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Inventor Building Rocket In Backyard
brundlefly writes: "Brian Walker, a toy inventor with no college degree and
almost no flight experience, plans to blast himself into space next summer in a rocket he is building in his backyard." Man, I gotta get myself a backyard!
An open forum will always have a lot of "gambits" that turn up all over the place. Check out Usenet and you will find the same kind of thing. You will just have to learn to filter through the crap and try to get out the nuggets (very hard I must admit). The single most helpful thing I did was to set my lowest threshold to 0 to filter out the Anonymous Cowards and from there it's just a matter of ignoring lengthy posts that start out with "Captain Picard! We have a Natalie Portman sighting!".
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Made of cheese? excuse me? it was like 30 years ago that we went to the moon and found it wasnt made of cheese. Of course we havent found a good enough reason to go back.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
OK, sorry about the outburst. I think I was having a bad day when I did that (probably not the best excuse) and I had seen a few similar posts and they were getting on my nerves.
I do read USENET, and there are days where you are better off just putting a funnel in your ear and hoping to hear something intelligent from your fellow office-mates.
The really bad thing about setting your filter level up now is that moderators (not all of them) tend to moderate down comments that they don't agree with instead of comments that really suck. It's too bad. I like the open forum idea, and I really like to hear actual opposing viewpoints worded well. There are a lot of them that get marked down to -1 just because some moderator apparently doesn't agree with the opinion they express. It's sad, but you are then forced to either miss the good comments that someone doesn't agree with, or filter through crap with your own eyes and read a lot of useless junk to catch the good ones. Hopefully we can see a fix for that someday. I hope.
Bite my yammer.
One cure for this could be to give 1 Indistructible Karma point per day for every 10 karma you have. This point can be given to a story and cannot be moderated down! (This would only work if there is a minimum score for a story, like -2 which I think is the score at which a reply no longer appears in slashdot without special measures).
Hopefully only serious people get 10+ karma and hopefully they use them on serious posts. If the system doesn't work, then just throw it out. :)
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Aristotle guessed it was about double the size that it is now. I got mistaken for the pre-copernican earth centre of universe idea.
"Frisbee said the engines are simple - although hydrogen peroxide at high concentrations is highly volatile and tricky to handle - and can produce an enormous amount of power. "
What I always wanted! A seat beside pure hydrogen peroxide flying at 4 times the speed of sound! So safe! So secure! So explosive! And the headlines! "Moscow residents got to see one of the largest fireworks display known to man. Film at 11."
Well, there were all sorts of "interesting" plots later on, hinged on the delightfully thin premise that they could use this rocket as a sort of super helicopter, and take off and land just about anywhere on the globe.
I recall an episode of running from Chinese soldiers through some marsh....
The show didn't live up to the movie, but then, what show ever does?
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At least if something goes wrong he'll have plenty of peroxide for keeping any cuts clean. Oh, wait... that's hydrogen peroxide... wonder if that burns any worse when applied than peroxide alone?
Significantly more so (but since he is using hydrogen peroxide, none of the below really applies.)
IF he devised a method of isolating peroxide ions (-OOH) from the cations in any significant amount and was planning to use this in anything resembling a conventional rocket, I would want to be a few counties away when he launches. The naked protons or cations that would result from such an insolation would exhibit a significant attraction towards the peroxide ions due to the separation of charge. The reunion of charge would result in a rather--exothermic--reaction.
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
From the article it looks as if he did review there work.
I first must say that the tests you refer to make a great documentary on the history channel.
The people from the cold war used high altitude parachutes to control there decent.
The article mentioned that Walker will use a multi-stage parachute during his decent.
This conept of multi-staged parachutes, if I remember correctly, was the result of the testing you mentioned.
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If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.
You know the first recorded attempt by a human being to reach space was a Chinese dude centuries ago who sat on top of a pile of gunpowder and lit it. That's what this reminds me of.
That and the guy trying to make a do-it-yourself clone. And the people who try to cryogenically freeze themselves in blocks of dry ice.
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Relax... just a joke... sheesh... well, perhaps if Gates and Ellison want to visit Mars... I don't think anyone will have anyproblem with it....
It's kinda cool though... this guy has balls the size of church bells, I'll give him that... hope he doesn't have any children though... that'd suck for them.
Humorless sig goes here.
I agree.
It is surprising there is no mention of a test flight.
He is obviously inexperienced with putting his own life in danger.
We can guess what will happen...oh well.
-Sleen
Speak for yourself
I don't want to "trash the earth NOW", and nothing I said could even remotely be misunderstood like that.
Guess you must be an idiot.
As for seeking forgiveness later, if you launch in the wrong spot, you won't be alive to seek forgiveness and neither will the people on the plane you hit.
That said, assuming that the design is not just totally stupid, which it sounds like it isn't, I don't see why the FAA would try to stop it as long as he can convince them he'll only kill himself.
As for having all the technical challenges worked out, I dunno. For one thing, he's going to be travelling at the speed of the Earth's rotation so, while gravity may keep him upright if the engines fire with exactly the same amount of thrust, I doubt he's going to come down in the same spot he took off in (or anywhere near it for that matter). There's also the technical challenge of making all the parts work together which is never easy.
So I certainly wouldn't wanna be in that thing. But I say let him fly - he'll either make space or the Darwin Awards :)
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
This guy even invented something that was designated MP3!
It doesn't guarantee the comments are his, of course.
I'm going to turn off my cynicism filter for a while and wish the guy luck (he's going to need it!)
zaugg
Its orbital or extra-orbital re-entry that egts fiendish beacuse of the unmatched velocities
the heat sheilds they need for re-entry are because they are using the atmosphere as a brake to match speeds with the bit of ground they want to hit (and brake's get hot)
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Benny Hill did a skit on this several decades ago.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Ah good point! To be honest I didn't 100% think it was a prank, but man, it'd be a great one. If it got picked up by a lot of the media I guess. Otherwise it would be somewhat lame. But that's a good link, thanks!
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Yes, and I am going to dig a tunnel to China. Pick me up on the other side.
Going up is not that difficult, with enough brute force etc.
the going down part seems more dangerous to me.
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Umm... "peroxide" is sillly commercial notation for "Hydrogen Peroxide". So your post is kinda... well, dumb. Bye
Rocket failures are almost always due to guidance or support system failures. This dude's chances are very slim. My bet is that Scaled Composites will be the first by winning the X-Prize too!
Still, it's my belief that space is for robots. Let's see this kind of money put into airship development so we can all sail the skies!
I could submit this to the Darwin awards even before this happens, I can tell you how it is going to end if he gets 5 feet off the ground with flames under him :)
I wasn't lost... I was only momentaraly confused of my spacial orientation relative to my prime destination.
I am in favour of the individual aspiration to invent. But surely the possible fire damage that could be caused by a project like this outweigh any individual rights. What is more worrying than his success if the possible ramification of a failed spacecraft crashing into the residential area that surrounds him.
Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied. -Otto von Bismarck
It is rumored (or more?) that the USA has lasers that can fry satelites.
This guy's experiment isn't really applicable to satelites anyway, as his rocket isn't powerful enough to reach orbit.
Actually I bet his face would be puffy blue instead.
I think although we all have technical doubts and probably are doubting his sanity, if he is willing to spend $250k on this and then willing to risk his life on a childhood dream, i think we should wish this bloke good luck. Some of you might not think that it will work, some of you think that it wont beallowed to happen but you have to admire his courage for trying. Yeah technology might be 30 years outnof date or something (im not a scientist or a historian) but for a run of the mill civilian to build a rocket, be prepared to put himself in and fire himself to 30 miles above the earth youve gotta give him some credit. If ur reading these little posts and articles on your project then im gonna wish you good luck on it. I hope i dont see any headline in the news that are bad. Go for it, you aint gonna live forever, youve just gotta live while ur alive
I aint gonna live forever i just wanna live while im alive (BJ - It's My Life)
Yeh, like the tanks get cooked by the exhaust, and also there is all the turbulence behind the engines.
It's "_u_owhoaahz", where the _u_ is pronounced but not emphasised, and the z is soft. It's a once common, now increasingly defunct, Czech-Hawaiin term.
No, you're thinking of Tintin's dog Snowy.
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Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The only thing I can say is, coooool.
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Sig Return: 204 No Content
Those tanks hanging down- they worry me. I would be afraid of all the exhaust gas hitting those things, and then havingthem just swell upa nd pop like a baloon. Isn't that a concern?!? Geez! Maybe he's counting on all that heatto pressurize those suckers, and cut back on pumps... Those nutty toy designers!
In one of Goddards original designs he had 3 engines that were mounted on a frame which held the engines away from the body of the rocket, I thought that this had solved most of these problems
But it has been awhile so I could easily be wrong
I wish this guy all the best. The lack of ambitious engineering in the "geek" world is depressing. Even if this guy dies in flames, as long as he make a halfway good showing, it may encourage others to attempt other, (and prehaps less umm... terminal...) endeavours in the name of science. It's great to say we (speaking for the soft handed software geeks out there) are "engineers," but the sad truth is that more and more of us have barely enough mechanical aptitude to get the screws out of our cases. While Linus and ESR never directly risked life and limb, their undertakings were just as technically ambitiuous. Large ideas, and large results can start with the "pipe dreams" of one person, especially when geek culture bands together to support the undertaking. The creative thinking a large number of us apply to code and all other things digital could do wonders if we wouldn't limit ourselves to one and zeros.
