contained 27 volt power supply, so if it is switched, no matter what the electronics box is doing, the main engine valve will close in under a half second. http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/kil lSwitch.jpg When it is in auto-land mode, the flight control software now goes to full down throttle as soon as it detects a 2.5G acceleration, which seems to be a reliable hit-the-ground determination. Previously, the bouncing accelerations would cause the computer to hunt the throttle around trying to maintain a steady rate of descent, which would cause it to bounce back up in the air a little bit. Forcing the throttle down as soon as impact is detected reduced this quite a bit. http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/pre pFlights.mpg There is a related effect that happens at liftoff, where the accelerations induced as the vehicle leaves the ground slightly unevenly make it look like it is accelerating faster than it is, causing the computer to throttle down earlier than it should, making it waste a bit of time bobbing on the ground before finally lifting off. I will probably do something to address this in the future. Man in the air! We were finally ready to let someone get on the vehicle. We were at this point a year ago with the previous generation (single tank, red tubes) vehicle, but development always seemed to be pushing us to change and improve the lander in some way, when we weren't working on the other propulsion research. Our criteria was always that we had to have two absolutely perfect ballasted flights with zero changes before a person could ride. Usually, after two flights we would either find a problem, or find something that we wanted to improve. We finally reached a point where everything is operating to our satisfaction. I was tempted to do something about the liftoff throttling, but we decided that it is good enough as is. Another factor that has kept us cautious is that Anna, my wife, was our designated first passenger. This was her rather crafty ploy to make sure that we pay a whole lot of attention to safety. It would be one thing for Russ to break a leg in an accident, it would be a completely different thing to break one of Anna's legs! Although she had been suited up and ready to fly on several past occasions that we canceled, Anna was scheduled to be out of town this weekend. Since we seemed to be operating responsibly, she ceded her position to Russ for the first flight, rather than make us wait until she got back. Anna prepping for the canceled flight last weekend: http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/Ann aPrep.mpg We had an ambulance on site, just in case. This is surprisingly inexpensive, and should be considered by anyone doing something potentially dangerous. The vehicle is chained securely to the ground, with chain wrapped around the main frame in two places, and connected to two big eye bolts sunk in the concrete. Nylon rope is wound through most of the chain links to act as a shock absorber, rather than let the chain come up hard. Russ wore goggles, ear plugs, and a filter mask underneath the helmet, and had a hazmat suit on to protect against any peroxide spray. We have a 3" energy absorbing foam pad on the seat, and a 1" pad on the back. Dry weight was 525 pounds, and we loaded 50 pounds of peroxide. The flight was perfect. Auto-land was initiated six seconds after throttle up. There was one bad sample from the altimeter recorded, but it didn't have any impact. We could have had a couple more seconds of air time at this load, but it was best to keep everything very conservative. Russ reported that the flight was smooth, but the landing thud was noticeable. I have been trying to get a quote from Enidine for custom wound wire rope isolators to give us a more cushy landing. If I had a cleaner signal from the altimeter, I could have the flight control software touch down almost arbitrarily softly, but right now there is enough uncertainty that asking for a slower rate of descent would leave the total speed basically in the noise margin. A few seconds in the air a few feet off the ground is not very significant by itself, but the point is that most of the systems necessary for much more significant flights are demonstrated. Looked at in the best light, it is a reusable, four axis stabilized, liquid fueled, manned rocket. Our single man suborbital space shot vehicle is expected to only be about twice the dry mass of this vehicle (but with a LOT more propellant, including kerosene), and will not be all that much more complex. It was tempting to fly more, but we are starting to hoard our peroxide because we are down to our last three drums, and we don't have the supply resolved yet. We will learn a lot more flying the tube vehicle to a couple thousand feet than doing yet another lander hop. When we get a good supply in, we will do some full-load lander flights with the pilot doing the joystick control. The video: http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/fir stMannedFlight.mpg The telemetry: http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/man nedTelemetry.gif Group photo, from left to right: Neil Milburn, Phil Eaton, Russ Blink, Joseph LaGrave, John Carmack, Matt Ross http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/gro upShot.jpg Misc We finished all the plumbing and wiring for the high flow regulated system that we will be testing with the 1,000 lbf regen biprop soon. We got the new fiberglass nose and tail cones for the tube vehicle, and mounted the rocket tower to the top, which will pull the parachute out. We got seven new 6" engine shells in. These have a slightly larger (2") throat, and have a full 2" radius of curvature on the throat, instead of our previous fairly sharp angle. We will be building the next vehicle frame to use four large differentially throttled engines instead of a single large engine with four pulsed attitude engines. Our cavitating venturis from Fox Valve finally arrived, after we had wrapped up most of our testing on the 2" motors. Sigh. We may go ahead and do some tests with them on one of the remaining aluminum chambers that need to be flood cooled.

