Slashdot Mirror

There's been plenty of research done regarding collection of solar via orbiting power stations, and relaying it back to Earth via microwaves. Yes, there probably are some downsides regarding the energy balance of the planet (if you do enough of it), and after a while you'll cover the Earth in receivers or push the power of the microwaves to a level to cook us all, but by that point we'll all be dead anyway from other causes.

With the recent burse of companies pushing into space, this is no longer a fantasy.

Nasa has been milking TRILLIONS out of the U.S. for decades.

Time to give Spacedev http://www.spacedev.com/ a shot

and

SpaceX a shot http://www.spacex.com/

You are mixing up systems. ss1 used HTPB (the shredded tires) and nitrous oxide(N2O) as the oxidizer. While space has tested engines based on H2O2, it was not used. H2O2 is very difficult to work with as it must be extremely pure. In fact, a little bit of impurity can cause an explosion.

The nice thing about the HTPB/N2O combo is the cost and the switchablity. It is basically a solid fuel approach but allows multiple start-ups. Of course, the downfall is that it is not a strong engine, but for orbiting engines, it is a good set-up. I wonder if spacedev will use it for the manuevering thrusters.

A number of private spaceflight firms mentioned in the article are looking for people to hire. These companies are looking for folks with expertise in a variety of areas, from web design, to aerospace/mechanical engineering, to programming. Here's a few links (courtesy of RLV News, listed roughly in order of available resources), with descriptions of what the company does:
 
* Bigelow Aerospace: Inflatable space station modules for orbital research and tourism. Despite being inflatable, their modules are better at withstanding space debris than the ISS, as they're made of a material twice as strong as kevlar. Out of all the private spaceflight firms, they probably have the most resources.
* SpaceX: Orbital rockets which are drastically cheaper than the competition, with plans for building manned orbital rockets. They should be launching their first rocket next month.
* Scaled Composites: Burt Rutan's company and winner of the X Prize. They're currently working on building SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic.
* SpaceDev: They build microsatellites and propulsion systems.
* Blue Origin: Suborbital vehicle company started by Amazon.com's CEO, Jeff Bezos. Author Neal Stephenson also works for them, hoping for the "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a minor character in a Robert Heinlein novel."
* Rocketplane Limited: Suborbital spaceplanes
* Masten Space Systems: Suborbital launch vehicles.
* TGV Rockets: Suborbital launch

A number of private spaceflight firms which are periodically posted about on slashdot are looking for students to hire as summer interns, as well as full-time jobs. These companies are looking for folks with expertise in a variety of areas, from web design, to aerospace/mechanical engineering, to programming. Here's a few links (courtesy of RLV News), with descriptions of what the company does:

* SpaceX: Orbital rockets which are drastically cheaper than the competition, with plans for building manned orbital rockets. They should be launching their first rocket next month.
* Blue Origin: Suborbital vehicle company started by Amazon.com's CEO, Jeff Bezos.
* Masten Space Systems: Suborbital launch vehicles.
* Rocketplane Limited: Suborbital spaceplanes

Also, a few more hiring only for full-time jobs:
* Bigelow Aerospace: Inflatable space station modules for orbital research and tourism. Out of all the private spaceflight firms, they probably have the most resources.
* Scaled Composites: Burt Rutan's company and winner of the X Prize. They're currently working on building SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic.
* SpaceDev: They build microsatellites and propulsion systems.
* TGV Rockets: Suborbital launch

SpaceDev, a company which builds microsatellites and propulsion systems (including the rockets on SpaceShipOne) has a neat 3D lunar lander simulator (binary link) on their website. It's kind of neat to play to get an idea of the control side of the problem.

SpaceDev, a company which builds microsatellites and propulsion systems (including the rockets on SpaceShipOne) has a neat 3D lunar lander simulator (binary link) on their website. It's kind of neat to play to get an idea of the control side of the problem.

I see no evidence of engineering work on their site. It looks like it's all marketing blurb. They need to get together with a company that can actually build rockets. SpaceDev would be my first guess since they already have plans to get to the moon:

http://www.spacedev.com/newsite/templates/subpage3 .php?pid=139&subNav=11&subSel=1

Let 4Frontiers (the business guys) do the marketing, raise the money, be the front and let SpaceDev (the rocket scientists) do the actual work, probably with some help from Scaled (the builders) for the fabrication of crew vehicles.

