Slashdot Mirror
Brian Walker (aka Rocket Guy) Fires Back
1) Exotic Fuels
by cybrpnk2
Amateur rockets don't get to space or orbit because they're generally limited to low specific impulse solid fuels. Is there much of a gain in specific impulse to be obtained by further research into hybrid (ie, plastic/nitrous oxide) propellants? How about exotic chemicals (buckyballs, multi-atomic nitrogen, fluorine for example) - any route for amateur utilization of these?
Brian Walker / Rocket Guy: I am using 90% H2o2 because using it as a monopropellant is the safest method of propulsion for my particular rocket. There is no chance of a catastrophic explosion or fire. This alone eliminates about one half of all standard problems that are encountered for any rocket flight.
2) operational testing?
by Nehemiah S
What kind of testing have you done for your design(s)? Wind tunnel tests, computational fluid dynamics, flying scale models, etc? I've also noticed that your design has changed considerably since the first time you were featured on Slashdot, and as an aerospace engineer myself it would be interesting to know what your design criteria were and how you arrived at them.
RG: My design has changed because I do not profess to be an aeronautical engineer of any sort, and as I have proceeded, I have allowed myself to make the necessary changes resulting in a better design. A number of people have a called me on several design concerns, and I listened. As for wind tunnel tests and the like, no. The rocket is near perfect in its shape, and for what I require it to do (go up and down in a relatively stable manner), it is fine.
3) Cowboy hat?
by micromoog
In case something goes wrong, are you planning to take with you a large ten-gallon cowboy hat to wave around on reentry?
RG: No, I'll be wearing a space suit, and a cowboy hat would not be a wise fashion accessory.
4) What about John Carmack's project?
by tswinzig
Have you discussed rocketry with John Carmack and his friends at Armadillo Aerospace? They plan to eventually fly a manned rocket as well.
RG: Met John in Arizona back in April. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for him. We are opposites -- he is very methodical and is a computer genius. I am not. Between my Dyslexia and ADHD, it was a miracle that I made it through school at all. I simply don't have the same mental drive as Mr. Carmack does, so I do things the way that work best for me, and 18 licensed toys have served me well.
5) Funding vs technology
by Andy_R
How much of your project requires technological innovation on your part, and how much is just a question of raising funding to duplicate existing technology that governments have already researched?
RG: 90% of what I am doing is the result of simple refinement from what has been done, time and again, over the past 50 years or so. Remember, I am not trying to orbit the earth. It is a simple elevator ride for 20 minutes.
6) Rocket Industry Efficiency
by Local Loop
Which parts or subsystems did you make, or have made, yourself, that you wish could have been purchased off the shelf for a reasonable price?
Which parts or subsystems do you think are candidates for standardization in the coming personal rocket industry?
RG: I have purchased (and will purchase) a number of components like parachutes, valves and fluid handling components, and the like. There are a great deal of parts that can be used right-off-the-shelf. As for which parts could become standardized for personal rocketry, I am not really in a position to know.
7) What's Next.
by DA_MAN_DA_MYTH
Say you are successful, and I hope you are. What's next? Do you try it again only higher? Also any plans of donating your rocket to the Smithsonian? This would definitely be considered Air & Space history and be worthy for all to view. Or on the other hand after are you looking for monetary gain? Something like pay 12 bucks to see Rocket guy's Rocket?
RG: I want to move on to a commercial launch operation which would allow a "for profit" venture to begin producing money for future development funds. The first step is "Rocket Skydiving" -- simple, catapult launched giant water rockets that can take a load of skydivers to 15,000 feet in under a minute. This would be safer than airplanes. As time progressed, we would introduce bigger and higher flying rockets, which would eventually allow non-skydivers access to 80-100 thousand foot high flights in small winged return vehicles with pilots. I would be happy to donate my capsule to Smithsonian.
8) Engine Work? by Anonymous Coward
Seems like you've done lots of mockups and landscaping, but I haven't seen any work on the actual engine (other than a single picture of it).
Having seen all the trouble with catalyst packs and such that other projects have had, how come you havn't done any test firings yet?
Have you even tested your pneumatic launcher?
RG: My facilities here are big, and I have had to continue to grow and improve things. "Landscaping" here has been minimal, and for the control of dust more than anything else (the Oregon High Desert is a dusty place). I have 15 rocket motors currently, one 2500 pound thrust motor, 6, 135 pound thrust motors (for capsule separation from fuel tank), and 8, 55 pound thrust motors (for capsule stability/guidance).
I don't know what is being referenced by "all the trouble with catalyst packs..." Peroxide reaction engines have been around for years, and follow specific scientific formulas. Some people are trying to make changes to get higher thrust, etc. As for the launcher, yes, it works perfectly. I have done the tests to demonstrate the amount of "push" it can develop. At 40 psi, it delivers 2000 pounds of push, and when the launch sleeves have cleared the launch tubes, there is only about an 8% loss of volume. As for a full test, there is a catch 22. In order to fully test the launching of an 1100 pound payload, I need to have a fully recoverable system on board, or I will destroy whatever is launched. I am in no hurry to do this test, and will do so when I am ready.
9) future of private industry space travel
by crystalplague
I, like a lot of people, are quite skeptical about the success of your project. However, let us assume that you have launched yourself, everything went perfectly, and you are resting safely back on earth.
