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Maverick Rocketeers Pursue Space Access
Mad.Scientist writes "This article at Space.com is about mavericks who are trying to lessen the cost of going into space. One of the companies, Armadillo Aerospace, is founded by John Carmack, who is also a founder of Id Software, and the brain behind games such as Doom or Quake. I just have to say, godspeed to all." Carmack is only one of the people mentioned in this story, but see our previous story for more on Carmack's rocketry habit.
Game programming, Espescially 3d game programming, is some of the most math intensive coding around, in fact id much rather have a game coder launching rockets, than just your average kernel hacker.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
Gerald Bull who shot to fame as the inventor of the Iraqi Super Gun did a lot of work on constant pressure launch systems - enormous cannons with explosives positioned along the barrel to keep the pressure behind the projectile constant for the full launch length.
Estimated cost to LEO? $1 per pound.
Because the shock was distributed along the acceleration, maximum G force on the load was 40G: fine for food and fuel and most construction supplies.
You can read more about his work at Federation of American Scientists Supergun pages, [2], and at NASA.
There really is more than one way to do it.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Actually, he knows quite a lot about what he is doing, because of extremely studious research and a lot of testing of everything they work on. I have been following their work for the last year, and have been very impressed by what they've accomplished.
They are currently working on two projects, the most impressive of which is a VTVL (vertical takeoff, vertial landing) vehicle, with 4 thrusters on the 4 corners, and a central main lift engine with the cpability to lift one person to really impressive heights.
The coolest thing about it is that all of the fuel they use is (fairly) safe for the environment.
I saw this piece on TV about the Ultima
creator living in a medieval castle mockup,
and now it's Cormack, after tuning the
ubergeek Ferrari, trying to fly to space
by himself on a budget...
when the stuff they sold us only keeps us
in a virtual world, replacing all the REAL
things the 60's scifi writers had promised.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
Did Carmack steal your girlfriend or something?
SOmehow we've been conditioned to think that the only people qualified to do something of this caliber are Phds. It's bunk.
It takes desire, attention to detail, and tenacity to not listen to everyone saying they can't do it. If Carmack can lend himself to a project like this and be useful, more power to him and I hope he's successful.
Who was an expert in space exploration 50 years ago? 40? Space exploration has been castrated by the policies of NASA and largely our government. There are risks associated with going into space. Let people who are willing take them.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
If you really want a big gun then you want a Ram Accelerator. It will subject a projectile to about 25,000 G's of acceleration.
The beauty of it is its efficiency. The fuel (gas) is stored in the barrel. The projectile is fired to have it travel fast enough to cause its shock wave to ignite the gas in the tube and therefore propel it even more. Basically, it is just ahead of the detonation wave it creates.
The University of Washington has a good bit of info about them.
Cool stuff.
..Might be a 'game' programmer. He might be a nut. He might end up blasting himself into oblivion.
But he has money. A lot of it, and a rather wonderful interest in space.
We need more people like him who have the funds to casually toss around into stuff like this, because the government sure as hell won't bring us any closer to getting the average joe into space. (Look at the stink Nasa made with Tito, a freakin' rocket scientist, for crying out loud!)
Screw Bull, there were many other ways for him to keep his research and projects alive than by whoring himself to Hussein.
.... This guy was begging to be assasinated, and I am glad that someone tossed him the alms he was asking for.
His lack of morals, judgment, his illegal selling of arms to South Africa, his building of a delivery mechanism (artillery pieces, supergun, improved scuds) for weapons of mass destruction for Hussein,
>Are you now using an inertial guidance system or is there a better alternative?
>I assume that GPS does not provide enough accuracy for low speed guidance
We are currently using a Crossbow inertial unit with fiber optic gyros for the fast attitude stabilization.
We have flown GPS on a couple flights, but the update rate is too slow for active control. I do feel that in the longer term, carrier wave interferometry GPS sensors will offer the most cost effective attitude sensors, but right now they are $15,000+ system. If I was doing this on a much tighter budget, I would consider trying to build a fast updating CW GPS system from available cheap GPS cores, but that is a project of significant complexity all by itself.
I have integrated a new laser altimeter with the electronics box, but we haven't flown it yet. I am looking forward to this, because it will allow us to begin working on auto-hover and auto-land control software.
John Carmack
Well, I am a rocket scientist and I couldn't agree with you more.
The "two guys from Ohio" were way, way ahead of their time. They were among the first to do actual experiment-based airfoil testing. They developed light-weight internal combustion engines. Their biggest breakthrough was realizing the importance of control: they developed twistable wings (the ailerons were invented later) to maneuver the airplane. It's not like major military powers were not trying to do the same thing; it's just that the two bicycle shop owners persisted and had the insight and ingenuity to do this.
Space travel has a much lower threshold today than air flight did for the Wrights: we know how to get there, we know how to survive, we know how to spread the risks. The difference is cost: it will take more than two dedicated hobbyists to build a space vehicle. And it will take a market demand to amortize the costs and make space travel possible; I think that's a bigger obstacle than technology or cost.