  • Six seconds of perfectly controlled flight (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:21PM (#4363557) Homepage
    Dude, their pilot did better than their webserver...

  • Design Issue (Score:5, Funny)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) <shadow.wrought@g ... minus herbivore> on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:22PM (#4363566) Homepage Journal
    Apparently the only real design concern is that the craft tends to roll itself up into a ball in emergency situations...
    • Whoa....

      Yeah I read the title with inadequate amounts of both coffee and sleep.

      Armadillo Rocket Makes A (Short) Manned Hop

      All I could envision were scaly space vehicles somehow related to dwarves jumping.

  • Why the shortness? (Score:4, Funny)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:23PM (#4363577) Homepage
    The flight was shortened due to the fact that the company's webserver was located inside the rocket.

    Ahh... the slashdot effect is now one step closer to entering orbit.

  • Am I the only one who had visions of the Jetdillo [daft.com], ca. 1993?

    2,000 pounds of steel, 20,000 poounds of thrust, and a pair of very dark shades. The world's first fully cybernetic, SSTO-capable armadillo. Coming soon from Armadillo Labs. The Dasypian Future begins tomorrow...

    (Yeah, I admit it, I'm way too old-sk00l for my own good. Carmack, if you're reading this - was that the inspiration for the name of your firm? -{}{}{}{}{}{}8>

  • w00t!

    Strange sound for a rocket!

    A more likely story is someone had a curry the night before
  • With enough geeks, you can bring any weebsite to its knees.
  • "Armadillo Aerospace is a small research and development team working on computer-controlled hydrogen peroxide rocket vehicles"

    I had no idea hydrogen peroxide was so versatile:

    -ANTISEPTIC

    -BLONDE BLEACH for low-rent types

    -ROCKET FUEL

    ...and all for just $2.99/L at the local drugstore!

    • Re:H202 (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Umm sure, you mean your 97% water hydrogen peroxide?
    • We use H2O2 with sulfuric acid to remove organics from wafers. Its strong enough to blister your skin if you touch it though.
    • This seemingly harmless substance is a leading theory behind the Kursk submarine explosion [cnn.com]. Often used to power torpedeos, Great Brittan concluded in 1955 that it was too dangerous for use on subs after the Sidon (a UK sub) exploded from a hydrogen peroxide leak.
      • Don't forget the Royal Navy submarine HMS Explorer (AKA HMS Exploder), which was powered by hydrogen peroxide.
    • You won't get far with the stuff from the pharmacy - between 2 and 10% H2O2. The rocket uses neat hydrogen peroxide which is nasty stuff.

      The British Black Arrow satellite launcher used kerosene and hydrogen peroxide in its first two stages. It made for a very compact rocket which didn't require the complexity of cryogenic fuels.

      Details and photos here [astronautix.com]

      If you're ever in London you can see the sole remaining Black Arrow at the Science Museum. It's not quite as impressive as NASA's Saturn V, but its a pretty cool rocket nonetheless.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

      • The self-destruct on the Black Arrow was just a small capsule of catalyst surrounding a detanator in the H2O2 tank. Blow this and the whole thing would go bang in a shower of steam!!!!

        I don't know which catalyst was used, but I seem to remember that with pure H2O2, there was a lot of choice!

  • Armadillo Aero On Track! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:32PM (#4363622)
    As John posted to the Amateur Rocketry Listserv [lsoft.com] today, they are on track for a manned supersonic and unmanned spaceshot in 2003. That puts them in sight of the X-Prize for 2004. That is, if I don't get my butt in gear!

  • Coincidence (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Dobber ( 576407 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:35PM (#4363638)
    About the same amount of time one might get with a Rocket Gun assisted jump?
  • When they got back to Earth (after the 6-second flight), did the pilot get a rub-down with the blue goo by the vulcan from Enterprise? :-)

  • I was expecting to see a rocket, but it's just a flying seat with a dude and some fuel strapped onto it. Okay, okay, it's still quite an achievement. I was just hoping these guys were further along, ready to kick some major butt on the competition for private manned rocket flight. Oh well, there's still time I guess. :)

    • Re:What, no rocket? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Wumpus ( 9548 )
      Once their site recovers, you might want to check out their weekly status reports. They've made a lot of progress in designing their higher thrust engines, and the manned lander has just reached the point where it's stable enough (namely, they don't change the design radically on a weekly basis) to put a person on it and hope to get the person back with all bones intact.