What do you think this will do to the future of space travel? Do you think this will set a precedent for the private industry to get involved in space travel?
RG: Regardless of people's skepticism, I am pursuing what is (and has been my dream) for my own purposes. I appreciate the importance that so many other's have placed on this effort, but I would still do it if I was alone and no one was watching. However, due to the number of people who have made comments, I do expect my experience to encourage more private participation in the field of private space industry.
10) Had to be asked...
by Dirk Pitt
How does it feel to be the only person in history preselected for the Darwin Award nominations?
RG: I do not recognize any such nomination. To my understanding, the recipients of past Darwin Awards have been stupid people doing stupid things. My project is not a candidate for such. I am not doing this because i am bored and looking for fame and fortune. On launch day, if I've any inkling that I might not survive, I simply won't go.
11) Legal issues? by crow
Have you ran into any legal issues with your rocketry? Have the government had any significant impact (pro or con)?
RG I recently met with the FAA in DC, and they are very supportive, and want to be in a position of actually being able to issue me a launch license. They have been following my efforts for the past several years, and offered to be of any assistance I need to do things legally. I was very impressed and excited by just how receptive and supportive they were.
There is no chance of a catastrophic explosion or fire. This alone eliminates about one half of all standard problems that are encountered for any rocket flight.
So half the "standard" problems are a catastrophic explosion and/or fire? That's kind of scary..
I recently met with the FAA in DC, and they are very supportive, and want to be in a position of actually being able to issue me a launch license. Anyone else see this coming? A DMV for homebrewed rockets?
"Powers. I have them."
Keep up the good work! Good luck!
And he knows it. Aren't there easier ways of killing yourself?
"Between my Dyslexia and ADHD, it was a miracle that I made it through school at all. I simply don't have the same mental drive.."
Trial and Error????
My design has changed because I do not profess to be an aeronautical engineer of any sort, and as I have proceeded, I have allowed myself to make the necessary changes resulting in a better design.
Hope his life insurance is paid up!
--sig fault--
That about clears up everything, doesn't it.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
I do not recognize any such nomination [for the Darwin Award.
Neither did the other nominees ;)
You do have to hand it to him. He is either much braver than most of us, or much stupider, and due to the fact he said that if he thought he had any inkling that he wouldn't make it on launch day, he wouldn't go. Pretty rational statement there, so he at least looks like the bravest one in the /. bunch.
Liora
about the guy with the backyard gauss gun?
He's not going to die because he's never going to attempt a launch. He'll keep milking the publicity cow and selling his cheesy ass "pantented toys" to unsuspecting surfers who follow the numerous slashdot links to his site.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
Q: In case something goes wrong, are you planning to take with you a large ten-gallon cowboy hat to wave around on reentry?
A from RG: No, I'll be wearing a space suit, and a cowboy hat would not be a wise fashion accessory.
Me thinks he completely missed the clever reference to Dr. Strangelove here. Pitty...
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
"Simple, catapult launched giant water rockets" which you would ride from, say, sea level to 15,000 feet in less than a minute and then jump out of.
Safer than which "airplanes," exactly?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Isnt there part of the applcation that says:
please check:
|_| -- I do not Sky dive
|_| -- I do not rock climb
|_| -- I do not test personal rocketry
Signature________________________
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
What the hell, let the guy light his candle, thing will probably fly up 100 feet, flip over, and drive itself into the ground at a good speed. Maybe it'll help convince other people that building manned rocket's should only be done by really smart people with serious engineering expertise and a serious budget.
I admire what he's doing, but reading his answers I'm having second thoughts about my optimism for his success. He simply doesn't answer the first question, and in another say's he's "no genius." Rocket Scientists have that expression about them for a reason, it takes a lot of know how and intelligence to do something like this safely and successfully, just look at how bad the rockets were on junkyard wars...
~ now you know
2) operational testing?
by Nehemiah S
What kind of testing have you done for your design(s)? Wind tunnel tests, computational fluid dynamics, flying scale models, etc? I've also noticed that your design has changed considerably since the first time you were featured on Slashdot, and as an aerospace engineer myself it would be interesting to know what your design criteria were and how you arrived at them.
RG: My design has changed because I do not profess to be an aeronautical engineer of any sort, and as I have proceeded, I have allowed myself to make the necessary changes resulting in a better design. A number of people have a called me on several design concerns, and I listened. As for wind tunnel tests and the like, no. The rocket is near perfect in its shape, and for what I require it to do (go up and down in a relatively stable manner), it is fine.
Very informative, thanks. But i am curious: how can you say it is near perfect if you haven't tested it? Hope you give more info than that in your talk to the AIAA...
Good luck.
neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Please read your links.
who expect this guy to actually have a personality?
:-)
I figured somebody who created all these cool toys, and then decided to build his own rocket would be an intriguing and compelling individual. Not to mention I expected him to get the Strangelove reference and have some humor to add to the responses.
Instead we're left with curt, almost cookie-cutter answers that anybody here could've predicted.
Definitely not one of the better interviews. Why is it kernel-hackers can be so entertaining and the Rocketman and Bruce Campbell come off as such duds?
sedawkgrep
Is that a salami in my pants or am I just happy to be me?
They didn't have any high-level aerospace engineering degrees, did they? Oh yeah, those didn't exist back then...