;P
'Course, I'm not exactly gonna sign up to beta test, and I hate to think of the "dumping core" joke possibilities here...
Not from the UK you can't. Or at least, not without Official Approval.
The Outer Space Act 1986 (and when you see a title like that in the index of statutes you just have to go look it up!) provides that you're not allowed to launch anything into space (I forget the precise definition) from UK territory without a government license.
[TOUTING]Anyone planning a stunt like this, do please get in touch for more detailed advice...[/TOUTING]
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
Yeah. It had to be. This sort of thing has Skaggs written all over it. Read this article . It's hilarious. The reporter who wrote is must be a complete pinhead. Read these choicy paragraphs:
Never married, Walker also jokes that a successful flight would help him meet women: "The rocket will make me a babe magnet. . . . I think it's going to take machismo to a new height."
Charlie Walker, an engineer who made three space shuttle flights in the 1980s when he worked for McDonnell Douglas, met Brian Walker last year at a space tourism symposium in Washington, D.C.
When was the last time McDonnell douglas sent an engineer into space? Especially one with the same last name as rockeyboy?? Ahhhhh. DUPED. Suckers. Probably shouldn't expose it. It'd be in the New York Times tommorow.
Great, no more excuses for not fixing the grill.
Brian Walker has no wife, no kids. No startup to babysit. Nobody that depends on him. His death wouldn't put anyone in a desperate situation ('cept himself). It may be hard on his parents, but he's 35, all grown up. In other words, he has no moral obligation not to kill himself.
:-)
It seems to me that his trip only has two possible outcomes, (a) spectacular success and (b) spectacular failure. If the rocket fails Brian Walker will be instantaneously oxidized by 7000 pounds of 90% H2O2. Which really isn't a bad way to die if you think about it.
It's rather unlikely he will suffer injuries great enough to put him in a wheel chair but small enough not to kill him. Mind you, it isn't my intent to write off the lives of the disabled, but rather to evaluate the 'regret factor.'
It is unlikely Brian Walker will regret his experience, whatever the outcome.
Seen in this light, his rocket may be very 'safe' indeed.
Ryan
Still and all, if it goes well it can only be a good thing overall. Has anyone heard anythign about the X-Prize recently? Last time I checked, they were trying to get funding to sponsor an award for the first craft that could bring a crew into space twice in like two weeks. It doesn't seem to be his goal, but this "Rocketguy" just might be on track to claim the prize if he so chose...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Many are thinking he is absolutly stupid to go for this. I think he is doing exactly what makes all of our technological advances in this world! If we did not have people who are willing to do what it takes to fulfill their dreams, where would we be? We certainly would not have the same life we do now. I praise him for his work, and wish him the best of luck! Besides, those who know have said it just might work!
Good luck to him.
Let me try to put this in context. Bend, Oregon is a small town, with nothing nearby except for Redmond, Oregon (not to be confused with Redmond, Washington, 450 miles north).
All around these two towns is pretty much nothing. There used to be a lot of logging in the area, but that died off from a combination of droughts, diseases, fires, and the spotted owl.
Bend has tried to reinvent itself as a technology mecca, but is still a outdoorsy, REI feeling town. Smith Rock is good for climbing, the lakes are good for fishing, and Mt. Bachelor is some of the best skiing in the Pacific West (CA, OR, & WA).
So it's still a sleepy resort town, up in a high desert climate. The air feels thin enough that you may imagine you actually are in space.
The point is, what else are you going to do with your time? Rustle cattle in the desert? Not likely.
Having someone decide to strap themselves to a rocket and blast 30 miles up doesn't surprise me. The people that live there are very well educated, have spending money, and tend to be a bit.. eccentric.
-ted
There is a 10 million $ prize for the first private space shot, but you have to reach 100km.
Oh well, I guess he's not doing it for the prize anyway, but it seems like a shame to risk your life and not get the honor. I think there is some other millionare using a much more sensible approach involving a 747 boosted rocket plane.
For more information, check out http://www.xprize.org/.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I've been interested in rockets for a long time now, and spent countless hours in OAC chem doing reaction energy equations to find the best fuel for a good home-built, *unmanned!!!!* rocket.
... or:
The most severe problem I've seen with rockets isn't deciding on the most efficient, safest fuels, but rather making sure they burn; expand; heat; react.... in a completely symmetrical way - so you can avoid pressure buildups and eventual explosions (or immediate explosions). Every documentary I've seen on rockets from German V2's to home made rockets - shows an incredible failure rate during the initial stages of developement. Failures which end in explosions.
Now my question is, would you rather:
1. swallow your tongue and choke on it for approximately 10 - 15 seconds before being incinerated in a disoriented haze miles above the earth
2. swallow your tongue and choke on it for approximately 10 - 15 seconds before being ejected through a steel casing, miles above the earth, and experience 5 - 10 minutes of your skin peeling away from your body as you plummet to the earth below through vast amounts of caustic, unreacted hydrogen pyroxide.
I know its been said, but it has to be said again: this guy has balls! (for the time being)
Ace
"Plaintiffs also contend that parachute jumping falls within the right to travel protected by the Fourteenth Amendment."
Correction: For "space", read "smithereens".
How cool it is to see somebody actually pushing themselves to the max to achieve their dream.
I do worry about his safety though. I wonder what his chances, statistically, are for surviving. It kinda upsets me how some posters to this site are joking about his body being obliterated into millions of pieces... its a real person, you know.
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"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
Actually, I don't see a single reason why this can't be done, according to the research I've done by watching hours and hours of cartoons.
oh yea
we all know how succesful wiley coyote was with this idea.
i hope this guy isnt getting is stuff from ACME also.
"I mean, All you can definately say about a fellow who thinks he's a poached egg, is; He's in the minority." James Burke
@#$% em, who cares about the FAA he should just launch up there and see what happens. I wouldnt mind going to jail if i got a chance to go into space, youd go down in history, its worth the price.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
it is not a 'bomb'. liquid hydrogen peroxide will not detonate. and it will not decompose into water and oxygen unless it comes in contact with a catalyst (the silver in this case). or unless it is heated. it's less dangerous than liquid propane actually.... no one gives that a second thought when it's used in hot air ballons.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
If you look through the history books, there are so many CRAZY things that have to happen in order for something truly new and great to occur, and yes, people have to take incredibly retarded chances.
I really think that this is just stupid enough to work, and when it does I'll be more excited than during any other boring old space launch on CNN.
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
"Oregon man gets high off hydrogen peroxide, gets blasted, and joins mile high club."
"Gromit, that's it! Cheese! We'll go somewhere where there's cheese! Everybody knows the moon is made of cheese..."
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You may like my a cappella music
...a few months ago when there was that big hubbub about the North Korean Taepo-Dong II rocket, which has a range that lets it theoretically hit an aleutian island or two. He explained that the quality of the North Korean missile program was such that it was unlikely that they could even guarantee a hit within 100 miles. He also cited Chinese rocket problems (where the North Koreans get a lot of tech) in which dozens of Chinese died on the ground from several launch accidents. As he said "Rocketry is grotesquely difficult. That is why we respectfully refer to it as 'Rocket Science.'" These aren't problems in the second stage, which is above what this guy is messing with, these are at ground level. Frankly, I admire this guy, but I hope he does more than just get his specs checked out. He needs to make sure everything is tweaked perfectly, too. Ideally, even run a test firing to make sure he's got symmetric thrust, so his rocket doesn't shoot him into the ground a mile away. I have a hard time believing he can get that rigged up for only a quarter million dollars.
Good luck, but I won't be within a few hundred yards to watch.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
I'm not sure I agree that it's actually so terribly smart of a thing to do. I mean, the guy is planning on going 60 miles into the atmosphere. NASA supposedly defines space as starting at 62 miles up. What happens if his already rough-sounding calculations are off by a couple of percent, and he ends up in space for real? Spend the next 30 seconds desperately trying to formulate an atmospheric re-entry plan? (Make sure Gary Sinese is on call...)
Personally, I don't use any mode of travel that comes close to escape velocity. But that's just me.
Speaking of analogies, the best one I've heard is that launching a rocket into space is much like placing a destroyer-class vessel vertically on top of a big pile of explosives, and then design the explosion so that the ship stays balanced throughout the launch, as well as preventing damage to any of the delicate control systems (AKA humans :).
ZZ
Have you ever heard the phrase "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"? The earth is a small and fragile basket.
I say that at least some of humanity should get off this soggy mudball ASAP, before we get hit by a meteor, or a kilogram of antimater suddenly appears in the earth's core because of a quantom glitch, or whatever.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Sorta clever too.
This is what Goddard originally thought also, but evidently it had problems so IIRC he switched to tail exhaust with some stablising mechanism.