      There's a lot of stuff that has to come together for them to achieve their goal, and they have at least some of it under control.
    • What you were expecting to see was a balistic missile. A "rocket" is mererly the motor.
      • What you were expecting to see was a balistic missile. A "rocket" is mererly the motor.

        Well, if you want to get picky, the dictionary defines "rocket" as a "rocket engine" or "anything propelled by a rocket engine". So the rocket isn't necessarily merely the motor. In fairness, I suppose that in this case "rocket" could refer to the chair that's being propelled by the rocket motor. Admittedly, I would have preferred to see an aerodynamic shell around the seat, and I would have preferred it to go several orders of magnitude higher than 6 feet.

        Now I've earned a picky credit, so I'll use it. Ballistic has two l's.

  • we had another launch planned but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tkrabec ( 84267 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:38PM (#4363657) Homepage
    After such a flight, we were planning to do more launches. Our Ultimate goal was space but we have been slashdotted, and our "burtable" bandwidth has killed our budget.

    Thanks Slashdot.

    -- Tim

  • In addition... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Navius Eurisko ( 322438 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:38PM (#4363660)
    the one passanger of the rocket was able to reach a height sufficient to obtain the coveted Quad Damage previously only accessible through a series of floating jump-pads. Experts predict this will give the passenger the edge needed to frag the camping BFG whore.

  • I wonder if we'll remember John as the Man that Sold the Moon...

    Doom, Quake, Armadillos...let's hope all they have in common is success and John. ;)

    • I agree. He certainly seems off to an auspicious start. Here's hoping it keeps going well!

      BTW, Love the Heinlein reference but personally I'd like to think that he'll be remembered as the man who gave us "...the plans for our first hyperdrive, allowing mankind to open the doors to the stars."
      • Galaxy Rangers reference! Wowza!

        I loved that show. Cheesy, but it was certainly several notches above some of the other crap I loved back then, such as Thundercats.

        I have the opening and both closing themes as crappy-sounding MP3s downloaded from some Galaxy Rangers fansite. If nothing else, this proves that I'm not just an anime fanboy... not that this really indicates any sort of broadened horizons, mind you.

        Well, I now have an X-Prize contestant to root for...

    • Another thing they have in common: a rocket launcher!
  • was john always that portly? looks like the nerd lifestyle has caught up (i saw him in 1995 and he was a rail). i'm so OT.

    • Re:excess kilos (Score:2, Informative)

      by Wumpus ( 9548 )
      The guy strapped to the thing with the peroxide tanks is Russ Blink. Carmack is flying this thing from the safety of his desk.

  • Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)

    by CommieLib ( 468883 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @07:44PM (#4363705) Homepage
    Armadillo Aerospace [216.239.53.100]
    • Yeah, that was the first place I looked, but it's no good. Even doing a search on all the cached stuff google has on Armadillo, they don't have the page that talks about the flight.

      At least none that I could find.

      Help me Obi Wan, you're my only hope...
  • Is the 1st time a human has flown in a real rocket that wasn't connected to a goverment?

    • Is the 1st time a human has flown in a real rocket that wasn't connected to a goverment?

      No, Xcor [xcor.com] has a rocket-propelled airplane running that they are using as a testbed for their space program.

      • Re:historic significance? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        11 June 1928 Fritz Stamer flew the first rocket-propelled flight in a Lippisch glider, travelling a distancec of 4,000 feet in seventy seconds.

        But as John himself says, "I'm not real big on trying to pile on enough qualifications to claim a 'first' of some sort. The only one that I really have my eye on is 'first private manned space launch', which should be pretty unequivocal."
    • i put a buncha estes E model rocket engines on my skateboard one time, would that count?
  • as not quoted from the article- JC - "yeah it was great, but far from our true goals.. The next time we hope that we can accually get it too crash land on that stupid planet."
  • From - Mon Sep 30 16:45:19 2002
    X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
    X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
    Message-ID:
    Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 16:45:18 -0700
    From: toqer
    User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.9) Gecko/20020513
    X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
    MIME-Version: 1.0
    To: xian@idsoftware.com
    Subject: mirror?
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

    Yo!

