comcn writes "The BBC have an article about an amateur "rocketeer" trying to send himself into space. After the £7m prize was announced for the first non-commercial person to get into space, it seems there are now several people aiming to win it. Cool."
Don't forget Brian Walker
by
ruszka
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Brian Walker is an American who has had a lifelong dream of going into space. He's been working for a long time now to get there on his own. His website is here. His story is very interesting considering what all he's gone through to get this far. His launch date is set for May of 2002.
In other news...
by
Master+Of+Ninja
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· Score: 2, Informative
The BBC also reports that another group have put a 5.4m rocket 700ft into the air. From what it seems these people have a better chance of putting things into space, since they already hold the UK record for the highest amateur rocket. (Anybody know what the highest a rocket has gone in the USA?)
I would say they have a better chance of getting things into space. Their record rocket went 35,00ft into the air, plus they have developed their own engine. Their fuel is supposed to be efficient - its got nitrous oxide in it! (ok i don't know what this really would mean but after watching "The Fast and the Furious" it just seems cool). Plus their ambitions seems to be getting sattelites and not people into space - more readily acheiveable IMHO.
Re:In other news...
by
NeoTron
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· Score: 5, Informative
Yes, this group is called MARS - Middlesex Advanced Rocketry Society, of which I am one of the Flight Crew.
Bennet is basically a big joke in the UK, he has got all rocketry groups banned from using military bases to test rockets from, and one of his earlier rocket escapades burned a substantial part of moorland in Dartmoor.
Bennets rocket is nothing more than a scaled-up HPR (High Power Rocket) vehicle, and is nothing more exciting than is flown by many HPR enthusiasts here in the UK and the US.
Our most recent success flew last weekend - it's a true and proper amateur rocket utilising our new Hybrid rocket motor, quite possibly the most powerfull amateur hybrid motor flown anywhere in the world:)
Go to http://www.mars.org.uk for more details.
Regards
Kevin Cave.
All the Karma Whoring Details
by
1alpha7
·
· Score: 3, Informative
For those of you interested in Darwin Awards, here is the X-Prize site. Here is Robert A. Braeunig's page on how to do it, orbital mechanics and the like. Space.com usually carries the X-prize news. For those of you wondering about the difference between an Ariane and a Proteus, here is the glossary
1Alpha7
-- Live to be Moderated
Armadillo Aerospace
by
tjackson
·
· Score: 3, Informative
How can you forget about Armadillo Aerospace? You might know the name of one of the members of the team: John Carmack. They are very serious. They have a few flight test videos, and they have a few prototypes that could carry a person (Though that spot was filled by a punching bag for testing purposes).
Re:Commercial Rocketry
by
FlexAgain
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· Score: 3, Informative
After a few failed launches, new laws will be implemented world-wide "for our protection" that prevent anyone but registered governmental space agencies from launching manned missions, and commercial spaceflight will be relegated to satellites and probes forever.
Actually, there are existing international law, to which I am pretty sure the US has signed up, which make the Government of countries responsible for any mishaps which result from spaceflight. ie, you launch a rocket which prangs some camel in the middle of a desert, and the camels owner (or more likely, his Government) will come after your Government who is then quite likely to want to have a word in your ear about it. This is one of the reasons why totally commercial rocket launches have been a rarity, government bodies like the CAA, FAA, etc, do control what is going to be launched.
(Normal rules apply, IANAL, you are at risk of being locked away and forgotten about if you prang the ISS with your brand new home brew launch vehicle etc)
-- Actually it is rocket science...
A better article on Mr. Bennett
by
dorkstar
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This previous article from the BBC describes Mr. Bennett's lunacy a bit more clearly.
It's one thing to launch an 11m rocket some 5000ft, it's quite another to build a functioning spacecraft!
At the very minimum it would have to carry a ton of payload; most probably quite a bit more. To get an idea of the kinds of equipment involved, this link [af.mil] on the Delta II provides a good overview of the kind of sheer power and equipment needed to put even a relatively small 5 ton payload into space.
It turns out that it's a lot easier than you think to build an X-Prize-winning rocket.
The Delta rockets and other commercial launch vehicles need to get an object into _orbit_. This takes about 30 MJ/kg (the binding energy for LEO), or about 8 km/sec delta-V.
Satisfying the X prize only requires sending a payload up to 100 km. It doesn't have to stay there. This only takes about 1 MJ/kg (1.0e5 metres times about 10 m/sec^2). This corresponds to a delta-V of about 1.4 km/sec. This is much, much easier to achieve.