-/-
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
And then proceeds to drift off course and land on your house.
Did anyone else almost fall asleep whilst reading that? Not a ton of enthusiasm apparent ... guess he's tired of interviews :)
Bruce Campbell and the Rocketguy both live wild on the outside. People like that tend to be a little dry on the inside.
On the other hand, a kernel hacker tends to live a pretty dry outside life, but is filled with all sorts of insanity on the inside. (I mean who else would want to kernal hack?) [Just kidding!]
-.-
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
a) Oh shoot, I probably shouldn't have made the fuel tank out of silver.
b) ...and my wife always wanted to be a blonde.
c) I'm building a rocket in my backyard. Where in the hell am I supposed to get buckyballs and multi-atomic nitrogen, smart guy?
d) The other half of the standard problems are eliminated by leaving the rocket science to the brain surgeons.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Not much of a sense of humor me thinks... :)
- tristan
Space Propulsion Engine for Flying Saucer - New Physics
Rumor in Silicon Valley -
Space Propulsion Engine using Propellantless Mass.
http://colossalstorage.net/colossal.htm
He says he has researched all propulsion concepts at NASA, Lockheed,
Europe, Asia, and Russian Space Agencies and knows their technology
but he laughs when he thinks how well his technology will do next to
the present technology, there is no earthly comparison !
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 !!
I hope this crackpot doesn't try to launch in Florida. I don't want accidently killing me (along with himself) to be in the Darwin Award submission.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
"near perfect in its shape"
He just wants to make sure it looks good. Which is completely undersatndable.
Hell, if I was going to die burning in a blaze of fire, I'd like my spaceship to look purty too.
Not to sound too much like Katz, but...
I think when you take someone from the "outside" who may not be big into the "online culture" (especially Slashdot), they not quite understand the informality and humor that often accompany it. They tend to treat it more like a TV or magazine interview, rather than a discussion with people interested in you, or in your accomplishments.
Rocket Guy Fires Back sounds like a gay porno. I'm all for widening slashdot's readership and exploring new journalistic niches, but I think this is going a little too far.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
i would say that he have a "serious" budget...
remember - private industries doing space travel (or, shoot self up and down in rocket in general) costs magnatudes less than certain budget guzzling government organizations.
and don't diss on the man because he is not what you consider smart. many mechanics and car tuners (old days, anyhow) knows a lot about practical knowledge without ever finishing high school.
i think it is much more important that this man is doing something that he really wants to do and puts the dedication and effort behind it. this, i believe, is the smartest thing you can do, because you avoid the "death bed oh i wish i did this and that" syndrom. this action/decision alone is "smarter" than most of the folks out there stuck in their misery ridden lives and keep pushing the things they really wanted to do into tomorrow, and tomorrow again
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Darwinism is concerned with the suitability of creatures to their environment (long-armed creatures are selected when fruit hangs from tall trees, etc).
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"Dead Man Walking! We have a Dead Man Walking here! Dead Man Walking!"
You what?! The parachutists will be dead, no questions. That is NOT survivable. Let's do the sums...
A catapult has no energy input once the projectile has left it. So if he wants to get to 15k feet, the projectile will need to leave the launcher at approximately 300m/s, ie. over 1000 km/h (from Newton, v^2 = 2*a*s, where s is 15,000 * 0.3 to give distance in m, and a is 9.8m for 1G).
Say the catapult is in contact with the projectile for 2s (for the sake of argument) and giving a smooth acceleration. That is probably way too high - planes launched off an aircraft carrier take less than 2s to leave the deck - but anyway. Then the acceleration is 150m/s/s (if the accel wasn't smooth, it could even peak higher than that).
That means that your parachutists are experiencing over 15G on takeoff. Which is well beyond the point at which every human (even top jet pilots) black out. So although the parachutists may make it to the top of the ride, they'll be unconscious and in no fit state to appreciate it! And since they'll be unable to pull their ripcords, they'll plummet to the ground and die.
Personally I think this guy should learn more fundamental physics, like basic Newtonian mechanics.
Grab.
...or does this guy remind you of Zephram Cochran.
He seems to have the attitude towards his project...maybe he saw First Contact last night, too.
"I strongly urge both the faint of heart and the faint of butt to leave the room at this time."
- Strong Bad
The leading theory on what caused the explosion of the Kursk is the H2O2 propellant in a torpedo (NOT a warhead!)
(Here's another link)
...and another.
Americans are boring.
I assume that queries as to whether he'll be burning up his fuel out here alone or, in case of accident, whether we should give his wife his love and nothing more would also have provoked a blank stare.
It has already been proved that this can be done using only the technology that was available in 1960s Russia, so it's not exactly rocket sci^H^H^H^H^H erm... It's not as if there is anything groundbreaking about the science here, as he says in the answer to my question.
His achievement will be in showing that his trip can be done affordably by a private individual, not that it can be done at all.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I see what you are up to.
Nifty.
Stole my idea dammit.
What the heck? If it worked for these guys...
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
...it's so boring to build a personal, private manned rocket. Or to be the first men on the moon, for that matter. Bo-ring! I'd rather be doing something interesting like worshipping a monarch, or spewing cafe-communism drivel from my smelly, Euro-peon mouth hole.