If he trusts his own design with his life I say let him do it. As long as there is a pretty low probability of bits of his craft landing on peoples homes (and since he's launching from the middle of a big desert it's a pretty low chance) let him do it. If the FAA won't let him give it a shot I hope tells them to bugger off and just does it anyway. The government control of space exploration is the single biggest reason we havn't done a damn thing since the Apollo missions ended. If you look back in history all the major exploration and discovery was done by private citizens, maybe with the sacntion or finacial backing of a government but almost never was a successful or important discovery made by a voyage planned and staffed by a government committee. A government program may have very strict safety standards, and multiple failsafes which is all nice and stuff but people should be allowed to risk their own lives trying to push the envelope of human endevor and understanding. Some will fail and pay the price with their lives, and we will mourn (and perhaps mock) their deaths, learn from their mistakes and move on. When NASA fucks up they bury their heads in the sand for several years and stay on the ground.
Now I'm not saying NASA should disband and leave US space exploration to guys in their backyard but the government shouldn't prevent citizens from trying. Ideally NASA should establish a private lauch area where private citizens can strap themselves to homebuilt rockets and try whatever they want.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Nah, I hear the cheese is fairly low quality and that initial ventures there, while quirky and offbeat, eventually lead to encounters with impolite cyberdogs.
Hmm, anyone know what Joey Skaggs is up to lately ? :)
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Home-made rocket ship
Recipe for disaster
Still safer than Mir
Please please please, someone tell me this guy has the good sense to make two of these rockets and launch a sack of potatos or sandbags or something on the first flight. That darwin awards post is right. An obvious candidate, especially if he doesn't do any test flights.
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Does he really believe that the government will let him explode that much fuel from his backyard (or without a permit of any sort, anywhere)?
:)
from the article:
Soon, he'll be constructing a 30-foot-long launch trailer he plans to tow into the Alvord Desert just east of Steens Mountain next year for his solo flight.
he's not actually gonna launch this thing from his backyard, that would be silly.
"I mean, All you can definately say about a fellow who thinks he's a poached egg, is; He's in the minority." James Burke
On another track, I'm a little confused as to exactly how far this man is planning on making it into 'space'. Is he trying to surpass the Earth's atmosphere in a homemade rocket? Or is it not as extreme as it seemed the first time I read the article? Because that sure seemed to be the implication, and I couldn't believe it wasn't fiction, heh.
I believe the guy said 100km... being 100,000 METERS, about three times more than 105,000 feet.
Then again, if you were just giving a little anecdote, I apologize.
Actually, check out this site for an extremely detailed account of how this guy and some friends actually strapped a JATO rocket into a car and ran it down an old set of rail road tracks. I warn you, this is a really lengthy and descriptive account.
"The Force. It surrounds us; It enfolds us; It gets us dates on Saturday Nights."
-- Obi Wan Kenobi, Famous Jedi Knight and Party Animal.
"The Force. It surrounds us; It enfolds us; It gets us dates."
"The Force. It surrounds us; It enfolds us; It gets us dates."
-- Obi Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight and party animal.
And pure H2O2 is pretty dangerous. I've used it in a semiconductor lab.
The stuff you buy at the drugstore is 3%, BTW.
Not a bad though actually. A Dozen and a quartet of people with either a fatal or perfect (we'll have to see if he comes back in one or many pieces to determine that) mixture of brains, balls, and insanity. The world would be a lot more of an interesting place if we had more people like this around. We'd probably already have a colony on the moon and the first manned rocket to mars would be on its final approach. I think too many people have forgotten how to dream, which is worse than 1,000 space disasters. This guy should be applauded.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
"In order to fly to the moon, he strapped a buttload of fireworks to the back of his chair, lit the fuse....and Juan Ho was never seen again!"
And, according to popular legend, since they never found his body he must have made it, too!
While I appreciate the attempt, is this post really funny? Or are you just rewarding the fact that it's writer is trying to be funny?
Moderation in all things...
**>>BELCH
Hmmm, well, it looks to me as though he's avoiding both problems by sticking his tongue way, way out of his mouth. Mostly at you (us).
"We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code." Dave Clark, IETF
For those of you interested in this sort of thing, without the added bonus of nutjobs like the protagonist in this article, there are many serious high-powered rocketry enthusiasts and groups throughout the US and the world.
The most successful is Tripoli, the high-powered rocketry association.
Also of interest is the Reaction Research Society, who has been looking for a real amateur space shot for a few years now...50 miles up.
Check em out. Part of this complete breakfast
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Should be a pretty spectacular show. Here's hoping for a webcast!
Camaron de la Isla 'When I sing with pleasure, my
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
...in my pocket. It happens at times like these, whenever I gaze at your mom's lovely form (I'm posting from bed with my cell phone).
Is that from that claymation show (don't know the name) of the people with the extremely wide mouths and oversized hands? I watched it once or twice... strange... now they've made a chicken/turkey movie out of it or something?
Crazy, and not that good.... but the only british comedy I ever liked was MP anyway... most of the british sitcoms are even worse than "Three's Company"
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
When I saw this in /. I was thinking to myself "i've seen this already today somewhere... where could it be..." and this post made me remember! Someone's already posted it on the darwin awards in the 'slush pile'/pending! Probably been deleted now tho... don't think you can nominate someone for *planning* to do something that *may* earn them a darwin :)
Just out of curiousity, Did Wilbur and Orville have thousands of people from the top 1% of university graduates backing them? How bout that Lindbergh fella? My point isn't that anyone can do it, my point is taht neither of these groups had huge backing of the kind you're referring to, and they both did something for the first time. If his math is right, and he built it right, there's no reason why it shouldn't work. Regards, -Bouncer31-
But they could always launch one from Sealand... if they solve the small technical problem of not exploding the island during the launch.
Say no to software patents.
It sure beats 42 balloons and a lawn chair.
MSK
I guess the guy is around the Bend.
What if he doesn't ask? If he launches from one of the many AF launch areas and has a mode-c transponder and opens a ballon flight plan at the area, the FAA won't even know about it except for TV.
Lets assume hes got 50/50 odds of getting out of this alive and knows it. Its a one shot deal. What are the fines for not playing along? The FAA is second in control of the airspace to NASA and NASA has a way around all FAA regs. In fact they have a program where you can report one offence to them and they will keep the FAA from busting you but its a one time thing and you have to make sure they know all the details so the can try to prevent thouse things in the future.
Since this is an experimental type that the FAA does not have a type class for, they may not have any control over it if he launches from military grounds (which it sounds like), the FAA may or may not have any real control over it. The military will know about it and simply block out the airspace nearby assuming its not already controlled and that will keep the 767s full of people out of harms way.
If this guy has fuel to go up 30 miles, he is not going more than 60 miles from the start if the stuff stays in a small number of pieces.
Okay, that's it - I'm browsing at 2 from now on...
This is good.
If he succeeds, it will convince others that space is really within our grasp. It might kickoff some real commercial attempts to get there
So - if the FAA doesn't give him a license, and he blasts off into space without one, will they allow him to re-enter US airspace after he re-enters orbit?
And what kind of fine will they impose on him?
[Connection closed by foreign host]
Seriously...if these hydrogen peroxide rockets work so well, can we launch our own satellite and use it to broadcast controversial information like DeCSS or whatever happens to be under fire?
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The only way to stop it would be to shoot it down...and I can't seriously believe that ANY government would sanction such an action. The moment you open the door to intra-satellite warfare then you'll never close it. Russia will shoot down US spycams, China will shoot down "Western" media satellites...the list is ended.
Space really is the final frontier, no?
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
http://www.rocketguy.com/rocket.html
This has First Contact written all over it :)
I'm dead, Jim!
But you are right, how interesting could a show about people being stranded on a desert island be?
Or a show about a bunch of strangers living in the same house.
Fight Spammers!
you forgot having his brain hart and lungs calapsed from miscalculating the gforces at lift off.
Could a change in the tank design elimnate the danger of this? I vaugely remember a technique where the fuel tank was divided by a honeycomb lattice from top to bottom -- effectively spliting the main tank into many (dozens...thousands) of small storage cells.
An inert plastic bag could possibly be used instead of metal to reduce the weight and distribute the pressure.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Keeping the centre of gravity of the whole assembly below the thrust point is no guarantee of heading continually upwards at all, unless the upward progress is very slow or the rockets are either controllable in direction or in thrust. As I understand it, these peroxide units are neither.
Unless the thrusts are ideally balanced, he's just going to rise up, loop back down, and crash head first. (OK, more elaborate multi-turn loops are possible as well, but you get the idea.)
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
This reminds me of a tape I saw when Evil made a cardboard rocket and made it half way across this canyon. only this is ten times better. with any luck they will have his lift off live on paperview. I really hope he goes through with it the thought is hilerious.
Robert Frisbee, senior engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Really. The rocket scientist's name is Frisbee?
My question is, with the financial ruin of Russia, they must have buckets of rockets sitting around without enough cash for gas. Why not just pick up one of those at the Moscow Multi-Family Garage Sale? Russia may not have the hottest safety record in space, but it's gottabe safer than a barrel of hair dye in a tube!
2 1337 4 u!
I love how anonymous cowards are so tough.
"Come to Washington State to finish your degree!" Ironic eh? :-)
What makes you think it would only cost him 50k to move it to Mexico? I bet that wouldn't even begin to cover the bribes and payoffs to get it in the country. Then once he was there, I can only imagine how many "officials" from the Mexican Space Agency he would run into that require a small fee for their approval.