(FYI, SpaceDev is the company that built the rockets for SpaceShip One - they also have a space tug under development for NASA).

Considering the cost of putting stuff in space, asteroids have the big advantage of not requiring expensive rocket launches to get anything in orbit. If you're patient, you can move your ore back to Earth (or wherever in the solar system) a lot more cheaply than you would if you first had to get out of a planet's gravity well.

Considering the cost of putting stuff in space, asteroids have the big advantage of not requiring expensive rocket launches to get anything in orbit. If you're patient, you can move your ore back to Earth (or wherever in the solar system) a lot more cheaply than you would if you first had to get out of a planet's gravity well.

in addition to SSTL, AeroAstro (http://www.aeroastro.com/ has been a leader in this field. The president of AeroAstro, Dr. Rick Fleeter has written an excellent primer on microsats called "The Logic of Microspace" that sets out the possibilities of the "microspace" movement. SpaceDev (http://www.spacedev.com/ has also been active in the field with their CHIPsat microsat.

http://www.spacedev.com/newsite/templates/subpage3 _article.php?pid=411&subNav=11&subSel=3

"SpaceDev has been playing a significant part of the SpaceShipOne team, working to develop safe rocket propulsion system for the space ship. SpaceDev has used its extensive propulsion experience to design and build all the key parts of the rocket motor, including the main valve, the advanced injector and motor igniters in addition to electronics and software. Work to-date has resulted in successful test firings of SpaceDev's hybrid propulsion system that uses Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas) and HTPB (tire rubber) as the propellants."

Yes, it wasn't a complete system (they didn't, for example, provide the casing), but they did the serious work on it.

Remember, Rutan wants to make both suborbital and orbital vehicles that can be certified to a level of safety equivalent to early airliners. These will be 100x safer than the shuttle, and will operate at a profit

And I'd like to be the queen of all Londinium and wear a shiny hat.

Andrews isn't, but SpaceDev is a publicly traded company.

Disclaimer: I own a few shares that I bought a little while after the SpaceShip One media blitz had died down. Scaled Composites is a private company, but SpaceDev builds their rocket engines. For me it's a long term bet - I may not win, but the sheer coolness of putting money in on this seemed like a good idea at the time.

Since I work in a completely unrelated field [entertainment], get horribly sick on a rollercoaster and would never see space willingly even if it was possible for me in my lifetime [I can get 30 minutes of me screaming, closing my eyes and being sick quite cheaply while in our atmosphere] - this is probably the only way that I can contribute to our expansion into space.

(Stocks go up and down and may become worthless and make your money explode, burn and you'll never see it again if you do anything I suggest, blah, blah, don't sue me for any of this).

Andrews isn't, but SpaceDev is a publicly traded company.

Disclaimer: I own a few shares that I bought a little while after the SpaceShip One media blitz had died down. Scaled Composites is a private company, but SpaceDev builds their rocket engines. For me it's a long term bet - I may not win, but the sheer coolness of putting money in on this seemed like a good idea at the time.

Since I work in a completely unrelated field [entertainment], get horribly sick on a rollercoaster and would never see space willingly even if it was possible for me in my lifetime [I can get 30 minutes of me screaming, closing my eyes and being sick quite cheaply while in our atmosphere] - this is probably the only way that I can contribute to our expansion into space.

(Stocks go up and down and may become worthless and make your money explode, burn and you'll never see it again if you do anything I suggest, blah, blah, don't sue me for any of this).

I haven't found any information about composition nor if it's solid or granular, what I have found is that it has not been given any taxonomy yet (C/S/M-type etc.) except that it belongs to the Aten group/class (which says nothing about its composition), so where did you find that "It will be mainly silicate rock" or how did you deduce it? (links appreciated).

Regardless it should be a nice target for something like Spacedevs NEAP which should be easy to use as a transponder as well.

The only video footage I have come across is on SpaceDev's Web site. It shows a joint White Knight/SpaceShipOne take off.

Humans need to get into space simply because Earth is not a closed system. We can't keep all our eggs in this basket at the bottom of a gravity well. The solar system affects us and has more resources than are available on Earth.