Comments:
60%: some witty remark about how he will die
20%: something about how this interview sucked
15%: mathmatically disproving his statments
5%: posts like this one.
No sense of humor at all! This guy sounds like a real prick.
It was highly concentrated H2O2 that did in the Kursk. Nasty stuff.
Just thought I'd mention it.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
I admit that I respect his goal, but not his effort. He says this is his life's goal, yet he has no time table to speak of, not quatitative tests, and no science.
IMHO, he will not launch so he will have our attention (which is his goal). I think he will not even attempt a test launch with a 200# weight. He will milk this for as long as we feed him the atention.
Oh...the children...
Now mind you, I'm a total hypocrite for posting this as an AC. It's just that even well-reasoned posts dicussing the mod system tend to get knocked down for being off-topic. Why tempt fate? Especially on a Friday. =)
Just look at the first q/a:
Q: Amateur videos don't get me into space or orbit because they're generally limited to low budget toys and props. Is there much of a gain in viewer impulse to be obtained by further research into hybrid (ie, plastic/latex) bodysuits? How about exotic themes (buckyballs, multi-man nitrous fun, man-flouride for example) - any route for amateur utilization of these?
Brian Walker / Rocket Guy: I am using monoxonil-9 because using it as a monolubricant is the safest method of lubrication for my particular rocket. There is no chance of a catastrophic breakout or burning. This alone eliminates about one half of all standard problems that are encountered by a man on my rocket flight.
(I can't believe I'm posting this. If it's modded down, I SO deserve it.)
c-hack.com |
If his family is smart, they'll tape it and send the resulting (disaster) home video in to these guys. Maybe they could win the $100,000 prize and retire to a nice condo in Florida.
He would have put a LESS graphic intensive page after the first /.ing of his site?
B
Flamebait
Serious inquiries only.
The notes from Marque_Off seem to be lines of text from other Posters comments. I've seen some of those lines before. I know I have.
:)
I'm not all that familiar with Bots. It does seem kind of interesting to see it progress.
To stay on-topic....This rocket guy needs a new personality. Sheesh...it like he didn't even get the Dr Strangelove reference.
I'm on-topic now. But I'm also Redundant
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Reminds me of when we were at a physics convention and one of the guys (who was not quite at master level) took on a street hustler chess player in a match. Hustler-guy wasn't quite up to winning, though the game looked close. Some businessman comes up to watch, and finds out we're physicists and starts going on about "rocket scientists testing their wits against a guy on the street"... we felt insulted. The NASA and Boeing and Lockheed guys who do rockets are just dumb engineers after all!
The point being, there are lots of much harder things to do in life than building a box that just goes up and down off some fire in its tail. NASA and Boeing and Lockheed people like everybody to think it's really really hard and expensive and requires all those fancy engineering studies, but it really doesn't. Go check out your local hobby store for model rockets, if you don't believe me.
Energy: time to change the picture.
Leave rocket guy alone. He has a dream, who are we to trample on it with skepticism and sarcasm? I think he realizes that his first rocket launch may be his last, but what about Leonardo da Vinci?the Wright Brothers? The first man in space?
Rocket guy, you may be the Zephram Cochrane of our generation, and according to Federation records, now is the time to do it. Live long and prosper.
OnlyHotDorkyChick
The Department of Rocket Motor Vehicles?
I can see it now, getting a ticket for parking in the wrong orbit...
I drive WAY too fast to worry about cholesterol!
The guy obviously did a lot of research. This isn't a hick getting all boozed up and trying to jump his car over a fucking ditch. If the guy dies, it'll be for the same reason the some astronauts died during rocket launches/test; not because they're stupid, but rather unforseen issues in development. So get a fucking life. It may seem stupid, but I don't think they guy would spend shit loads of money in a venture that will result in certain death. Do me a favor and go drink poison you fucking stupid rat bastard.
Everybody wants to be a fucking comedian. Besides, if you read the story, you'd realize the guy has a plastic bag of capacitors, not a "backyard gauss gun". Don't try to make your own story to get some attention. I think you're ready to work for the media (CNN/FOX/etc). Fucking retard!!!
All I want to know is can we come watch when he lights the fuse? Its bound to be a good show one way or another. Almost like NASCAR, you either get a good race or some neat explosions, either way sounds like a good time to me.
2) operational testing?
)
by Nehemiah S
What kind of testing have you done for your design(s)? Wind tunnel tests, computational fluid dynamics, flying scale models, etc? I've also noticed that your design has changed considerably since the first time you were featured on Slashdot, and as an aerospace engineer myself it would be interesting to know what your design criteria were and how you arrived at them.
RG: My design has changed because I do not profess to be an aeronautical engineer of any sort, and as I have proceeded, I have allowed myself to make the necessary changes resulting in a better design. A number of people have a called me on several design concerns, and I listened. As for wind tunnel tests and the like, no. The rocket is near perfect in its shape, and for what I require it to do (go up and down in a relatively stable manner), it is fine.
Does this remind anyone of The Flight of the Phoenix? (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0059183)
RG: Of course I know what a perfect rocket looks like, after all I am the inventor of the Pop-it Rocket (http://www.rocketguy.com/toys/poppit_rockit.html
And since they'll be unable to pull their ripcords, they'll plummet to the ground and die. :)
I think many/most parachutists these days use a piece of equipment that opens their chute for them if they don't pull it by a certain altitude. One of the doctors my mom works for had his life saved by such a device. The pilot was inexperienced at flying a jump plane and (don't ask me how) he ended up hitting him with the tail of the plane or something and knocked him out. Thankfully his chute auto opened and he's alive today.