Yeah, moving it to Mexico sounds like a great idea.
Casca
It doesn't seem that unreasonable, considering that hes not planning to actually go into orbit or anything. He wont have to worry about heat shielding or the problems with reentry that a typical orbital capsual would. If he can get the engines to work without exploding into a big ball of flaming death, I'm sure he'll be ok. Plus, I'm sure he can computer model all of this.. think what the apollo missions were able to do without the assistance of an Athlon..
Why not build a monument to the "foolishness" of the Challenger 7 rather than to their "heroism"?
It's like when The Villiage Voice did an "expose" on Biosphere II. This "muck-racking counter-cultural rag" seemed incapable of appropriating similarly jaundiced coverage to NASA in proportion to the money wasted and hubris exhibited.
Ayn Rand would, of course, have a lot to say about this, but I think it goes beyond mere disrespect for "individualism" -- it is a loss of masculinity in the culture expressing itself in a rather dishonest fashion.
As I toasted on this last Mother's day:
"Our mothers risk their lives to bring us into this world so that we may risk our lives to disobey them."
Mama's boys have trouble leaving the womb -- just as humanity has trouble leaving the planet.
Seastead this.
... it's fairly easy for the FAA to come knocking at his door and just confiscate the whole mess. If you want to pull sth like this off without the proper paperwork, you keep it secret until D-day. And you keep a good excuse ready to tell neightbors and passers-by when they ask you what this rocket-shaped thing in your backyard is...
Say no to software patents.
Look I read it..I just happened to miss that part about the royalties. And I was saying about the fuel where does eh get that is there some kind of clearance you have to go through. I didn't know how volatile it was or not so please don't criticize just because I don't know about clearances for rocket fuel and happened to miss the part about the royalties
The chance of that rocket hitting a plane is at best equal to the chance of you hitting a skeeter in flight with a dart. The chance of it crashing in a populated area, however, is very real, considering that it's also being launched from a populated area - his own back yard.
The FAA will never give the go-ahaid for this thing, so he'll either have to can the idea, or launch without permission.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
I was amazed to find out that some of my Mech. E. friends from college are happily building a rocket to launch to over 100km. I guess this is their equivalent of a little open source project on the side (and I'm wondering why I majored in CS if they get to build rockets). Apparently any Joe with enough perserverance (in this case a few 22 year olds) can go purchase enough liquid oxygen to blow themselves and a small town sky high, machine a few parts and stick it together, fill out nice forms for the FAA and friends, then send the whole thing sky high. Very cool.
Of course, I keep trying to convince them it should be computer guided so I can get in on the action, but they wisely seem to favor "simpler is better."
-m
But... he states that he will reach the speed of approx. 1.4km per second (four times the speed of sound in air). But to get out of the earth's gravity he will need the speed 11.2km/h (if i recall physics correctly).
But a quite interesting project anyway (I'd like to see some pictures of his rocket...)
/mdroid
Sounds like "Lost in Space" meets "Sanford and Son" - now there's a remake I'd pay $9.50 to see at the multiplex!
...that we always hear about these guys when they're starting, but never when they end it? This is the aerospace equivalent of vaporware; they promise a lot but deliver very little. I can't recall how many times I've heard about people taking spaceflights "For under a million dollars" when they're just coming out, but how many of them have succeeded? You'd think that the media would jump all over any successful attempts to do so, right? And why haven't we heard about them? They don't exist. A month from now you won't remember what he planned to do, much less his name or what toys he is receiving royalties from. Rediculous...
------
Does anyone remember the time motorbike jumper Evil Kinevil (sp?) decided to fly over the Grand Canyon in a jet propelled rocket ship? About 20 feet off the launch pad, the parachute popped out the back (a BAD thing) and caused a "controlled descent into terrain" as they say in the air force... He hit the canyon floor and got out alive, but just barely. I guess there are just some people who are not destined to win next year's Darwin Award!
"I figure you're here 'cause you need some whacko who's willing to stick his finger in the fan. So, who are we helping?"
Sounds like the guy has all the technical challenges worked out... After all, the action-reaction stuff that drives a rocket is pretty simple.
Too bad the FAA and NASA and DOT and various other government acronyms are going to stop him.
(Unless maybe, just maybe, he gets enough public support through PR like this to keep any particular Bureaucrat from wanting to intervene. I would have kept it secret and done a "Oh? Did I need a permit?" after getting back...)
"Better to ask forgiveness than permission..." ;)
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
I'd want at least a half dozen successfull unmanned flights under my belt brfore I strapped my skin into something like that
Exactly... If he doesn't, the statistical estimate death toll he'll be submitting to the DOT is "one".
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humour,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
VERY smart, considering the trip back from beyond the atmosphere is *tricky*. You have to have the EXACT angle for re-entry. If your angle is too low, you burn up. If it's too high, you bounce off right back into space. This dude is just taking an elevator up, and using gravity for the return trip.
Although I suspect he'll be screaming too much to enjoy the view, but hey - Gutsy if he goes through with it. More power to him!
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Anyone remember that TV show in the 70's where Ernest Borgnine owned a junkyard and built his own spacecraft? It was along the lines of "Fred Sanford meets Apollo 13"....
This is the year 2000, and what's so odd about someone building a rocket?
Dr.E
AirCamper.org's temporary home
Or even perhaps the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulatoor
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I bet the Darwin Awards people are watching closely. The number of things which could go wrong is enormous.
If my memory was any good I'd put in facts and figures about the guy(s?) who went to the edge of space in a baloon and parachuted down. I'm sure that would be a lot easier than Mr. Walker's plan - and you'd get better pictures.
Well, at least he's bound to get one thing right (assuming he gets off the ground in one piece).
Penis Birds are cool
They like to sit on your dick
Please don't squeeze too hard.
Anyone remember the movie, and then the TV series, starring Andy Griffith? He played a salvage yard operator who built a rocket out of stuff he had salvaged. He launched it from his yard, and in the movie he went to the moon to collect all the stuff the NASA missions had left behind.
...I'm not the guy who is going to have to scour the neighborhood, digging through body parts, in a futile attempt to find the jawbone so that a positive dental identification can be made.
Does anybody have any information on the groups of Australians who have been working for the last few years on their own attempt at a privately built manned orbiting rocket?
I remember seeing a programme on the BBC (in the UK) on the group, they were pretty serious and had built two or three successful prototypes of increasing size and complexity. As I remember from the prototype they were getting close to building rockets that could carry human weight payloads, and were starting to be given some funding from the Australian Government (or military, maybe). Until I saw the programme I thought private attempts were a bit of a joke but these guys were going for it. All very serious, the Oz authorities looked like they were letting them use an old missile testing range and control centre, getting very real. Actually having visited Cape Canaveral last summer and actually seeing the Mercury rocket and capsule, I realise that there's not such a great divide between these private attempts and the first mad scrambles into space those decades ago...
Anybody got any details/ updates on these guys?
...to Major Tom..
......can you hear me..... Major Tom... ?
Whatever you come across in life.. as long as there's no money in it,... it'll probably be alright.
Is he going to be carrying an onboard GPS or other sort of positioning unit. Will someone donate it to him - I can see interest in watching the flight real-time.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
In Victor Koman's Kings Of The High Frontier an aging rocket tinkerer called "Ace" Roberts is building a rocket in his backyard. In this book, several different non-government attempts to reach space actually succeed, but Roberts isn't one of them.
It is available for download for $3.5 on pulpless.com. Recommended!.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
It appears that this guy is in the same city as me. haven't seen is backyard centrifuge around though.
If I remember correctly, is there not some huge amount of cash being given to the 1st person who manages to do something like this? I don't rate his chances though, Amateur rocket builders have tried to get their small "toys" into space for years and have not managed it.
Maybe we should send him up with a satellite. I mean, *if* he actually makes it up there he may as well do something useful.
;)
I've always wanted to send up a satellite that performs but one task...
Which is transmitting the old Amiga Workbench 1.3 picture of the hand holding the disk.
I can see it now....The AmigaImmortal Project!
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
In a TV movie called "Salvage One" with Andy Griffith. He played a junkyard owner who got a hold of some old surplus rockets. He had a friend who did demolitions design the rocket fuel, and another friend who was a computer hacker(this was early 80's, very old school) hack into NASA and steal their navigational mainframe so they could navigate to the moon and back. His mission was to go to the moon, salvage some leftover Apollo parts, and come back. Great Movie
This would be a way kewl ride!!
but i bet the faa never will approve it:{
This is what made America great the ability of
the peaple to explore, build and test stuff on thier own.
Now with all the bs laws they cant
in allot of casses
20% of the comments here express concern that the rocket is going to veer off course and land in either the guy's neighborhood, Kansas or some third world country.
Obviously, ya'll have never been to Steens Mountain. That part of Oregon has a population density about half of what the Gobi Desert has.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
A pendulum has a pivot point, so when gravity tries to pull the center of gravity towards the earth, the linear acceleration is converted to a rotation torque around the pivot point, swinging the pendulum back down..
A rocket isn't held by anything, so the force of gravity will only pull it downwards, not cause any rotation. Gravity can't cause a rotation (ignoring very large scale gravity gradient issues), only aerodynamic forces.
