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Pizza Hut's Space Program: First Launch
Legion303 writes: "This details the Pizza Hut-funded rocket that was sent up. Good first step in the privatization of spaceflight, although PH wouldn't have been my first choice of companies ..." The original plan was to be up last November, then last February, but better late than mis-delivered, I guess. Here's the original story hemos posted way back when. 500 million viewers is a lot of delivery business ...
The Proton uses hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, which inherently don't create any smoke, and very little light. The Shuttle's SRBs burn rubber and aluminum with ammonium perchlorate oxidizer, and emit incandescent molten aluminum oxide particles. This bright glow makes the mixing at the edge of the SRB plume easier to see- it's also there for the Proton, but isn't glowing.
:)
That really is how the Proton looks at liftoff- only aluminized solids and kerosene-fueled rockets have bright yellow or orange exhaust plumes, pretty much all the rest are transparent and pale yellow or blue. However, I have managed to make a nitrous oxide/ethane fueled engine produce a pale green plume by getting the mixture ratio just so, and a LOX/kerosene engine can run purple if the mixture is too lean (this eliminates the soot that makes the plume bright orange/yellow). LOX/alcohol is generally bluish for the same reason a gas flame on a stove is blue- it's an emission line of carbon monoxide.
Working with rockets can be quite a lightshow
Pizza Hut != Pepsi Actualy Pepsi no longer owns Pizza Hut,Taco Bell, and KFC. They were split off several years ago and are sub-units of Tricon Global Resturaunts. http://www.triconglobal.com/triconroot/default.htm
Actually, they are all owned by Pepsi. TGR inc is just a subsidiary of Pepsi Corp. (IIRC)
Finkployd
The Proton uses nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4, oxidizer) and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH, fuel). See this page. Both of these chemicals are highly toxic. They were popular for liquid fueled ICBMs because they were non-cryogenic and storable.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
My girlfriend even signed up with an online corp. that pays you to drive around with their sticker (!) on your car for a year... Not enough to fix a screwed paint job though...
What's next?
- Advertising via disposable home products (paper plates, plastic spoons, dryer sheets, napkins, tampons, toilet paper [the last one might be quite rewarding IMHO]).
- Haircuts come with an obligatory temporary neck tattoo sporting the salon (the women will kill this one off
:) - The Moon (probably in negotiation as we type)
- Free services with obligatory, permanent ad displays (think free cable TV with continuous scrolling banner ads along the bottom or top)
Remember when all marketing WASN'T evil?Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
You ever look at the Eastern Seaboard of the United States? Virginia, named after Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen; the Carolinas, named after King Charles; Georgia, named after King George; Pennsylvania, named after William Penn; Maryland, named after Mary by the Calverts, a Catholic family. Naming things after sponsors has been going on for a long time. The only difference is that they did a better job of it then--which sounds better: Georgia or King George's Land(tm)(r)(c)(spqr)?
Can NASA hold patents? I don't know, but I would think if they could, they could be pulling in alot more money from licensing technologies, giving them a bit of return on investment.
Actually, NASA does hold a lot of patents. These include things like goretex and I believe that they own the patent to velcro. They make quite a bit of money from those patents, which is good because it seems that the US Government is more interested in funding other programs like missle defence.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
My understanding is that Pizza Hut was using this an a promotional event to gain recognition of their new corporate logo (not terribly different from the old one, if you ask me). But with all of those delays in launch, was their logo even new anymore when they launched?
Pizza Hut believes making great pizza is "rocket science"
... so that's why they haven't figured it out yet!
but do they still deliver in 30 minutes?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Not only was the rocket late, but those poor dudes up there don't actually get any pizza. Pizza Hut probably got a good deal on the cost of the paint (the added wind resistance was probably worth a few grand right there), but it doesn't seem they were even willing to fork out the 1/2 million more a pizza would have cost. How do I know this? Do you think pizza hut would have passed that hype opportunity up? All and all, this is the first ad on a rocket, and no big deal. Make a fresh pizza in space (a loaded pizza in 0-g... hahah) and I'll be impressed.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Wouldn't this have been a lot more appropriate for Viagra than Pizza Hut?