But I have to agree that it'd be no fun at all to jump if you were guaranteed to be blacked out
Well, the tests the Wright brothers did took place on a flat spot at Kitty Hawk, so since they were going about 30 mph about five feet off the ground, I'd say the safety level is a bit higher.
Still, this guy seems to understand his limitations, he's taking as many precautions as he can realistic take and he doesn't sound like an overzealous lunatic, so I think he stands a good chance of coming out of this alive. He may have to abort his flight, but saying his death is a foregone conclusion is short-sighted.
I, for one, hope that he gets his ride to space.
Virg
I thought airplanes were, statistically, the safest way to travel! It's a pretty broad statement, saying this would be safer than airplanes.
To my understanding, the recipients of past Darwin Awards have been stupid people doing stupid things. My project is not a candidate for such.
Can I quote you on that?
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Seems some engineering folks have the 'we can't do it so you can't do it either' attitiude. This guy seems very confident in what he is doing, and I gather that he was probably less candid with his answers because of the questions which were posed. After reading the Darwin Awards query, do you think he's going to grovel and say "i'm hip, please think i'm cool" at the Strangelove one?
Maybe its just me, but I don't think he had a lot of respect for the questions.
And for all the naysayers, do you really think the faa would okay a launch license if we was gonna get killed? something like that would get a career bureaucrat demoted and/or fired, and i doubt an exec is going to put his ass on the line for that.
Some of us have fallen in love with the notion of giving without reserve-Raoul Vanegiem, Revolution of Everyday Life
Erm, he was referring to the Wright Brothers...
Geeze, the ratio of nimrods that think they know everything has certainly increased these days...
I seem to remember hearing that some of the German rocketry work was done by Jewish slave labor under inhuman conditions. Don't know if it was as bad as the medical experimentation, though.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
To date I have designed and built 4 warp drives. Unfortunately all have disappeared during testing...
What king of American[tm] is he anyways?
I wonder if he's planning on any unmanned missions before he climbs in for a ride. I sure would. If you want to do something right the first time, do it a few times and hide your previous attempts. :-)
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
I really don't want to sound insulting, but being a model rocket hobbyist alone does not qualify you as a rocket scientist except in the most basic sense (if you're also an engineer, my apologies). Contrary to your experience, building a stable rocket frame capable of lifting more than 100 pounds is not only not easy, it's never been done. One of the things you're not dealing with is liquid fuel. To find out how hard it is to stabilize that, do this experiment (which I've done several times). Build a 6 foot frame about 2 inches in diameter. Put as much engine on the tail as you wish, and put an eight ounce weight in the nosecone. make the center two feet of the rocket a plastic tank, and half-fill it with water. Then launch. If your rocket gets more than twenty feet off the ground before it falls 20 degrees off launch vector, you can count yourself one heck of a designer (and I'd love to see your tank design). The other thing you're not used to handling is fragile airframes. A cardboard tube doesn't seem like much, but if you want to try building a rocket where the power-to-stress ratios are the same as a full size launch vehicle, build your next rocket out of drinking straws and construction paper. Also, keep in mind that a model rocket turning twenty degrees off its flight vector will fly in the wrong direction, but a full size rocket doing the same thing will generally collapse from the shear force. This is what makes the ability to design a complex guidance system so difficult. He makes no mention of his methods, but someone who does not have any engineering experience cannot typically design a functional gyrobalancing guidance system. Hell, people who are rocket scientists work on these things for years, and most guidance systems are designed for specific frames, so it's not very easy to "borrow" someone else's design for your own frame.
I wish him all the luck in the world, but not calling in some engineering expertise for review is asking for trouble.
Virg
I think it's ironic that here on Slashdot, that there seems to be so little tolerance or understanding of people who might have different ways of thinking and expressing themselves.
Was anyone else slightly disturbed by the fact that on his website he occasionally lapses into the habit of referring to himself in the third person? "Brian build rocket! Brian go BOOOOMM!"
Everyone's gonna die someday. Not everyone is gonna really experience life.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
How did this parent get modereated up? Three of Grabs posts are +4 or more, yet none of them are remotely correct! He didn't read the part about the catapult, (it catapults a water rocket, thus it doesn't need to achieve a very high velocity) and he ignores the simplicity of the design. V2's worked just fine without fancy control systems; it's just plain not necessary if your tragectory is simple.
I agree that math is a fundamentally important part of engineering, but some things work just fine by trial and error.
> When I put together an Estes kit, I don't worry about the construction of the engine, I just buy a $2 engine and plug it in.
This isn't the same by a long shot. When you built your model rocket, where'd you put the fuel tanks? Oh, and how did you stabilize the frame when you filled it with liquid? This guy isn't building a solid rocket booster, so comparing it to your local model rocket will just get you a busted-up pile of rocket debris. Also, as I stated in another post, if you want comparable stress-test ratios build your next model rocket out of drinking straws and construction paper, and let me know how the launch goes.
It's the "detail work" where the engineering knowledge comes in.
Virg
You can't fight in here, this is the WAR ROOM!