Any wind will cause a rotation based on the CG/CP relationship, which will not be corrected by forward aerodynamic forces in this case because CP is forward of CG.
The truth is that I used to think along the same lines as this theory, but I built a couple models to test it, and they were complete failures.
After thinking about it for a while, I realized the difference between hanging from a pivot and having a force along the body.
John Carmack
I notice the animation of the flight dosen't show the landing where he is splattered accross the desert in a high speed crash -- Oh! I know why! It's because he'll be dead from being snapped around when the parasail 'opens'. Or, more likely, the sail will just get ripped off after throwing the capsule into an uncontrollable (oops! no fuel! so he'll be out of control anyway) spin'o'death.
If anything ever needed some QA, it this.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, 1977
Maybe someone can talk him into doing some productive science while he's up there. . .
Or maybe the Flat Earthers can pay him to take pictures, so they can prove that the Round Earth is all just a big government conspiracy.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Of course, if I'm not mistaken, as an american citizen, you're still governed by our agencies, what ever happened to Oceania?
It's the 21st Century Do you know what your government is doing
Oh, God no! Heh, I can't imagine who would play the part of Aaron Meehan (my insignificant role I mentioned in another post in this thread). Or worse, what if I'm not even included in the movie at all! Ack!
The only way it could get better is if somehow parlays it into some nookey (unfortunately, in my experience real women aren't impressed by this kind of thing, at least not from a passing on the genes standpoint).
They'll have to be women from somewhere other than Bend, Oregon, I tell you. I don't think too many have been that impressed so far (except maybe by his BMW Roadster, ow!) Oh, that's all I should say in a forum such as this :-) Now, if he succeeds... we'll just have to see if I should start following him around the bars. ;-)
... the safer than Mir line put a smile on *my* face... that's funny.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Aerodynamics is my area of expertise, and Mr. Carmack has hit it right on the head. He even used the correct terminology. What aerodynamically unstable really means is that any perturbation in the flow will tend to propogate rather than be damped. It is possible for an unstable aircraft to fly, if it possesses a modern fly-by-wire system and has sufficient control authority to right itself once it has become perturbed; almost all modern fighter aircraft are designed slightly unstable. However, I don't think this vehicle will possess either.
Anyway I'm not sure where you get your number for velocity from- the only quote I saw for predicted velocity was 600 miles per hour, which is well below the speed of sound even at 100,000 feet. A velocity of 1.4 kps is roughly Mach 4.1 at sea level, or 4.25 at altitude.
At 600 mph, which seems like a very reasonable speed for this vehicle given the amount of thrust produced by its engines, there will be no shock waves. The only aerodynamic forces will be those produced by the lifting surfaces on the craft- the three large fins on the nose. There will also be drag components which act directly behind the aircraft and a thrust component which eminates from the engines (T and D generally zero themselves out by acting through the aerodynamic center). When you balance these forces and normalize them according to the length of the vehicle, you will come up with a location on the vehicle known as the aerodynamic center. If the aerodynamic center is behind the center of gravity, the aircraft is said to be statically stable and will therefore fly straight, righting itself after perturbations occur. This design is most likely statically unstable, because its aerodynamic center is (painfully obviously) well ahead of its center of gravity. Think about an arrow: it flies straight because it has a cg near the front and an ac near the rear.
At M=4, you are correct that breezes are orders of magnitude below the pressure differential caused by a strong shock structure. The static pressure behind a normal shock would be 18.5 atmospheres! However, this fact is largely irrelevant, since the shock structure won't -ever- be perfectly symmetric. An asymmetric shock structure will produce regions of differing static and dynamic pressure behind the shock. This will manifest itself as a powerful force applied approximately to the nose of the vehicle. The rocket will then begin to rotate about its center of gravity, and the pressure force will tend to increase as the rocket begins to rotate because the angle of attack increases the pressure difference (through various means). The only way to solve this is to move the ac back as far as possible, preferably by adding fins near the rear of the vehicle. It can also be done with thrust vectoring.
:endresult
The end result at either mach number will be a spinning projectile which eventually tears itself apart due to the propellant chambers experiencing accelerative forces on non-loadbearing walls.
If by some miracle of engineering this does not occur, he would still (probably) not survive sustained flight at Mach 4 in this vehicle. The ballistic coefficient of the nose appears to be too low, which will cause a concentration of aerodynamic heating at the tip. I really can't tell for sure from the picture, but hypersonic vehicles are generally designed with blunt noses so that the wave detaches from the body, allowing the heat to dissipate. If it stays attached there will be a small region in which a layer of incredibly high entropy develops which will cut through steel like a knife through warm butter. For more details, search the web for pictures of what happened to the scramjet NASA tried to hang from an X-15 in the 60's.
FWIW a (statically stable!) titan IV experienced rotationally induced structural failure early in the program when an engine malfunctioned, causing the rocket to become unstable. It is an incredibly important concept that Walker seems to have completely overlooked.
Don't get me wrong; I hope this guy succeeds. I really, really do, partly because I admire his courage and tenacity and partly because it will provide an immeasurable benefit to space privatization advocates everywhere. Since I am an aero type, I stand to benefit tremendously from explosive growth in that sector of the economy. Unfortunately, he won't do it with this design, which makes it exceedingly frustrating-- because it really isn't that hard to design a rocket to do what he wants to do...
Rev Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
there's no way in Hell that the FAA would approve this. If it works, it means nothing for the FAA. If anything at all goes wrong, they'll get blamed. No vitamins at all for them.
Try it without FAA approval, and he'll spend a *long* time in jail (if he survives, of course). Legally, it would probably be in the same category as shooting a Stinger missle at an airliner.
NASA and the military have a monopoly on rocket flights in the US, and they're going to keep it that way. Look at all the hassles that Orbital Sciences went through to be able to launch their own rockets. Basically, they have to opeaate under the total control of the military.
Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
Figures, I see a huge error immidiately after posting something I've proofread 15 times. ANyway T and D generally zero themselves out by acting through the cg, not the ac. Sorry...
Rev Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
Fell? You obviously didn't read past the first two paragraphs... Try again...
"The Force. It surrounds us; It enfolds us; It gets us dates."
"The Force. It surrounds us; It enfolds us; It gets us dates."
-- Obi Wan Kenobi, Jedi Knight and party animal.
Did you see the pictures of the rocket? It looks like something that Marvin the Martian from the cartoons would be flying!
Remember that this guy is using the royalty money from his toy inventions to do this. He's a toy inventor. Why would we expect his rocket to look like anything but what he's good at?
Imagine a string with a weight on it (A pendulum by any other name) and think about what you just wrote.
The force vector representing tension in the string is ALWAYS along the string. It has to be, because strings don't transmit shear real well.
The force vector representing gravity is always straight down. By definition.
There ought to be a (Mod -1: Just Plain Wrong).
I smell a Darwin Award Candidate in the making.
Juan Ho.....A chinese daredevil way back in some B.C. century I read about once. In order to fly to the moon, he strapped a buttload of fireworks to the back of his chair, lit the fuse....and Juan Ho was never seen again!
>>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.
This is a story which could have come straight from the Donald Duck... 'mad scientist launches missile'. I wonder how many houses he would set on fire if he actually did launch the rocket from his backyard...
"I'm only carrying so much fuel. I can only go so high, and when I run out of fuel, I'll come back down."
I don't doubt that for a second- Gravity helps immensely here. But the question is, will it help too much?
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
It sounds like this guy hasn't done much real-world testing of rockets of any kind. The article didn't mention any tests of full-sized mockups of the capsule to see if the damn thing will fly right. His propulsion system seems to be pretty simple, but there are still many things that could go wrong along the way.
I know I wouldn't risk my life on an untested design, especially one made by someone who seems to have no experience at all.
One other thing is that the FAA tends to be fairly bitchy about high-powered/amature rocketry using tested and certified componants. He'd have to do quite a bit of legal wrangling to get permission for this.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
lets hope he isn't using windows to power his computers onboard (that's asuming he has any). then he'd be in trouble!! maybe it's just a light a match and hope for the best attempt :)
In the words of Keanu - "Whoa."
,
faeryman
I think next year we'll be seeing this posted on the Darwin awards for sure. I remeber hearing something a few months back about a guy who built himself a rocket car. He found an old rocket in a junk yard, strapped it to his car and decided to take a spin. Unfortunately he neglected to figure out a way to make it stop. He went to a field, started his car andf then the engine. He was doing beautifully until he smashed into the side of a mountain.
What is this story going to be? The rocket blows up on the launch pad? He hurdles into a building? Or comes crashing down into the ground? Or will he actually make it into space and realize that he forgot to find a way to get back?
I think we should watch this one very closely...
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
He is stupid. Follow your dreams? OK. But if your dream is buttfuck a T-Rex, you're dumb.
[]'s Carlos Cardoso - Becoming a brazilian ProBlogger, typo by typo
I bet that he got this idea off the Internet. There's even bomb recipe's on that wacky Internet thing.
They say that there's a recipe for getting Uranium out of a rock by spinning it around over your head in a pail of water by a string.
The Internet is way too dangerous, we need to turn it off once and for all. There oughtta be a law.
At first I thought it was just bad reporting, with "Most of the weight will be behind, and gravity will keep the rocket pointed upward", but seeing the picture on his site backs that up.