Incidentally: " 03/26/04 - SpaceDev Seeks Top Spacecraft Program Managers and Engineers"

They can send a payload into space for under $10 million, but they still can't fix their crappy home page design?

This probably is a very pessimistic estimate. For somewhat more optimistic outlook, see Private Space Development Timeline Mind you Elon Musk of SpaceX is planning to launch his semi-reusable Falcon in January, 2004. That is, to orbit. Some other companies, like Microcosm and SpaceDev are on track to launch their low-cost orbital vehicles in quite near future too. If and when X-Prize is won, the efforts ( sub ~million per launch manned suborbital ) and current "cheap" launcher builders will converge and it isnt unreasonable to expect a couple million range manned orbital launches in this decade. Given some competition and general revitalization of industry, expect new high-tech technologies and materials to be employed real fast after initial proofs of concept, thus bringing the price down even further. Imagine, a million dollar orbital trip that could be won on lottery.

For more information try:

www.spacedev.com

go to missions, CHIPSat.

They don't just use FTP. That's just one port for getting data to and from the spacecraft in batches (which is usually a perfectly acceptable way to get data in and out). See their whitepaper. They can also telnet to the 750, and hve other services as well.

No, it's not. However it IS the first satellite to ONLY use TCP/IP to communicate.

From the spacedev website:

"The Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer Satellite (CHIPSat) will be the first mission to use end-to-end satellite operations with TCP/IP and FTP. This concept has been analyzed and demonstrated by the NASA OMNI team via UoSAT-12; however, CHIPSat will be the first to implement the concept as the primary means of satellite communication."

Here are some website links:
Spacedev is (duh)
www.spacedev.com
CHIPSat can be found under Missions.
Spacedev's stock price can be found at:
finance.yahoo.com
The Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley
chips.ssl.berkeley.edu

Not sure why I'm not being modded up, but the link details all of the technical specs of OS and hardware, as well as the code and networking info. Shines quite a bit of light on the story... Surprised the original poster didn't look this far...

LR

The technical paper is on the SpaceDev website.
They are using VxWorks, PSOS, OS-9, and Linux. Looks like VxWorks is what will be running on the satellite, with less than 20 lines of code in the actual communication routines...

LR

The technical paper is on the SpaceDev website.
They are using VxWorks, PSOS, OS-9, and Linux. Looks like VxWorks is what will be running on the satellite, with less than 20 lines of code in the actual communication routines...

LR

AMROC was bought by SpaceDev and they are continuing the work.

There's a UN charta that both the US and Russia signed that states that no county can claim sovereignty of celestial bodies. Property rights are a different matter, however, and no one can really stop you from claiming ownership of a celestial body, but I think you actually have to go there! "But it passed overhead!" probably wouldn't cut it. Now if it was permanently overhead, you may have some claim but I doubt it. For an example of a company planning to claim an asteroid see Space Dev.

The real benefits of asteroid mining will be to make self-replicating cities in space. These will allow a diversity of human-derived cultures to flourish.

What will be of value in the space frontier is using the energy from the sun and matter from the asteroids to build space cities or space habitats. These will provide homes for trillions of ideas. The wealth that will flow back to Earth won't be material -- it will be spiritual (new dreams), intellectual (new designs), and political (peacemaking).

Such habitats will also provide a place for misfits to go -- as the American frontier was for a time -- letting the Earth settle down.

To create a space city that can self-replicate from asteroidal ore and sunlight will take a better understanding of manufacturing and how webs of manufacturing processes fit together.

Links:
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs /sp acsetl.htm
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
http://www.ssi.org/
http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html http://www.spacedev.com/
http://www.spacehab.com/
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

I'm surprised the article doesn't reference the company SpaceDev. They are the world's first private asteroid mining company... well, they haven't really done it yet, so I guess they're the first to plan to do it. First launch should be some time next year.