Those questions are terrible. If I were the interviewee, I'd probably send them back with a note like, "uh...get real." Darwin Awards? Dr. Strangelove? Yeah, that's the HARD-HITTING stuff there, guys. Way to go. Next, why don't you lecture us about the state of amateur rocketry in post-Columbine, post-9/11 America?
Not everybody cares about the pop culture to which many of you cling, and indeed some of us actively despise and avoid it whenever possible. You are not cute, hip, or funny.
If that weren't bad enough, now I have to sit and watch a bunch of backseat undergraduate engineers naysaying this highly motivated and dedicated individual who is actually doing something! Hey, well, if you don't think he will make it then cool. You are welcome to try and prove his task impossible by throwing numbers and formulas around that you have a marginal understanding of, but that doesn't make his success any less likely. He may not be an engineer, and I know that the engineer's ego is a large and dangerous creature, but please...he's doing something cool and fascinating and intriguing. You're not. Deal with it in some other way than with judgement values and boringly predictable jealous criticism.
I don't care. I don't know engineering. I do know how to take money from investors though.
Case study: look up "Michael Mosier"
I see a lot of responses from guys whose manhood probobly feels challenged because the Rocket Man has a bigger, more powerful phallic artifice... But that's beside the point.
There isn't any comparing this to either gov't space programs or amateur 'Junkyard Wars' endeavours. First, most of the science has been done for him--he admits buying parts off-the-shelf, and acknowledges the need for a stability system of smaller engines. So, there goes the "he's a crackpot who [ahem!] doesn't have any [use flowery enunciation here] 'Formal Training.'" argument.
As for the reference to Junkyard Wars... They only get a day to work, and use scrap parts of marginal value, beyond mere entertainment. This guy has been working a while, seems to have a novel launch concept, and admits he won't go if it looks like a fatal day for flying. And who cares he didn't acknowledge the Slim Pickens reference. Maybe he was too busy focusing on answering rocket questions to clue in to an off-topic question.
Additionally, all you Jealous Joes out there, dyslexic and ADHD persons tend to be fairly intelligent creatures, so reel in your criticism. I see here a lot of sour grapes from Slashdotters who are pissed that they didn't think of it first, or would never be able to get permission from their apartment management/parents to launch from the parking lot/driveway.
So, Nyah!
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
Or on the other hand after are you looking for monetary gain? Something like pay 12 bucks to see Rocket guy's Rocket?
Hmmm... that'd be a way to raise funds... and lower pants...
Many posts make fun of this guy because he doesn't present himself well by writing. For similar reasons people tend to juge him as dumbass. Please remeber that he suffers from dyslexia.
-- Jari Mustonen
I dunno, but it seems plausible to me. Commercial jet travel is pretty safe. General aviation (little Cessnas) are not so safe. Skydiver planes have a reputation for being the duct-tape-bound VW bugs of the general aviation realm.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
A) 100K feet straight up
B) 1K feet straight up
C) 1K feet in all directions
D) -10 feet
E) CowboyNeal waving cowboy hat
There's an even better quote by him:
"I always shoot for the sky, but sometimes I hit London."
...he's too busy to be funny
/. community spent hours tyring to think of an mod up funny ones would be the least of my concerns if I was about to do what he is about to do.
I get the impression that he doesn't care what people think, and has become extremely bored with all the incredulous people saying "what the hell are you thinking", etc. Looks like he found ten minutes to answer the questions--the fact that the
He might have been put off by the dumb questions, and some of the questions would have probably taken hours to answer well.
I was disappointed, too, btw.
Liberty uber alles.
Tolerance and understanding are social skills...
> ...missiles using similar liquid fuel using only aerodynamic surfaces and relatively simply gyroscopic guidance systems.
Both of your examples are not capable of getting high enough for this guy.
> None of this technology is new or complex by modern standards.
Nor is it very useful for this guy. The guidance systems used by V-2 rockets were (unsurprisingly) designed to stabilize V-2s, and as I said before, simply lifting a design from a different frame usually doesn't work.
> I don't believe I suggested making a full size rocket out of cardboard tubes either I'm fully aware of the fact that as the scale increases so do the stresses on the airframe.
The example I provided was more to illustrate that one of the major problems with big-scale rockets is that the guidance system can't be "good", it has to be "great" because the stress forces from pivoting just a tiny bit out of flight line are sufficient to demolish all but the heaviest designs, something model rockets simply don't suffer from.
> Try taking your tube - filling it with a sponge like material and then adding the water. Not such a great design problem when you think about it.
This one is actually on the books, because a few builders thought that a saturated medium would make for low-splash fuel tanks (when it was proposed, sloshing fuel was a major guidance problem, as most rockets at that time burned kerosene). However, the design failed miserably, for two reasons. First, it was very difficult to get the fuel out of the medium when you needed it to burn (something my experiment doesn't address, but that a liquid-fueled engine must do). Second, When the medium was subjected to the G-forces of launch, it would simply squash down to the bottom of the tank, which caused the top portion of the tank to be only liquid (back to the sloshing fuel problem) and putting severe stress on the bottom of the tank (which caused more than one tank rupture with resultant kaboom). So, it's a good idea, but I must send you back to the drawing board.