Putting a big, fin-looking cockpit ahead of the fuel tank mass is going to make every breeze cause a heading change.
His site goes on with:
"What about guidance systems? The thrust will come out at the top of the rocket. An early American pioneer Robert Goddard did the same thing with his early test rockets. The rocket should "hang down" from the thrust like a pendulum"
That DOESN'T WORK.
It doesn't matter if a rocket is being pulled or pushed, all that matters is the relationship of the center of gravity to the center of pressure.
The reason why the intuitive "hangs like a pendulum" doesn't work out is that gravity acts on a deflected pendulum in a direction out of line with the pendulum string, while a rocket thrust will always be in line with the body.
John Carmack
Rewarded for wit... You're blinded by your own lack Think before you wright
Zooey
The Englishman Who Came to a Concert
what's with all these people assuming he's going to blow himself to smithereens? 30 miles straight up. doesn't sound that hard to me. more power to him! i'd like to get out there too someday, and from my point of view, his efforts greatly improve my chances. this whole 90's disillusion with space saddens me greatly. bunch of quitters! i tell ya.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Rewarded for wit...
You're blinded by your own lack.
Think before you wright. Zooey
Zooey
The Englishman Who Came to a Concert
probably faster than that. and it all depends on how much drag is presented by that human body.
I know of people who have reached 300+mph jumping from 13000 feet. I myself have reached speeds in excess of 200 mph from 13000 feet (all altitudes msl).
"We are not tolerant people. We prefer drastically effective solutions"
Since the engine's thrust is greater than the weight of the car, it's likely that, under full power, the J-85 could accelerate the car with a force greater than 1G.
What this also means is that the engine could, under the right conditions, accelerate your car straight up. For instance, if you put a large piece of water-cooled steel behind it at a 45 degree angle, you could achieve sustained uncontrolled flight without any aerodynamic lifting surfaces. Obviously it will be very difficult to achieve those conditions- most likely your engine is rated for 2200 lbf thrust at 500 miles per hour at 10,000 feet. You'll probably get a lot less than that at sea level, at chevette-speed.
To find out how fast your car can accelerate with this thing, you would just use Force = Mass*Gc*Acceleration. Force = 2200 lbf, Mass = 1600 lbm. You'd get about 1.25 G's acceleration out of the engine alone- 0-60 in about 2.2 seconds. That's cumulative with the car's engine as well, which means you can probably do it in under 2. Better have some heavy duty tires!
BTW, you're too late with the "world's first street drivable jet car". A friend of mine (who is flying F-15's now) mounted a home-made pulse detonation engine (PDE) to the hood of his 1981 voltswagon P.O.S. car back in college. He succeeded in doing little more than making a heck of a lot of noise and breaking his window- but he did make it work, getting positive thrust etc.
It sounds like your car could be much more interesting. Good luck...
Rev Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
I know is is here somewhere....
Not everyone deserves a 320i
Are you sure this guy's last name isn't DuPont? No, wait, he was trying to build a time machine. And we all know how sane and intelligent he was.
That's all I really have to say ... way to go.
It's not often that someone from a private sector can enter into this realm and have a chance of succeeding. It's also a dream of his which I can empathize with since it is also a dream of mine to go into space.
WAY TO GO!!!
Well seeing that he is going for the cheap way up. He can save money on things like parachutes seeing that he we be alive for the trip down. If he forgets important things like oxygen and making the cabin pressurized he won't even mind the big thud at the end.
The Rocket Guy Package
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- 1 rocket
- 6 boosters
- 1 centrifuge
- 1 launch pad
- 7,000 gallons of fuel
- And other accessories
(batteris not included). All this for just $249,999.95!Or, try The Rocket Guy Deluxe Package: Includes everything from the Rocket Guy Package plus
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Whoever wrote the script did a reasonable ammoutn of misquoting. Genkhis Khan once said "The best thing in life is victory. To crush your enemies, ride their horses, and embrace their wives and daughters." The quote at the beggining of the movie is also wrong. Nietche was speaking in the first person singular when he was talking about what makes him stronger.
::cracks knuckles:: OOOOOOK. So I imagine there are quite a few engineers of various types who regularly read /., yes? Are you reading this post, guys? Good. Then here's what I've got to say: we will undertake to create the world's first open-source spacecraft. C'mon. You KNOW you want to. I'm sure there are more than enough mechanical, electrical, aerospace, etc. etc. engineers reading this who, together, would be capable of designing something simple & cost-effective which would be able to lift a person to LEO or sub-orbital space. LET'S DO IT! LET'S BUILD THE USS SLASHDOT!!! (or USS Malda, or TCS PenguinPower.... name is up for discussion of course) email me if you're interested: mailto:starkruzr@mail.com
+++ATH0
Will there be lawsuit for this guy taking their idea?
Fight Spammers!
according to his website he is planning to launch in April 2001. Would that be April first?
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
I have a soft spot for obsessed and brilliant people. My hero used to be Simon Jansen, the guy who is working on redoing the entire original Star Wars movie as Ascii art animation.
Brian Walker now has Jansen beat hands down. I the obsession department, he reminds me of the Aleut character in Snow Crash, who's such a badass that nobody else has to worry anymore about trying to be alpha badass.
The interesting thing about Walker's inventions is that he is clearly pretty canny about knowing exactly how crazy to be. For example, his homemade sub is really a kind of submergeable manned keel that dangles underneath a small motorized catamaran -- enough to give you the experience of being underwater without all the complexities of a free diving sub.
I personally can't help but admire somebody with this kind of persistence and creativity. Here's quote from him:'"The one thing I've done more in life than anything is failed," he said. "I've failed and failed and failed and failed and failed and failed." ' But of course he kept going and had made a bundle with his toy inventions.
The rational part of my mind tells me that Walker's going to blow himself to tiny bits, or plummet into the ground at multiple mach speeds as all the escape latches are jammed by aerodynamimc pressure. But jeezus, you've got to admit he's got balls to try something like this, and not just because he's facing death. This thing will either be an unspeakably humiliating failure or an indescribably glorious triumph -- there's no middle ground.
If he succeeds, I hope they make a movie of this. The only way it could get better is if somehow parlays it into some nookey (unfortunately, in my experience real women aren't impressed by this kind of thing, at least not from a passing on the genes standpoint).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That is such a dumb site! I'd like to post a public warning here. Forgetting for a moment that they failed to spell 'sex' correctly, from the amount of attention this site gets on Slashdot, you would expect at least a large amount of stuff on thie site.
However it has TWO PICTURES, a page of readers' letters, and THAT IS ALL. No links, no other stuff, no shit. The pictures are not very good anyway and they never even get rotated.
Boo!
*SHUDDER*
That's a bomb and make no mistake. Expensive, two. I wonder where he's getting it. High concentration H2O2 is hard to find.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
"I'll soon be leaving for the planet Mongo, in a rocket-ship of my own design." - Dr. Zarkoff
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after viewing the pictures I am worried that Paramount and the MPAA are going to sue him for the striking similarity to the rocket flown by Zephram Cochran in First Contact...
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
http:// slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/28/0041238&mode= nested&threshold=3
It boggles me how unimaginative people can be. I have lots of friends who have degrees in engineering and they're constantly knocking project ideas because they seem unfeasable (sp?) in their narrow perceptions. Nothing interesting ever came of people saying "That'll never work." or "Such and such isn't possible."
I can't remeber who said either but there are two quotes I've always liked.
"If a young scientist says something is possible, he's probably right. If an old scientist says something is impossible, he's probably wrong."
"Scientists don't change their theories, they die."
That looks like one of those eight inch long styrofoam airplane toys that you buy for a couple bucks at the toy store and launch with a plastic stick and rubberband.
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seumas.com
This is going to be the craziest bleach-job known to man.
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seumas.com
It says in the article that he is buying the hydrogen based engine components from a company in Flordia that specializes in making high-powered cars and motocycles with those devices. Anyone know where these people are? I'd sure like a hydrogen fuel based engine for my 16th birthday!
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
Desire is not an occupation.
I wasn't aware a human could do much beyond 210mph or so in a pure vertical dive. Can any physics guys take this?
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Wasn't there a guy on real people 15 years ago who claimed to be doing this? What happaned to him?
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
Actually, I don't see a single reason why this can't be done, according to the research I've done by watching hours and hours of cartoons.
My findings show that one of the most popular techniques involves using a giant slingshot.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
Personally I don't think he has a snowball's chance in hell. Although it wouldn't surprise me if he pulled it off. We ,as humans, are capable of more than we would like to beilieve sometimes. May I just say watch the Darwin awards cause he'll probably win this year. But I'm just curios where he'll get the rocket fuel, it's not something a local hardware store usually carries. The issue of materials..? I mean the guy doesn't have a degree so he can't have alot of money from some prestigious job he's been working. He might be getting funding from some local groups. Any way I think we'll all be interested to see what happens.