Thanks, rub it in. :)
Finkployd
"OK! Who has been messing with my laser?!?!"
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Um, Pizza Hut didn't shell out for the whole thing. Probably not much at all. It's just that the Russians have been promising that launch for years, and there so strapped they would let some pizza company on board. I'd have held out for something with a little more class.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Here's a picture of where space exploration (funding) is headed:
Shuttle Ads
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
Three months ago I have paid a shitload of taxes -- I should make a press release about my active participation in everything that US government does.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
'Putt putt, to the Pizza Hut'
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I worked for Taco Bell in 97. My paychecks still said Pepsi.
:)
Course, that might just have been carryover from earlier days, as I left early that year.
Oh well, I'm not always right
Finkployd
First of all, what has Pizza Hut REALLY done here that the government hasn't? The US has scraped up whole lot more than 2.5 million over the years.
But I see what you were trying to say, and in response to that I say, the only reason the government has "failed" is because its citizens don't care about space exploration anymore. Noone's really cared much about the space program since we landed on the moon. It's been over 30 years and we haven't attempted anything even close to that since. True, the trip to the moon served very little real purpose, but one would think we'd have done _something_ bigger than we've done by now. Alot of people today just think the space program is a waste of money. "We should be spending all of that money to fix problems here on Earth" they say. They just don't realize that ALOT of modern technology has come from NASA. Space-based experiments have saved lives and improved the quality of a whole lot of others, people just don't realize that at all. It's our responsibility to tell Uncle Sam where we want our money to go, and if NASA isn't getting the funding we all want it to, it's our own fault.
Secondly, I would like to point out that there is virtually nothing that ISN'T commercialized. There's only so much money the government can put up by itself. Can NASA hold patents? I don't know, but I would think if they could, they could be pulling in alot more money from licensing technologies, giving them a bit of return on investment. Maybe they already are, but I honestly have no idea. But anyways, look at railroads, cars, airplanes. All forms of transportation that may have been government subsidized, but still commercially driven. Space travel will join them. Bio-engineering, chemical engineering, etc. all areas of research that may be government subsidized, but again, are mainly commercially driven.
So, in the end, things will be fine. This isn't that dissimilar from what's happened many times before. In fact, I say it's about damn time. Commercialization=more rapid growth, and I'm all for rapid growth of the space program.
The proof comes when the Pizza Hut Marketing Battlestation rains lukewarm cheesy death across the globe and world leaders grovel before Pizza Hut's marketing department for mercy...
Except for Russia that is. Is it just a coincidence that Pizza Hut fed Boris Yeltsin during the 1991 coup? They've been planning this for decades!
YELTSIN WILL RETAKE THE PRESIDENCY AND RULE THE WORLD WITH PIZZA HUT!
Can you imagine if MicroSoft had participated in space technology? Yes, you would only be able to use on kind of software to pilot your space ship, but maybe you would be able to take it to mars.
Of course the way Windows is it probably would crash a couple times along the way.
Kate
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
yes. chmod 575 haiku.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
"Why hasn't this happened already?", you might ask. We've become too soft. People have forgotten about the sex appeal of the early manned program and war. We get all teary eyed with 7 bureaucrats posing as astronauts get blown up in a gold plated mockery of Yankee Ingenuity. What a crock!
Maximum altitude and/or minimum time to a particular height wins. Breath oxygenated saline to absorb high g loads? I don't know -- I don't care because I'm not climbing on top of one of those vertical dragsters anytime soon so it's none of my business, but I know plenty of young guys with hormonal overload who would jump at the chance to fill their lungs with oxygenated saline if it would get them a buxom babe, so who are you or I to stand in their way?
To hell with government programs, let's be reasonable about this space stuff.
Of course, since the mortality rates will be rather high in such a competition so you would need to hold the Winternational Rocket Races in someplace like Belize or Nigeria rather than el wimporoonie countries with sensitive quiche-eaters like the United States or any of the rest of the industrialized world.