---

1. Open source library of knowledge for developing nations (making the world's intellectual wealth available to all)
http://www.oneworld.org/globalp roj ects/humcdrom/
http://www.oneworld.org/globalprojects/& lt;/a>
http://www.oneworld .or g/globalprojects/humcdrom/copyrigh.htm
http://payson.tulane.edu:8888/
; http://www.globalprojects.org/
; http://www.humanitylibraries.net/ http://www.villageearth.org/
http://www.villageearth.org/ATLi bra ry/cdrom.htm

2. Open source knowledge management systems
http://www.bootstrap.org/
http://bootstrap.org/colloquium/ar chi ves.html
http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion /

3. Self-replicating space habitats (support trillions of humans in style without overrunning the earth)
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/s ett le.htm
http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs /sp acsetl.htm
http://www.permanent.com/
http://science.n as. nasa.gov/Services/Education/SpaceSettlement/
http://www.luf.org/
http://www.ssi.org/
http://www.ssi.org/alt-plan.html http://www.spacedev.com/
http://www.spacehab.com/
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

4. Pursue the "Ecocity Berkley" vision in the book by that name by Richard Register and look for related visions of sustainable development
http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob ido s/ASIN/1556430094/
http://www.co-intelligence.or g/y 2k_commtyorgs.html
http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/h ome .htm
http://www.ulb.ac.be/ceese/meta/sust vl. html
http://www.rmi.org/

5. Work towards ending the drug war and pardoning hundreds of thousands of Americans imprisoned on non-violent drug charges. (I believe drug use is wrong and should be avoided, and by all means as it is now illegal, so don't do drugs! But as with alcohol and tobacco and caffeine, drug abuse should be considered a medical problem, not a legal one (except when like DUI it hurts or puts at risk others directly)).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pag es/ frontline/shows/drugs/
http://www.drcnet.org/facts/

6. Teaching tolerance and compassion
http://www.splcenter.org/
http://www.splcenter.or g/t eachingtolerance/tt-index.html

7. Open source educational simulations and simulation construction toolkits (one of the most meaningful ways to use computers in the classroom).
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/ http://riceinfo.ri ce. edu/armadillo/Simulations/simserver.html
http://www.creativeteachingsite .co m/edusims.html
http://www.workingmodel.com/
http://www.idsia.ch/~andrea/simtools.h tml

8. Preserving biodiversity (when it's gone, it's gone forever)
http://www.tnc.org/
http://www.environment.about.com/newsissues/enviro nment/library/weekly/aa091700.htm

9. Develop any specific sustainable technology in energy (e.g. solar), recycling (e.g. recycle computers), materials (e.g. plastics from starch), society (e.g. participatory democracy & social justice).
http://www.google.com/sear ch? q=sustainable+technology
http://www.edf.org/issues/Recycling.htm l
http://www.sustainable.doe.gov/

10. Make corporations more accountable to human needs
http://www.adbusters.org/inform ati on/foundation/
http://www.adbusters.org/c amp aigns/charter/death.html
Previous link vanished, try instead:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.adbuste rs.org/ campaigns/charter/death.html+corporate+death+penal ty&hl=en
http://www.cwsl.edu/news/n_corpo rat e_death.html
http://monkeyfist.com/articles/340& lt;br> http://www.chaordic.org/

11. Reform the "Intellectual property" laws and their related organizations, perhaps so that copyrights are for a couple decades and most patents are for a dozen years and only for true innovations. Ensure that any IP developed with any government money is immediately put into the public domain.
http://danny.oz.au/fre e-s oftware/advocacy/against_IP.html
(Lots of other Slashot links!)

12. If you don't want to get you hands dirty volunteering your own time, look around and find good people (not organizations, although the people may be in organizations) already doing good things. Pick people with a track record of years of fighting for the common good or who have already made a major accomplishment demonstrating commitment and just anonymously give them $100K without strings attached. Example: Marty Johnson at Isles, Inc.
http://www.isles.org/mileston.html& lt;br> Find people just starting a career of public service or a charitable venture and struggling to do good things and give them $20K and tell them you believe in their promise and cause. Expect a bunch of the money to be wasted but give it anyway and learn how to give effectively. For ideas, look at the grantees list of any foundation. Then ask those people who they know who are just starting out and trying to do a good job.
http://www.beldon.org/grants2000_07.htm l

When I was about thirteen, I got about seven books out of the library on money thinking I wanted to become a millionaire. Six told me how to get rich (start a business and run it well.) One of them asked me "why do you want to be rich?" That is the one whose name I remember and the ideas in it have changed my life. For advice on setting a direction of what to do with wealth, read the Book "The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips and Sally Raspberry, especially the chapter on how foundations fail in their mission and how grants go to people who sound good but usually can't deliver (i.e. how hard it is to give money away).
http://www.seeingmoney.com/SevenLaws.ht m
http://www.hallbusi nes ses.com/biographies_primers/1420.shtml