Virg
This is just flat out bullshit. Peroxide works as a monopropellant because it has a positive heat of formation: When H2O2 breaks down into H2O and O2, it releases heat. The problem is that, at high concentrations, if the breakdown process starts, it can easily run away. Excessive heat or inappropriate contamination or just bad luck can start the process. It may not techincally be a "fire" but you aren't going to be able to tell the difference if you're sitting on it when it happens.
I don't know what is being referenced by "all the trouble with catalyst packs..." Peroxide reaction engines have been around for years, and follow specific scientific formulas.
Yes, peroxide rockets have been around for years. And in fact there is a well documented problem with the peroxide poisoning the catalyst bed. This isn't an issue if you don't care about reusability (and I doubt he does), but he obviously hasn't done much research if he hasn't at least encountered mention of this issue.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
Brian Walker, insane man
Removed from gene pool
With some mouth wash and duct tape.
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90% of what I am doing is the result of simple refinement from what has been done, time and again, over the past 50 years or so.
Carmack has been quoted as saying that rocket science evolved in the wrong direction, all because of some poor early decisions... I got the feeling he's looking for a paradigm shift, rather than RG's "refinement".
18 licensed toys have served me well.
But I guess RG and Carmack have this in common!
just remember, he didn't come to us to get pestered by questions, we went to him.
And he's not trying to convince anyone else to do it, nor is he claiming he's some kind of genius.
Did you miss the part where he says he doesn't care if others support it or not, he'd do it anyway?
He's just claiming to be a guy who's building a rocket.
For reference, I was one of the "experts" from the first UK season of Junkyard Wars (or Scrapheap in the UK), and as well as having worked on several space missions professionally, having 2 physics degrees and having been building and launching HPR rockets for several years, as well as my own bi-props previously, I can assure you that it does not take as much know-how as people may think, certainly not for the type and size of rockets on Junkyard Wars. Anyone with a few clues can build a High Power rocket, that's why you get High Power rocket kits. It doesn't need much intelligence. However trying to build a rocket out of junk will always result in lousy performance unless someone has conveniently left something like a solid rocket motor from a missile in the Junk Yard.
When your raw propulsion materials are a bunch of High Power Rocketry Aerotech I-class and J-class motors, and you have to put them in an airframe made out of something like an old water filter, then the result will always be bad.
Rocket science is not as hard as say something like Quantum Mechanics or Astrophysics (or at least the astrophysics I did for my Ph.D).
With access to some machine tools, a decent sized garage and a bit of practice, a bunch of us built stuff like this without too much difficulty:
Home brew rocket engine Home brew guidance
Oh yes, and Linux is used for the control systems and telemetry decoding.
I bet that kid in the movie could do it!
But then again, he already works for NASA.
"Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling...." - Abraham Simpson
The guy's living out his dream. I'm extremely impressed. The amount of craftsmanship put into his work is great. He is taking his time. No rush, no deadlines. Commendable actions indeed. I've got a friend who has multiple degress in science and electronics, and he does home renovation. No prior experience, he just jumps into the projects and learns as he goes. The works turn out to be masterpieces. Beautifully done cathedral ceilings, great bathrooms, etc. So he isn't a rocket scientist by trade, so what. He's a very bright guy. I think thats what really matters.
I guess it would. I can't imagine taking a load of airplanes to 15,000 feet in under a minute.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
The test rocket was supposed to launch last spring. It looks really cool on its trailer hitched to the back of his SUV. But he doesn't seem to be getting close to flight test.
There's no mention of a guidance system on the test rocket. This is not a good thing.
for a rocket, every component has to work right, every combination of components has to work right, for every step in the launch sequence, for every pressure, temperature, vibration-mode
and those are the things a layman (me) thought of just at first glance, I'm sure there are more.
since there are a lot of components, there are even far more combinations and configurations to test. This SHOULD be done by rocket scientists and technitians, not by (even knowledgeable) amatures, and should be done many times over for each configuration, to increase the level of statistical confidence (remember sigma ~ 1/sqrt(N) )
in short QA of critical systems is a very large-scale labor-intensive problem, I don't believe one man can do this alone reasonably well, and even should he by some miracle succeed, I will NOT take the next rocket up.
Working for necessity's mother.
You'd probably have to at least triple that figure to compensate for wind drag if we were talking pure ballistics. In this case I think the dude was talking about a catapult launched self-propelled water rocket though, where the water was presumably being ejected from the back end at enough pressure to generate upward thrust. The post didn't mention what would be used to generate the pressure, just the propellant.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
> They would have slammed into the ground at 30 MPH with no seatbelt, possibly injuring themselves on such things as the propeller.
That's tough to say, but remember that they crashed several of the gliders they used for testing, at about the same speed, from higher up since they were gliding down off a hill at Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk, and the flight of the motor-driven craft was on flat, level ground. The two things that stand out in my head is that the flyer would not have dug in like a plane these days (5 feet up and 30 mph, it would fall to the ground and skid). Also, the pilot was in the plane prone, and the propellers were behind him, so when he hit, he'd slide forward out of the craft, which would stop before overtaking him, so injury was more likely from impact with the ground than the plane. That all said, it would not have been a pleasant experience, but it's not very likely to have been lethal. It's certainly many degrees safer than being on a home-brewed rocket miles off the ground, by any measure.