If sacrifices must be made to get technological civilization out of the biosphere, then so be it!
Extreme sports -- HA!
Seastead this.
Large amounts of cash missing, grainy "photos" offered as proof that they ... um ... painted a miniscule logo on a rocket. Riiiiighiiit.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
One large Super Supreme for all Mankind. Hold the Onions.
(I don't think that's exactly what it was in the movie, but it's what's in the script that I found)
-ElJefe
Just imagine that long rocket launching up to space with a Trojan logo on it.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I really don't like the looks of that Pizza Hut logo on the side of that rocket. It gives me a queezy feeling to know that some megacorp can come up with cash to fund things like this (very important things, I might add) where governments have failed.
Damnit. I guess I'll just have to get used to it.
One the plus side, that is one damned efficient rocket engine. Man, it looked sweet on launch - did anyone else notice the lack of oxidation? Is this some difference between the fuel technologies the Russians use over American launches? I seem to remember its got something to do with their use of kerosene over American's use of some other thing, but I forget the details.
Sure could roast some good pie with that rocket. Damnit.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Pizza is more aerodynamically shaped than chicken, colonel with a beard, bell and chihuahua (aka rat-dog), so it's more positively associated with something flying ;-)
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I have never been a fan of the fast food industry. But having tasted Jordinian pizza just a few weeks ago, my views of Pizza Hut were greatly altered. According to the Lonely Planet Guide to Jordan, Pizza Hut offered one of the best Pizzas in all of Petra, which is a strong testiment to the Jordinian exposure to Italian/New York style pizzas. Anyways, the storal of my moray (Capitol Steps) is that Pizza Hut could do some good by sending a message from the heavens down unto Pizzaless third world countries. Sad, but true.
~Questioning
"Is this stuff CHEESE?!"
music
Yeah, cheers for Britney Spears...
movies
Yeeaahh...i'll grant you Fight Club. Sadly it's almost cancelled out by the God-Bless-America attitude of films such as U-571, The Patriot etc. etc. Maybe if America made less xenophobic, smart-arse, shallow films.
microcode (software)
Lets see: Microsoft is American. Linus is Norwegian. No, can't give you this one.
high speed pizza delivery
Ah yes, food. I knew the Americans had to be good at something! And, of course it has to be food. After all, over half the population is clinicly obesse.
Yes, God Bless America! (Wipes tear of laughter from eye)
I think Pizza Hut were a great choice for the first sponsors of space flight.
I mean, look at their logo: What other company do you know that could get away with painting a picture of a flying saucer on the side of a rocket??
I guess this will mean that all those old "Pizza the Hutt" jokes will get re-born too?
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Let's just hope one of the Pizza Hut drives doesn't pilot it. That baby will be totaled in minutes!!!
Kate
_________________________ Visit me at http://pornforcomputers.com
Neal Stephenson was right, America does 4 things better than everyone else (page 2):
music
movies
microcode (software)
high speed pizza delivery
Yeah baby!
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
world's largest proton rocket emblazoned with a Pizza Hut logo on the fuselage.
Not to be confused with equally sized rockets devoid of the pizza hut logo or any smaller pizza hut sponsored rockets.
--Shoeboy
See the NASA page that explores other avenues for space commercialization.
Although it is extremely unlikely that advertisements could fund an entire mission, they may provide significant supplementary revenue. Advertisements may be purchased on their own, but they are generally integrated into overall promotional campaigns. As such, they have the potential to generate additional revenues on the order of $3 million to $5 million or more per mission. For example, Columbia Pictures was willing to pay $500,000 for space on the side of the first Comet launch to promote the release of "The Last Action Hero." This was split between Westinghouse (Conestoga) and Space Marketing, Inc.
You gotta keep your action-oriented-box-office-bombs-starring-bulky-br utes straight. :)
[
..is to send a rocket to the Moon to collect samples. They want to be the only pizza biz with authentic Green Cheese!