    I'm a geeky webmaster that plays quake and has a lot of accounts
    scatterered around the world. If you could tar.gz up that story and pics
    and shoot em back in a reply, I'd love to post em up as a mirror
    (because I am a shameless self promoting whore)

    Regards and bonghits.

    --toqer

  • who's to blame:

    Too many users... blah blah blah

    Probable cause: http://www.slashdot.org

    Try again in a few seconds...

    -xian@idsoftware.com

  • Voices in my head (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ruis ( 21357 ) on Monday September 30, 2002 @08:12PM (#4363908)
    While trying to visit the website, I keep hearing the Quake 3 voice in my head saying, "Denied".
  • For a somewhat working version of their website try:

    http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x [armadilloaerospace.com]
  • If you can get the URL for those movies from the actual website, post it, cause for some reason those work fine. It's just getting in through the front page that doesn't work. I was getting these at 65 k/s.

    http://ardvark.upnix.net/~chris/sas02_high.mpg
    http://ardvark.upnix.net/~chris/FirstStraightEditS horter.mpg

    Oh, it'll get slow, but it should keep going if you're patient

  • Ambulance? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30, 2002 @08:48PM (#4364134)
    "We had an ambulance on site, just in case. This is surprisingly inexpensive, and should be considered by anyone doing something potentially dangerous. The vehicle is chained securely to the ground, with chain wrapped around the main frame in two places, and connected to two big eye bolts sunk in the concrete. Nylon rope is wound through most of the chain links to act as a shock absorber, rather than let the chain come up hard."

    Wouldn't the ambulance be more useful if it weren't chained to the ground?

    pthththtt..
  • Why does this sound like something professor Frink would create?

    "Wahaay, Glaven!"

  • Impressive achievement. Just goes to show you that the line between amateur and professional rocketry isn't quite as divided as many profess. No doubt they'll be able to get someone beyond the "space" altitude (or orbit) before the end of the decade.

    I think it would be equally or potentially more interesting to deploy a small army of ThinkGeek-style rovers [thinkgeek.com]. Perhaps small-scale industrial stuff later, all done via remote-control.

  • From the site: ... team currently consists of a bunch of guys, a girl... ...small research and development team... ...computer-controlled hydrogen peroxide rocket X-Prize class vehicle development... ...lead us to space... ...Man in the air... ...Hypergolic fuels... ...Venturi injector...

    So what's the girl look like?
    • I was thinking the same think until I read that last line.

      I actually said out loud "Damn I'm a geek."

      I already modded myself (-1 Offtopic) by using "No Score +1 Bonus"
  • >Too many users... blah blah blah
    >
    >Probable cause: http://www.slashdot.org
    >
    >Try again in a few seconds...
    >
    >-xian@idsoftware.com

    Probable cause? Like there is any doubt!
  • Cool, so fifty-five years after NASA sent a monkey into space, John Carmack could set a new first: first civilian [code] monkey launched into space. While Albert the monkey sadly perished on his maiden flight, *he* didn't understand the principles of rocket-assisted jumping or in-air turning. Elementary physics to any Quake veteran...
  • They have now discovered a much better source of fuel than any previously known.

    This new means of propulsion has been designated "The Slashdot Effect Field". By placing a web server inside the rocket and redirecting requests in a controlled manner from a specially designed composite thruster, the rocket is able to achive any desired velocity and range.

    The only conventional fuel required is the amount required to raise the rocket six feet, at which time the news post can be generated to initiate the Slashdot Effect Field.
  • John Carmack wants to propel people upwards using rockets for real ??! Let's just hope self-damage was turned down :)

    Next they'll be distributing grenades on the launch pad to get a bit more height

    If he ever smashes to the ground himself testing one of these creations - you just know what should be on his grave stone: "Carmack cratered." hehe

    Oh stop it (rofl)- there's probably a hundred RJ jokes in this one..
  • The only problem with the launch was that once the paracute opened, the wind caught the rocket and it got stuck in a tree down the block. One of the neighbor hood kids got it down by throwing a stick at it.
  • I read over the Armadillo site a good while ago, and I confess the basics of the ultimate goal seem a bit elusive. The only picture of the manned module I saw resembled a section of sewer pipe. I know the ultimate goal is to get a human payload up 50 miles or so, but...what then? Does a chute pop open and the thing simply return to earth, the passengers not even glimpsing space because of the lack of a porthole? If so it seems curious indeed as the passengers might get the same "experience" hopping into one of NASA's centrifugal G-force trainers, and be a whole lot safer for it, besides.
  • The same story twice in the same day! [slashdot.org] This is a first, even for Slashdot.

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