The reason why this is *much* easier (or more accurately, why anything higher than 2-3 km/sec is *really* hard), is that when the delta-V of your rocket is larger than your exhaust velocity, the amount of fuel needed to give that delta-V to a fixed amount of payload starts growing exponentially (it's roughly linear below this threshold). Typical specific impulses for rocket fuels are in the 2000-3000 N*s/kg range, corresponding to exhaust velocities of 2-3 km/sec. So, anything below about 2 km/sec can be accomplished with relative ease, while anything above about 4 km/sec requires a rocket that's mostly fuel (and probably multi-stage, unless you have extremely strong and light materials).
In summary, building a rocket that can lift a payload into a sub-orbital trajectory that tops out at 100 km is certainly within reach of a small group's resources.
[The real problem will be finding someone willing to pay for it. You can't lift payloads into orbit with this rocket, and cost of developing the rocket will probably be more than you'd get from the X-Prize.]
Slashdot Mirror
Brian Walker is an American who has had a lifelong dream of going into space. He's been working for a long time now to get there on his own. His website is here. His story is very interesting considering what all he's gone through to get this far. His launch date is set for May of 2002.
The BBC also reports that another group have put a 5.4m rocket 700ft into the air. From what it seems these people have a better chance of putting things into space, since they already hold the UK record for the highest amateur rocket. (Anybody know what the highest a rocket has gone in the USA?)
I would say they have a better chance of getting things into space. Their record rocket went 35,00ft into the air, plus they have developed their own engine. Their fuel is supposed to be efficient - its got nitrous oxide in it! (ok i don't know what this really would mean but after watching "The Fast and the Furious" it just seems cool). Plus their ambitions seems to be getting sattelites and not people into space - more readily acheiveable IMHO.
For those of you interested in Darwin Awards, here is the X-Prize site. Here is Robert A. Braeunig's page on how to do it, orbital mechanics and the like. Space.com usually carries the X-prize news. For those of you wondering about the difference between an Ariane and a Proteus, here is the glossary
1Alpha7
Live to be Moderated
How can you forget about Armadillo Aerospace? You might know the name of one of the members of the team: John Carmack . They are very serious. They have a few flight test videos, and they have a few prototypes that could carry a person (Though that spot was filled by a punching bag for testing purposes).
Check out:
Armadillo Aerospace
Comment by JC about his rockets (Hydrogen Peroxide-based, by the way).
Their demonstration video(quite impressive).
After a few failed launches, new laws will be implemented world-wide "for our protection" that prevent anyone but registered governmental space agencies from launching manned missions, and commercial spaceflight will be relegated to satellites and probes forever.
Actually, there are existing international law, to which I am pretty sure the US has signed up, which make the Government of countries responsible for any mishaps which result from spaceflight. ie, you launch a rocket which prangs some camel in the middle of a desert, and the camels owner (or more likely, his Government) will come after your Government who is then quite likely to want to have a word in your ear about it. This is one of the reasons why totally commercial rocket launches have been a rarity, government bodies like the CAA, FAA, etc, do control what is going to be launched.
(Normal rules apply, IANAL, you are at risk of being locked away and forgotten about if you prang the ISS with your brand new home brew launch vehicle etc)
Actually it is rocket science...
This previous article from the BBC describes Mr. Bennett's lunacy a bit more clearly.
He's not going to win the X-Prize.
It's one thing to launch an 11m rocket some 5000ft, it's quite another to build a functioning spacecraft!
At the very minimum it would have to carry a ton of payload; most probably quite a bit more. To get an idea of the kinds of equipment involved, this link [af.mil] on the Delta II provides a good overview of the kind of sheer power and equipment needed to put even a relatively small 5 ton payload into space.
It turns out that it's a lot easier than you think to build an X-Prize-winning rocket.
The Delta rockets and other commercial launch vehicles need to get an object into _orbit_. This takes about 30 MJ/kg (the binding energy for LEO), or about 8 km/sec delta-V.
Satisfying the X prize only requires sending a payload up to 100 km. It doesn't have to stay there. This only takes about 1 MJ/kg (1.0e5 metres times about 10 m/sec^2). This corresponds to a delta-V of about 1.4 km/sec. This is much, much easier to achieve.
The reason why this is *much* easier (or more accurately, why anything higher than 2-3 km/sec is *really* hard), is that when the delta-V of your rocket is larger than your exhaust velocity, the amount of fuel needed to give that delta-V to a fixed amount of payload starts growing exponentially (it's roughly linear below this threshold). Typical specific impulses for rocket fuels are in the 2000-3000 N*s/kg range, corresponding to exhaust velocities of 2-3 km/sec. So, anything below about 2 km/sec can be accomplished with relative ease, while anything above about 4 km/sec requires a rocket that's mostly fuel (and probably multi-stage, unless you have extremely strong and light materials).
In summary, building a rocket that can lift a payload into a sub-orbital trajectory that tops out at 100 km is certainly within reach of a small group's resources.
[The real problem will be finding someone willing to pay for it. You can't lift payloads into orbit with this rocket, and cost of developing the rocket will probably be more than you'd get from the X-Prize.]