Virg
Your design is a step in the right direction, but the original discussion was not how to design these things, and the discussion (with three replies telling me how to build slush cells) has wandered offtopic. The point I made originally was that model rocketeers do not have to deal with the stability issues that large-scale rocketeers do. In real life, slush cells aren't necessary, because fluid tanks with baffles work fine, as long as the guidance system is up to the task. Also in my original discussion was my questioning whether a guidance system designed and built by someone unstudied in engineering would be "up to the task" and I still don't think it will be.
I agree that slush tanks can be built, but that's a different story.
Virg
> Nasa has used a range of unguided sounding rockets using liquid fuel carrying payloads of up to 500lbs up to altitudes of up 200 miles...
"Unguided sounding"?!? I can't even guess what that's supposed to mean. Can you provide some links or something to these designs? I've done the Google search, and ran back through my library as well, and I found not one single device since Goddard's designs back in the Forties that flies unguided. There are plenty of designs for missiles and such that travel ballistically after takeoff, but even those rockets use guidance systems to keep the frame stable as it leaves the pad. By all evidence I could drum up, everything that uses rocket power and liquid fuel to get more than 100 miles up uses some derivative of a gyrobalancing guidance system for launch.
> so don't tell me you can't build an unguided liquid fuel rocket. Try a google search next time you want to make bold declarations of impossibility.
Just as a side note, I never claim impossibility for anything. What I said was, in two parts, it's not feasible to build such a device, and nobody has done it yet. While it may not be impossible, there are better ways to skin this cat, and they all involve active guidance systems.
Virg
Every water rocket I've seen has bent fins that make the rocket spin. This spinning creates gyroscopic forces that stabilise the rocket in the same way that a ( finless ) football is stabilized. I wouldn't want to ride in one though.
Eat at Joe's.
Point conceded, although I will close my defense by stating that the Aerobee is a hybrid (liquid and solid fuel) rocket, so when I went digging in my sources for liquid fuel rockets sans guidance I came up dry (pun intended).
Still, I hope this guy is planning on using something a bit more complex than this design, which seems to be only one step better than a big bottle rocket.
Virg
The rope is almost never the problem.... Its the anchors holding the rope to the rock (inc. chocks)... Rock climbing and Skydiving are most certainly more dangerous than riding in a car.
Although the amount of time spent rock climbing or skydiving is almost certainly less then you spend in a car throughout your life.
From the book of risks:
1-in-1,000 chance of death: rock climbing for 25 hours, skiing for 340 hours, driving a car for 2,000 hours, riding a motorcycle for 55 hours, and skydiving for 50 hours.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
Anybody who has scratch built model rockets can demonstrate for you how simple empirical tests can be used to insure aerodynamic stability. Any arrow can demonstrate such stability in practice.
An arrow does not have stable flight. If it did, there would be no archery competitions.
The art of fletching is a delicate one. I'm not sure how olympic class archers get their arrows, I suppose they have precisely machined arrows and fletches (feathers) that are cut to the nearest 1/1000th of an inch, and heads that are weighted to the nearest 1/100 of a gram to suit the draw length of an archer. For olympic class archer, the arrow is rocket science.
I'm a boyer and fletcher, making bows and arrows of primitive designs; bows hand carved from Osage and arrow shafts of Port Oxford Cedar. I cut my own fletchings from turkey feathers, but my heads are store bought since I'm not a smith. Unlike olympic class arrows, my arrows are more art than science.
When the arrow leaves the bow, the force is applied to the rear of the arrow. The heavy arrowhead has much more inertia than the rest of the shaft, and thus the shaft bows as it begins to move. As the arrow begins to move, it also has to bend around the side of the arrow (unlike compound hunting and olympic class bows, which are all "center-shot", there is an arrow rest cut into the center of the bow so the arrow is pushed straight through the center in line with the string). If the arrow spine (stiffness) is too high, the arrow pushes off the bow and heads in one direction. If it's too weak, it flexes too much and willows around the bow and heads in the other direction. This is known as "archer's paradox".
Because archer's paradox, the arrow "weaves" it's way to the target as the fletches attempt to straighten the flight of the path. With small fletches, it takes longer to stabilize, but the arrow flies further with less wind resistance. With larger fletches, the flight stabilizes quickly but there is much more drag and more noise (bad for a hunter). The angle you attch the fletches also makes a difference- the more angled, the faster the rotation and more stable the flight, but more drag and less distance.
They have different types of arrows- for pure distance, where accuracy doesn't matter, you see arrows with very small fletches- there's plenty of time for the arrow to correct its flight. For hunting, where shots are taken at less than 20 yards, the fletches are larger and the angle greater. If you try using a 100 yard target arrow with at 10 yards, you'll be off target because the arrow hasn't had time to correct it's flight.
No two arrows are the same. Each is going to have slightly different characteristics, and the challenge of a fletcher is to get the arrow to the same point on the target regardless of the different flight characteristics of the arrow. For "perfect" arrows, there is a good deal of fine tuning because you can't say "this arrow shoots a little high and left, this one shoots a little low". It's an work of art.
For center-shot bows, there is no archer's paradox so you can use much stiffer shafts. There is no weaving from archer's paradox, and the stiff shafts help counter the bending from inertia so you can use much smaller fletches. Still, arrows bought at Wal-Mart aren't going to be good enough for high level competition, you really need the experience of a master fletcher to tune the arrows.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.