Wyilie E Coyote Super Genius. Working now for ACME's Research and Development Team, is currently developing a rocket to chase a Mr. Road Runner into Earth's Sub-Orbital trajectory. Although the rocket is using a highly volatile combustion system, Mr. Coyote is optimistic in his beleif that he will indeed catch Mr. RoadRunner. A quote from Mr. Coyote on his spacecraft: "Yes, It is perfectly safe, it wouldn't be if I weren't a Super Genius. I also intend to use some Dynamite to assist in immediate takeoff by giving the craft a little extra momentum upon lift-off." Thank you, and goodnight, Les Nessman reporting.
"I'm only carrying so much fuel. I can only go so high, and when I run out of fuel, I'll come back down."
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Evenin' viewers!
I am here with the spacecraft, sir, the Indestructible II.
What happened to Indestructible Mark I? It fell apart, sir.
Seriously though, I hope this doesn't become a trend, building your own rocket. Could you imagine the pickup lines at Slashdot conventions five years from now?
Hey, wanna be a member of the 90 mile high club?
Isn't the average trip time about thirty seconds?
Uh...
Wow, that says more about you than I think you wanted to say...
Hey, is that Alan Cox? (ducks out back as her head turns)
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
Actually that's exactly the way Robbert (the father of modern rocketry) Goddard's first working prototype was constructed. A rocket nozzle on top connected to fuel tanks underneath.
It sounds like this guy might be able to pull it off! He knows his limits--he isn't saying that he is going to the moon, or whatever.
In fact, he isn't even trying for orbit, he's going sub-orbital, about 30 miles up.
As long as the FAA (and whatever other US government agencies decide to butt in) doesn't object, he is in for a pretty wild ride!
More power to ya--good luck Mr. Walker!
---
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Or maybe he'll end up like Lawn Chair Man except floating at 30+ miles up instead of merely 16,000 feet. Let's hope he calculates the amount of fuel he needs, successfully. And, at least he is seekng FAA approval first.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
Parachuting, huh? I believe that terminal velocity of a human body at that height - due to the lack of an atmosphere - is something like 350mph. Whee. Lets see if the XGames have any testicles...
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
will the FAA ever let this guy try to pull it off?
There have been a lot of rocket comments and jokes about how he will blow up. However, I think the guy will not get shot into the sky but shot down by the FAA instead. Is it possible this eccentric will ever get off the ground with government approval?
ACK
Hydrogen Peroxide, shouldn't be too hard to come by (though he needs 7,000 gallons of it) Wyverns
At least if something goes wrong he'll have plenty of peroxide for keeping any cuts clean. Oh, wait... that's hydrogen peroxide... wonder if that burns any worse when applied than peroxide alone? -- Glad we don't live in a vacuum, I hate suck-ups
Scatter the light to brighten a room, focus it to kill something.
I'm reminded of DD Harison from Heinlein's 'The Man Who Sold the Moon' I certainly hope that he can pull this off. We need to have private citizens able to get off of the planet before we can see private spaceflights become a true reality. I think that between this, and the man going up to the MIR space station, the true privitization of space flight.
On the other hand, if this guy ends up just being a crack head who wins a Darwin Award, it'll probably have the same effect on private spaceflight that the Challenger did for American Space Flight. Hopefully, This will be seen in the history books as the thing that set off the great private space of the early 21st century.
Hopefully, this man will be able to get his ship up even if the government says no... He can try to take it out of the country, or just do it any damned way.
Here's to hoping...
see brian,
see brian's rocket,
see brian get in rocket,
see brian's rocket go up,
see brian fall from rocket as vibration tears it apart,
see brian go splat,
se brians life insurance say we do not cover acts of stupidity.
see brian's wife on oprah, talking her new book.
"DareDevils and the woman who marry them" next oprah
Yes, I've always wanted to do this, and someone's finally gonna do it! I'll bet the guy does it even if the authorities stop him, too. BTW THe Darwin Awards are all made up, so they won't be interested.
http://www.blitzbasic.com/
Graphics3D 640, 480
How long is this not-so-scientist planning to take to think things through? By hearing the words "back yard", I think of a week :)
.sig
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Intelligence should not be rewarded; ignorance should be punished
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Intelligence should not be rewarded; ignorance should be punished
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Article text... blah blah blah
It sounds crazy.
More article text... blah, blah, blah...
Posted with mozilla
It's been a while since I've done any physics, but one thing about the article bothers me: so he plans to take off and land in roughly the same place?? I mean, just the uncontrolled parachute ride from 10,000 feet could put him off course by a good bit. Can anyone do some quick math to figure out how much rotation the earth will do during his "elevator ride" to 160,000 feet? yes, I know this is purely hypothetical, since he will blow up spectacularly as soon as he lights the fuse (I hope that's metaphorical...). The only reason I ask is I am in Michigan, and don't really feel like getting squashed by some flaming idiot in a homebuild space capsule as I drive home from work or anything. jjs
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
Those people who have been commenting on how he'll fail etc have probably not looked at this guys web page - hes built prototype models and done simulations of the flight path. He has also built a hovercraft and a submarine amongst the toys he has made - so I would say he has the knowhow and ingenuity to pull it off. Good luck to him.
Walker will have to get FAA clearance before he launches his rocket. The FAA will review the design of the craft as well as the flight plan before considering issuing a license.
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Leave it to the government to fuck with a man's dreams. Screw'um! Do it anyway..
He can just launch without one and when he comes back to Earth (if he does) he can go to some third world country where they don't care about what he did with his rocket.
"If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you like it to be about?"
Actually from my extensive cartoon research I have determined that on his first attempt he will either:
a) Leave the parking brake on, preventing him from going anywhere or...
b) Put the darn thing in reverse, driving him backwards into the ground approximately half the length of his ship before he corrects the problem and blasts off properly.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
If this guy has any problems with the FAA he might want to do what the US navy did with some of their test. I am not talking about launching from a Submarine or ship but having the rocket sit in the water with its nose up out of the water 5 or 10 feet or so. Like the way a half-full coke bottle sits in the water. All you need is to make it bottom heavy and the rest of the rocket lighter than water. This method has many benefits it is very stable not moving much at all even in heavy seas. It is miles from houses and people you have plenty of water to put out fires, and the government has no real jurisdiction to stop you. The rocket will need to be water proof but the good part is that it is less stressful on the rocket frame to have it supported in water than in the air. Well I wish the guy luck he is going to need it.
Do you know where I could find the troll homepage? I've been looking and looking for it.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
On this site, I'm surprised it's not a penis penguin. Or is it?
--
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The geeks shall inherit the earth.
You can find more details this guy and his inventions at his website. He is apparently currently in Russia undergoing Cosmonaut training.
There is no doubt that this guy has far too much time and money on his hands.
-- David Smith
C:\ is the root of all evil.
On the one hand, if you think about it, Mr. Walker not really breaking any new ground, here. He's established some reasonable milestones, not quite as lofty as the first US venture into space. He's using "off-the-shelf" parts to build his vehicle. The technical breakthrus required to achieve a trajectory peak of 30mi is some 40 years old.
I remember back in da' Day when I was studying to be a *real* engineer. <grynn> The theory to achieve what Walker is aiming for is understandable and appliable by a 3rd year BS Aerospace Engineering student.
My concern would be that $250K seems pretty light, even for the limited scale of this *MANNED* rocket (and required flight systems). I recall projects in college requiring larger budgets for the design and building the of systems to launch and control unmanned vehicles. Seems to violate the first rule of engineering - make sure you leave PLENTY of margin for error.
All the same, if he *does* do this without turning into human crater residue, I think I will have a new hero. Got to admire a man who sets his sights on something in childhood, and works tirelessly for decades to achieve it.
...anactofgod...
<Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentation of their women.>
---anactofgod---
"Equal opportunity swindling - *that* is the true test of a sustainable democracy."
I know that you have to have a license to launch large model rockets. This man is launching a rocket big enough for himself. I'm not sure such a license exists to civilians! I wouldn't be surprised if the cops get him before he launches.
This is clearly a case of natural evolution beyond the balloon powered lawn chair. He gets my vote for the irrepressible human spirit which soars above the rest of us.
Yeah, actually, I'm aware of that, and it frightens the piss out of me. Hugh and I have been doing a little bit of planning for the angle at which the engine will have to be mounted in order to ensure that the exhaust will produce downward thrust enough (but not too much!) to maintain control. I think a little low-speed, high-thrust bursts trial-and-error will be the order of the day here. But I'm not really close to that point yet...
Obviously it will be very difficult to achieve those conditions- most likely your engine is rated for 2200 lbf thrust at 500 miles per hour at 10,000 feet. You'll probably get a lot less than that at sea level, at chevette-speed.Being a helicopter-designed engine, the altitude ratings are significantly lower than that. They're trimmable, first off, so that they will produce maximum thrust in a lower altitude range... around 750-1500 feet. I'm already that high above sea level where I live. They also have huge (for the engine's overall size) compressor fans, owing to the hovering that helicopters tend to do. So yeah, they're both issues, but not really overly so - this engine is as well suited to automotive use as any aviation engine I've ever seen.
That must have been a hell of a ride in your friend's VW... too bad it didn't work out as well as was hoped. :)
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
In particular, he needs to learn about guidance. His plan (if reported accurately, which is unlikely at best) will fail miserably -- once he is flying gravity will have no influence whatsoever on his orientation. A V2 (similar in scope to what he is working on) had both huge fins and thrust vectoring vanes to keep it stable. He desparately needs some kind of active guidance or he's going to end up a smoking hole in the ground.