My wife and I are working on a few of these issues ourselves (and a few example links are to our stuff). We make money contracting and spend it to "buy" our own time for making quality software the market can't or doesn't seem to want to pay for. Even without IPO riches, any competent software developer can make $75K-100K in today's market. Graduate students can live on $20K a year, and so can many software developers (kids make it harder) if they follow the path of Voluntary Simplicity. It's a question of priorities.
http://www.life.ca/subject/simplicity .ht ml
http://www.simpleliving.net/slj/ http://www.scn.org/earth/lightly/ http://www.thegarden.net/simplicity/

Voluntary simplicity leaves a lot of funds for doing good deeds - even if they are done on your own time by using your own money to take time off and develop open source software or do other worthwhile ventures. Or take a job that doesn't pay as well but involves helping an organization that you believe in.
http://www.idealist.org/

There are awesome things happening over the next twenty to forty years. According to Moore's law, desktop computers in twenty or so years will be a million times faster than today's. Already computers can drive cars somewhat well and identify vegetable better than humans.

http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/magazine/199 9/number_3/machine399.html ;

Other breakthrough innovations are happening in technological areas like energy, materials, nanotechnology, communications, agriculture, biotechnology, and robotics. Use your wealth to think deeply about what all this means and do something to ensure human survival with style.

It is saddening to see people spend so much money on less important stuff (another night club in this case). Now if it was a night club where these issues are discussed, then maybe it makes sense.

Capitalism without charity is evil, because capitalism only meets the needs of people with money.

The NEAR spacecraft, and the information that it is gathering, are probably one of the most worthwhile missions that NASA has ever had. The detailed look at Eros that it is providing will fill in a lot of details about our scientific knowledge of asteroids.

You can expect to see similiar missions to asteroids in the coming years. SpaceDev, a publicly owned company, is proposing NEAP, the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector. This probe, tentatively scheduled to launch in 2003, was originaly planned to visit the Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) Nereus. Recent discovery of hundreds of previously unknown NEA's may cause SpaceDev to delay the mission, and redirect the probe to some better target asteroid.

Additional missions? None scheduled yet. But you can bet they'll happen. The accessable resources of the asteroids have an estimated dollar value of about $100 Billion per person currently living on Earth. Someday soon, someone is going to dig into that Bonanza.

The NEAR spacecraft, and the information that it is gathering, are probably one of the most worthwhile missions that NASA has ever had. The detailed look at Eros that it is providing will fill in a lot of details about our scientific knowledge of asteroids.

You can expect to see similiar missions to asteroids in the coming years. SpaceDev, a publicly owned company, is proposing NEAP, the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector. This probe, tentatively scheduled to launch in 2003, was originaly planned to visit the Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) Nereus. Recent discovery of hundreds of previously unknown NEA's may cause SpaceDev to delay the mission, and redirect the probe to some better target asteroid.

Additional missions? None scheduled yet. But you can bet they'll happen. The accessable resources of the asteroids have an estimated dollar value of about $100 Billion per person currently living on Earth. Someday soon, someone is going to dig into that Bonanza.

SpaceDev claim to have developed a standard Mars microprobe architecture that they will sell for about $24 million. NASA is apparently looking at it for their proposed Mars Network, a combined GPS (APS=AreoPositioning System?) and communications network. It could also be used to place 2-3 small landers/balloons/etc into Mars' atmosphere. The design is meant to be launched as a secondary payload on launchers such as Ariane 5, and use Earth/Moon gravity assists and Mars aerobraking to get it there. Spacedev will sell it to any interested party, and CEO Jim Benson said "You say things aren't happening fast enough with NASA's current Mars Exploration Program. Then decide what you want to send to Mars, get a sponsor, and just do it! Inner planet missions like this one can now be done for about the cost of a private jet or mega-yacht" How about it, Mr Gates?

The cool thing is that they plan to stake a claim to Nereus, thus the "P", for "Prospector".

