Amateur Rocket Heads Into Space

scubacuda writes "Space.com has an article on a group of amateur rocketeers (the Civilian Space Xploration Team) hoping to send the first amateur rocket, Primera Spaceshot 2002, into space by the end of June from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. If all goes well with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the team will send a rocket stands about 17 feet tall (5.18 meters) and weighs 550 pounds (249 kilograms) 62 nautical miles (114 kilometers) in the atmosphere (12 miles higher than the 50-mile altitude largely regarded as the boundary of space). (MSN version here)"

Comments

Rocketguy

[Oily Tuna]

They're going to beat the Oregon Rocketguy. That's sad.

Solid, not liquid

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's interesting that this rocket uses solid propellant rather than the liquid fuel that most high-altitude rockets use. Might this be the first completely solid fueled rocket to reach space?

Re:Solid, not liquid

[taniwha]

HPR people have been scaling up solids (using AP&rubber - basicly the same stuff the shuttle boosters use) for over a decade now - big AP rockets are not that unusual these days and have been flown to at least 100k ft (20 miles) - they are just expensive to build (propellent can cost several $1000).

100kft is a magic number - at that point the FAA loses juristiction (we fly the smaller stuff with FAA waivers) and you have to apply to a different part of the federal govt. - the paper work is pretty intimidating - it's designed to stop people dropping dangerous things on other countrys and causing international incidents.

Building amateur liquid propellent motors is hard - you have to get the fuel and oxidiser into the combustion chamber - that means a pressure higher than the chamber pressure - either a turbo pump - or a pressure system of some kind (for example gaseous O2 as an oxidiser at a high pressure, or an inert gas say N2 at pressure pushing a liquid say LOX or kerosene) pressure systems mean more weight.

One system we have been flying with recently is a hybrid based system - a liquid oxidiser with a solid fuel (basicly the combustion chamber's wall burn). It turns out that nitrous oxide (yes laughing gas) is a room-temp cryogenic liquid that self-pressurizes at above chamber pressure - this means it self-pumps and can be throttled. Paint ball tanks make great light-weight pressure vessels and nitrous is available at your local speed shop, flights are cheap. It does have some downsides - it burns so efficiently that rockets make no smoke and are hard to track, it's also hard to light (of course it gets real cold when it expands).

Re:Solid, not liquid

[mikerich]

No, the United States used to use the Scout family of launchers to place small payloads (less than 150 kg) into orbit.

Solid fuel rockets have some great properties - they are relatively simple, lacking all the plumbing of a liquid system, the propellants are quite stable and they are easier to transport.

BUT, they are less controllable - when they start burning they only stop when the fuel is gone, a liquid rocket can throttle its power for optimal performance.

Good luck to them.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Sounds like S.A.L.V.A.G.E.

[uncoveror]

This reminds me of the late 70s (or was it early 80s) TV movie that became a series, S.A.L.V.A.G.E. in which amateur rocketeers built a rocket in a junkyard and went to the moon. I was a little kid then, but the show was cool! IF CSXT can pull this off, they should start a satellite launching business. They would probably do a better job than NASA, considering it's new cost cutting plan.
http://www.uncoveror.com/nasa.htm

Re:Better than NASA I hope

[rob-fu]

Not trying to go offtopic but I agree. The Challenger explosion back in 1986 (or was it 85) was caused by the decision to launch in extremely cold weather by the contractor, Morton-Thiokol (not sure on the exact name, but that's close).

There was a documentary recently about the explosion and they interviewed the head engineer of the project, who fought to abort the launch but was overridden by management, but they wouldn't listen to him.

The Scout Re:Solid, not liquid

[StefanJ]

I don't know how often it is used, but the U.S. does have a four-stage solid-fuled rocket capable of launching small payloads to orbit.

Re:Been Done (well, almost) !! What Great Fun !!

[geekster_2000]

Space Propulsion Engine for Flying Saucer - New Physics

Inventor of 3D volume holographic optical storage
shopping his concept for Space Propulsion Engine
using Propellantless Mass to US and other countries.

for further look at biography background goto

http://colossalstorage.net/colossal.htm

He says he has looked at and researched the world's space agencies, aerospace
companies, universities research, and corp. research and feels very confident
knowing others technology while no one knows his.

He is working in top secret and he says no physicist or scientist he has ever studied or researched had this approach and knows his concept will work to give near light speed travel thru Galaxy with 500K/Miles per Hour to start or 138 miles/sec. Nasa fastest time are 25,000 mile/hr or 3.9 miles/sec

he says it is a mankind first concept !!

Re:*why* *why* *WHY*?

[taniwha]

you mean like these guys who fly from (roughly) the same spot?

And then their's solid-liquid hybrid.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The reason [liquid fuel is used in most well-developed space launch systems] is simple: solid fuel allows no control over the burn. You can't change thrust except in predetermined ways, you can't shut it down, you can't restart it. That's why liquid fuel is necessary for all but the simplest applications.

There's an alternative: Solid/liquid hybrids, such as AMROC (AMerican ROcket Corporation) tried to commercialize.

Basic idea is you use one part (typically the fuel) as a solid, the other part (typically the oxidizer) as a liquid.

You only need to throttle ONE of the two parts to get the throttling advantage if you chose to throttle the oxidizer (which results in a lowered flame) rather than the fuel (which results in a lean and unstable flame). Meanwhile, a fuel-only solid fuel is literally safe as houses.

With only one part liquid you have only one tank, one set of valves, one pump-or-tank-pressurizer, and no problems with balancing the fuel flows of the two parts.

LOX is reasonably easy to make and handle, only moderately dangerous, while LH2 is extremely difficult and dangerous to make and handle. LOX is dense while LH2 is very light - much less dense than an equivalent amount of hydrogen bound into a compound (such as a hydrocarbon). So you're way ahead to use a LOX/solid hydrocarbon hybrid.

AMROC used LOX and synthetic rubber. The fuel part was 'way stable - they handed out paperweights made of it for fund-raising trinkets and bounced them off the desks of bureaucrats who wanted them to get explosives licences for their fuel facility. (I've still got one around here somewhere.) One of the advantages of this combo was that it was flat-out impossible to get it to explode. (The worst you could do is make it burn extra hot.)

AMROC got pretty far along before they folded. The end came after their primary evangalest/fundraiser died in an auto accident. (I forget his name just now. But he was the same guy who talked the city of Chicago to let the people making the move The Blues Brothers to air-drop an automobile over the city.)

They had already done their engine tests and had their first suborbital launch ready to go at a rented pad at Vandenberg. They went ahead with the test and had what was probably the worst possible engine failure: After lighting the LOX valve stuck at 10% open - too low to get off the pad, too high to put out the fire. So the rocket sat there burning up, and eventually flame-damaged part of the launch tower. They didn't have enough funding for a second try, and without their primary fundraiser they folded.