Of course, if he's an engineer he probably knows this and the article was reported poorly.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
On his web page he writes:
What about guidance systems? The thrust will come out at the top of the rocket. An early American pioneer Robert Goddard did the same thing with his early test rockets. The rocket should "hang down" from the thrust like a pendulum. Since he is going straight up in the middle of a large desert there is no need for precise guidance.
Although Goddard's initial experiments had the propulsion nozzle in front, he quickly came to the conclusion that the nozzle placement has nothing to do with stability. This led him to develop gyroscopic control systems and to experiment with using deflector vanes in the exhaust to stabilize the flight through active feedback.
As any model rocket enthusiast can tell you, if you are going to make do with a passive control system, the important factor is to keep the center of pressure (CP) behind the center of gravity(CG). Objects in flight tend to rotate around the CG. The CP is roughly the sum of the aerodynamic forces. Adding fins to the tail of a rocket or airplane moves the CP aft, increasing the stability.
If you keep the CP behind the CG, a small perturbation in flight angle will tend to get cancelled out. This is the effect that makes a dart fly straight.
If the CP is in front of the CG, perturbations tend to increase and the system becomes unstable. If you try to throw a playing card without spinning it, it will flip end over end, for that particular reason: once it has turned slightly to the side, the aerodynamic forces will tend to increase the angle of attack.
On his web page there appears to be a small capsule with the engines that is set up so it is "towing" a fuel tank. I have no idea where the CG is going to end up, but I expect the CP to be pretty close to the front.
Judging by his assertion that nozzle location will make it stable, I hope that someone with a clue reviews his design for him before he spends too much money on his Kevorkian device
If he does try to fly it, I want to be far far away. -Jeff Bell
"An inert plastic bag could possibly be used instead of metal to reduce the weight and distribute the pressure."
The reaction is still a violent, hot reaction as the article mentions. I believe the idea is to keep all pressure outside of the tank, the distribution problem occurs at the bottom, where the reaction is supposed to occur within a closed space to ensure that the energy is directed both down and up (equal & opposite reaction), instead of in all directions.
Playing with the tank design helps in many ways, but it still comes down to the simple problem of non-symmetrical expansion, leakage and stress ripping the tank open.
None the less, as the article mentioned these rockets are being built by a company which builds many for land-usage, though the application is still very different, they do have a little bit of applicable testing behind them.
But I wouldn't do it.
Ace
I like his plan a lot, its very daring and dangerous but is feasible, I'm sure the cynics are just jealous they don't have the cash or balls to pull this off.
He'll probably land in my backyard. If he does, does that mean he'll get squatter rights to my property?
managers...why god invented purgatory
This was in memepool several days ago.
-p.
Subj: Tornado Shelter on Launch Day
'Cause, reading the article, the guy looks like he might actually get off the ground. (FAA may or may not be the only sticky point.)
I'll bet money that this will end badly for both him and his neighbors.
In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that:
He gets off the ground.
Reading into the article, he's got very little, if any, navigation controls. He goes where he goes.
On launch, he's going to point away from the Pacific, so that he doesn't land in the middle of the ocean. (Without support choppers and stuff like Apollo and other early space travel had, that's certain death.)
At the calculated speeds, wind shear and other things on launch and descent will be more and more critical variables, and far less predictable.
He could end up coming down at a high rate of speed into a Kansas dooryard...
Therefore, I'd advise the use of cellars and tornado shelters on launch day.
And yeah, may as well pre-engrave his name into the Darwin Award trophy. It's a safe bet that the engraving won't be going to waste.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
It was Zephram. And it wasn't a rocket, it was a warp drive.
But that, has nothing to do with reality.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
--Forager
student of animation and the fine arts
I'm not sure I agree that it's actually so terribly smart of a thing to do. I mean, the guy is planning on going 60 miles into the atmosphere. NASA supposedly defines space as starting at 62 miles up. What happens if his already rough-sounding calculations are off by a couple of percent, and he ends up in space for real?
Dude, Earth's atmosphere gets gradually thinner as you go up. It's not like somewhere between 60 and 62 miles, you break through this "membrane", and then smash into it while you're trying to get back down.
I mean, really. That's a weird concept of "space". You do know that the air gets to thin to breathe on top of mountains, right?
In conclusion, this guy will die, but not because he overshoots his target by one mile.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Knowing the good old US Govt there are probably a ton of regulations and redtape how will he deal with it. And isn't a rocked launch in a neighborhood considered disturbing the peace
-Compenguin
Strap this guy into a space suit, give him some LSD, and a rocket filled with fuel, he'll return the Mars lander in no time flat.
http://siokaos.org/
2.3 hours, or maybe 4.6. Read it in a novel a few years ago. You probably read the same one. :) The time would be the same if you dug a hole directly to Antwerp too. Doesn't matter what angle your tunnel is oriented towards. Just though I'd add that.
Catch me on AIM: SigningiS
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
pronoblem
Nah, forget the rocket-powered motorcycle. You're better off using a jet engine.
On the workbench in my garage at the moment is an old General Electric J-85 jet engine. It's about 19" long, 12" in diameter and weighs about 150 lbs. It's a very compact jet engine, used as a thruster on helicopters. I work for a *big* Pentagon contractor - you'd know who if I dropped the name - and I happened to be in the right place at the right time when it was declared to be no longer airworthy. (Though, while I haven't run it yet, I've seen it run, and I know it still works.)
Sitting beside it is my old 1980 Chevrolet Chevette, which is powered by a Buick 3.8L V6 that I stuffed in during an otherwise boring weekend.
Now, the Chevette is plenty fast enough with the Buick 3.8L V6; drag strip tests have showed the car turning a quarter mile in 12.8 seconds. In fact, the car now has serious structural problems owing to too much horsepower for the car's body to deal with. I'm addressing these with a full tubular frame.
Even so, the Chevette will only weigh 1,600 lbs. The GE J-85 is rated for a thrust of about 2,200 lbs.
Since the engine's thrust is greater than the weight of the car, it's likely that, under full power, the J-85 could accelerate the car with a force greater than 1G. (This is what a mechanical engineer friend of mine came up with when he did the numbers for me.) And that's *without* adding in the thrust of the 3.8L V6.
The beauty of a jet engine as opposed to a rocket is that you can turn it off or scale back the power. Once you've lit the rocket, it's going. And then you're dealing with another JATO-Impala Darwin Award...
When I've mounted this engine, you can rest assured that I will try it out very carefully. 10% power (~220lbs) is more than enough thrust to know that the jet engine is working. I have no need to try to see how fast I can make a Chevette travel; it's all about acceleration.
The goal is to turn my faithful old Chevette into the world's first street-driveable jet-powered car. With the Buick V6 running, the car will be a fast street-driveable car. And when I've driven the car up to the drag strip and there are no tinfoil Hondas with plastic bumpers behind me, I'll pull off the covers and fire up the jet engine.
I'm all for speed, excitement, and building novel things just for the sake of doing it, but I think a little care should be exercised in any such exploit.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
The things people can accomplish with a little boredom, a backyard, and some money (or lots of junk).
I once worked at a gas station where sunday mornings were completely dead. My boss seemed to only hire chain smokers or pyros, smart if you want to get insurance money for a large "accidental" fire. Unfortunately for him, he never did get that fire, but almost on several occasions. We invented all sorts of cool stuff, including, but not limited to:
1. 20 oz pop bottle rockets made from a pop bottle, valve stem w/o the core, water, and 180 psi. It's really amazing how much pressure a pop bottle can take without bursting.
2. The menacing screwdriver gun. This was made from a hose connected to the blast nozzles on the tire machine used for seating tires on the rim. The hose was connected with lots of duct tape to a large steel pipe. Drop the screwdriver in, aim, press the pedal. It would stick a screwdriver into a cement block. Later, it also proved that it could put a screwdriver through a garage door window and still make it across the street.
3. Oil burner pizza oven. Cooked a nice tasty *looking* pizza. Unfortunately, it added a little natural carcinogen flavor to it. We only tested this invention once...
4. Tire bombs. Ever see what happens to a car tire when you try to put 180 psi into it? Just put the locking air hose on it, and run away. Let's just say that if you do this 3 times in 10 minutes, the police come by to see what's going on.
I miss that job. If only it paid as well as the computer industry... Ahh, memories...
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The only picture of the hovercraft moving, it shows what looks like a rope, pulling it forward.
There are no pictures of the sub submerged, either.
Maybe it's early yet and they're not at that stage of development... Or, maybe not.
Read the darwin awards web site. This story (rocket car) has been circulating for decades...not true. However the guy who strapped himself into a lawn chair with multiple weather baloons and a gun for altitude control was for real (and reached >10000 ft). Too bad he committed suicide later. He was my hero until he did that. Actually he's still my hero, he was one of the "crazy ones". Apple should put him on a billboard somewhere.
no sig.
You know, one for him and one for his balls? They're obviously the size of a Buick!
20% of the comments here express concern that the rocket is going to veer off course and land in either the guy's neighborhood, Kansas or some third world country. Lets review the facts:
The world isn't going to end when this guy launches his rocket.
I think this dude is gonna be winning a Darwin Award pretty soon.