From one of their PRs:

The spacecraft, Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), first in a series of SpaceDev deep space Prospectors, will carry up to five advanced scientific instruments to an asteroid near the earth in order to analyze its size, and determine its composition and value. SpaceDev intends to sell the acquired data as a commercial product as well as stake claim to the asteroid in order to set a precedent for private property rights in space.

"NEAP's success will prove that space is a place, not a government program," said Benson. "Private companies and the public can and should have a direct stake in the opportunities space exploration and development have to offer," he added.

I really hope they pull it off!

The cool thing is that they plan to stake a claim to Nereus, thus the "P", for "Prospector".

From one of their PRs:

The spacecraft, Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), first in a series of SpaceDev deep space Prospectors, will carry up to five advanced scientific instruments to an asteroid near the earth in order to analyze its size, and determine its composition and value. SpaceDev intends to sell the acquired data as a commercial product as well as stake claim to the asteroid in order to set a precedent for private property rights in space.

"NEAP's success will prove that space is a place, not a government program," said Benson. "Private companies and the public can and should have a direct stake in the opportunities space exploration and development have to offer," he added.

I really hope they pull it off!

The loss of George Koopman was a tremendous blow, but the failure of their Single Engine Test vehicle on 10/5/89 was not a consequence of his accident. Decisions and circumstances unrelated to the engine technology pretty much doomed the proof of concept vehicle. Of course, we didn't recognize that until after the thing burned up like a stack of tires on the pad and sent a thick cloud of black smoke over Santa Maria, CA. (At least we proved the safety of hybrids - a solid or liquid rocket would have exploded spectacularly.)

AMROC spent a lot of effort optimizing their 75,000-lb thrust hybrid engine. I'm still bound by an NDA, but I can tell you that instabilities and resonances in the combustion flow occupied most of their attention. (The early ones would sputter and rumble and drone and even pop the casing or spew chunks of flaming rubber - it wasn't pretty.) I'm curious as to how this is affecting the current development of the 250,000lbf engine (the press releases mention nothing). Interestingly, SpaceDev of San Diego acquired AMROC's intellectual property last year, and they are not a member of the Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program consortium. Some of the AMROC principals helped establish the hybrid division at HMX, and they aren't involved, either. (It's hard not to jump to the conclusion that Lockheed and co. didn't intentionally ignore AMROC's legacy.)

But yes, AMROC went out of business just a few years ago. It was an amazing company to work for: the President, George A. Koopman, was ex-CIA, ex-Hollywood, and co-author of Neuropolitique with Timothy Leary. James Bennet, VP and later president, penned seminal commercial space policy, and acquired for AMROC one of the first commercial launch licenses. Investors in AMROC in the late 80's included the Belushi family, Robby Kreiger, the Leary estate, and many other counterculture and fringe culture venture capitalists.

Oh, yeah - and once Koopman once gave me the most awesome buds I have ever tasted in my life! George was extremely charismatic, terrific at drumming up investment money, and an inspiration to everyone who worked for him. Aside from demolishing our morale, his death effectively marked the end of investment money for AMROC...

Most of the officers and technical gurus at AMROC came from Bennet's and Koopman's earlier hybrid company: Starstruck. Starstruck, based in the SF Bay Area, launched a hybrid demonstrator in 1984, called the Dolphin. It was a sea launch concept, implemented >10 years before Boeing's Sea Launch. The vehicle was towed out to sea, buoyed only by collars of balloons. Before launch, the aft balloons were purged, the vehicle righted itself, the torch was lit, and it leapt out of the ocean. Regrettably, there's very little info available on the web regarding Starstruck.

The loss of George Koopman was a tremendous blow, but the failure of their Single Engine Test vehicle on 10/5/89 was not a consequence of his accident. Decisions and circumstances unrelated to the engine technology pretty much doomed the proof of concept vehicle. Of course, we didn't recognize that until after the thing burned up like a stack of tires on the pad and sent a thick cloud of black smoke over Santa Maria, CA. (At least we proved the safety of hybrids - a solid or liquid rocket would have exploded spectacularly.)

AMROC spent a lot of effort optimizing their 75,000-lb thrust hybrid engine. I'm still bound by an NDA, but I can tell you that instabilities and resonances in the combustion flow occupied most of their attention. (The early ones would sputter and rumble and drone and even pop the casing or spew chunks of flaming rubber - it wasn't pretty.) I'm curious as to how this is affecting the current development of the 250,000lbf engine (the press releases mention nothing). Interestingly, SpaceDev of San Diego acquired AMROC's intellectual property last year, and they are not a member of the Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program consortium. Some of the AMROC principals helped establish the hybrid division at HMX, and they aren't involved, either. (It's hard not to jump to the conclusion that Lockheed and co. didn't intentionally ignore AMROC's legacy.)

But yes, AMROC went out of business just a few years ago. It was an amazing company to work for: the President, George A. Koopman, was ex-CIA, ex-Hollywood, and co-author of Neuropolitique with Timothy Leary. James Bennet, VP and later president, penned seminal commercial space policy, and acquired for AMROC one of the first commercial launch licenses. Investors in AMROC in the late 80's included the Belushi family, Robby Kreiger, the Leary estate, and many other counterculture and fringe culture venture capitalists.

Oh, yeah - and once Koopman once gave me the most awesome buds I have ever tasted in my life! George was extremely charismatic, terrific at drumming up investment money, and an inspiration to everyone who worked for him. Aside from demolishing our morale, his death effectively marked the end of investment money for AMROC...

Most of the officers and technical gurus at AMROC came from Bennet's and Koopman's earlier hybrid company: Starstruck. Starstruck, based in the SF Bay Area, launched a hybrid demonstrator in 1984, called the Dolphin. It was a sea launch concept, implemented >10 years before Boeing's Sea Launch. The vehicle was towed out to sea, buoyed only by collars of balloons. Before launch, the aft balloons were purged, the vehicle righted itself, the torch was lit, and it leapt out of the ocean. Regrettably, there's very little info available on the web regarding Starstruck.

The loss of George Koopman was a tremendous blow, but the failure of their Single Engine Test vehicle on 10/5/89 was not a consequence of his accident. Decisions and circumstances unrelated to the engine technology pretty much doomed the proof of concept vehicle. Of course, we didn't recognize that until after the thing burned up like a stack of tires on the pad and sent a thick cloud of black smoke over Santa Maria, CA. (At least we proved the safety of hybrids - a solid or liquid rocket would have exploded spectacularly.)

AMROC spent a lot of effort optimizing their 75,000-lb thrust hybrid engine. I'm still bound by an NDA, but I can tell you that instabilities and resonances in the combustion flow occupied most of their attention. (The early ones would sputter and rumble and drone and even pop the casing or spew chunks of flaming rubber - it wasn't pretty.) I'm curious as to how this is affecting the current development of the 250,000lbf engine (the press releases mention nothing). Interestingly, SpaceDev of San Diego acquired AMROC's intellectual property last year, and they are not a member of the Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program consortium. Some of the AMROC principals helped establish the hybrid division at HMX, and they aren't involved, either. (It's hard not to jump to the conclusion that Lockheed and co. didn't intentionally ignore AMROC's legacy.)

But yes, AMROC went out of business just a few years ago. It was an amazing company to work for: the President, George A. Koopman, was ex-CIA, ex-Hollywood, and co-author of Neuropolitique with Timothy Leary. James Bennet, VP and later president, penned seminal commercial space policy, and acquired for AMROC one of the first commercial launch licenses. Investors in AMROC in the late 80's included the Belushi family, Robby Kreiger, the Leary estate, and many other counterculture and fringe culture venture capitalists.

Oh, yeah - and once Koopman once gave me the most awesome buds I have ever tasted in my life! George was extremely charismatic, terrific at drumming up investment money, and an inspiration to everyone who worked for him. Aside from demolishing our morale, his death effectively marked the end of investment money for AMROC...

Most of the officers and technical gurus at AMROC came from Bennet's and Koopman's earlier hybrid company: Starstruck. Starstruck, based in the SF Bay Area, launched a hybrid demonstrator in 1984, called the Dolphin. It was a sea launch concept, implemented >10 years before Boeing's Sea Launch. The vehicle was towed out to sea, buoyed only by collars of balloons. Before launch, the aft balloons were purged, the vehicle righted itself, the torch was lit, and it leapt out of the ocean. Regrettably, there's very little info available on the web regarding Starstruck.

What's left of AMROC has been sold (or licensed) to SpaceDev, see http://www.spacedev.com/HRD/HRD_home.htm