Slashdot Mirror
Armadillo Rocket Makes A (Short) Manned Hop
riney writes "w00t! John Carmack and crew at Armadillo Aerospace have gotten their first man in the air. Six seconds of perfectly controlled flight with human passenger. See their site for details and video."
One giant leap for an armadillo!
But seriously, this is great news for the industry that a private company has such success.
the time it takes to drop their web server?
That's about as long as the server managed to survive a good, old-fashioned slashdotting!
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
You slashdotted John Carmack! You bastards!
I hate to be the one...
This was posted this morning.
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)
More projects like this need to come to fruition. especially speculative commercial enterprises looking to make some kind of money off space exploration (like mining the moon or mars or something).
the age of discovery when europeans (for better and worse) started traipsing all over the globe was driven by monetary interests above all else. it's great to do scientific experiments in space, but the prospect of making cold hard cash will get us a colony on the moon much sooner.
my pet machine
Meanwhile, across town, John Romero is working hard on a prototype BFG to blow said rocket out of the air.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Armadillo Aerospace News Archive Lander modifications, Man in the air!, misc September 24 and 28, 2002 meeting notes Lander modifications I made a separate aluminum plate to bolt the CPU board to, and mounted it to the electronics box with PVC grommets. This should keep the board from flexing, and provide some vibration and shock isolation. The memory SIMM is probably still a weak point for us, but there isn't much we can do with this board. http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/sho ckMount.jpg
We now run power and ground to the CPU/PC104 stack through three independent routes: two separate lines at the power connector, and also through the PC104 pins at the top of the stack.
We built a manual cutoff box for the manned flights. The box has a switch and a self-contained 27 volt power supply, so if it is switched, no matter what the electronics box is doing, the main engine valve will close in under a half second.
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/kil lSwitch.jpg
When it is in auto-land mode, the flight control software now goes to full down throttle as soon as it detects a 2.5G acceleration, which seems to be a reliable hit-the-ground determination. Previously, the bouncing accelerations would cause the computer to hunt the throttle around trying to maintain a steady rate of descent, which would cause it to bounce back up in the air a little bit. Forcing the throttle down as soon as impact is detected reduced this quite a bit.
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/pre pFlights.mpg
There is a related effect that happens at liftoff, where the accelerations induced as the vehicle leaves the ground slightly unevenly make it look like it is accelerating faster than it is, causing the computer to throttle down earlier than it should, making it waste a bit of time bobbing on the ground before finally lifting off. I will probably do something to address this in the future.
Man in the air!
We were finally ready to let someone get on the vehicle. We were at this point a year ago with the previous generation (single tank, red tubes) vehicle, but development always seemed to be pushing us to change and improve the lander in some way, when we weren't working on the other propulsion research. Our criteria was always that we had to have two absolutely perfect ballasted flights with zero changes before a person could ride. Usually, after two flights we would either find a problem, or find something that we wanted to improve. We finally reached a point where everything is operating to our satisfaction. I was tempted to do something about the liftoff throttling, but we decided that it is good enough as is.
Another factor that has kept us cautious is that Anna, my wife, was our designated first passenger. This was her rather crafty ploy to make sure that we pay a whole lot of attention to safety. It would be one thing for Russ to break a leg in an accident, it would be a completely different thing to break one of Anna's legs! Although she had been suited up and ready to fly on several past occasions that we canceled, Anna was scheduled to be out of town this weekend. Since we seemed to be operating responsibly, she ceded her position to Russ for the first flight, rather than make us wait until she got back.
Anna prepping for the canceled flight last weekend:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/Ann aPrep.mpg
We had an ambulance on site, just in case. This is surprisingly inexpensive, and should be considered by anyone doing something potentially dangerous.
The vehicle is chained securely to the ground, with chain wrapped around the main frame in two places, and connected to two big eye bolts sunk in the concrete. Nylon rope is wound through most of the chain links to act as a shock absorber, rather than let the chain come up hard.
Russ wore goggles, ear plugs, and a filter mask underneath the helmet, and had a hazmat suit on to protect against any peroxide spray. We have a 3" energy absorbing foam pad on the seat, and a 1" pad on the back.
Dry weight was 525 pounds, and we loaded 50 pounds of peroxide. The flight was perfect. Auto-land was initiated six seconds after throttle up. There was one bad sample from the altimeter recorded, but it didn't have any impact. We could have had a couple more seconds of air time at this load, but it was best to keep everything very conservative.
Russ reported that the flight was smooth, but the landing thud was noticeable. I have been trying to get a quote from Enidine for custom wound wire rope isolators to give us a more cushy landing. If I had a cleaner signal from the altimeter, I could have the flight control software touch down almost arbitrarily softly, but right now there is enough uncertainty that asking for a slower rate of descent would leave the total speed basically in the noise margin.
A few seconds in the air a few feet off the ground is not very significant by itself, but the point is that most of the systems necessary for much more significant flights are demonstrated. Looked at in the best light, it is a reusable, four axis stabilized, liquid fueled, manned rocket. Our single man suborbital space shot vehicle is expected to only be about twice the dry mass of this vehicle (but with a LOT more propellant, including kerosene), and will not be all that much more complex.
It was tempting to fly more, but we are starting to hoard our peroxide because we are down to our last three drums, and we don't have the supply resolved yet. We will learn a lot more flying the tube vehicle to a couple thousand feet than doing yet another lander hop. When we get a good supply in, we will do some full-load lander flights with the pilot doing the joystick control.
The video:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/fir stMannedFlight.mpg
The telemetry:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/man nedTelemetry.gif
Group photo, from left to right: Neil Milburn, Phil Eaton, Russ Blink, Joseph LaGrave, John Carmack, Matt Ross
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2002_09_28/gro upShot.jpg
Misc
We finished all the plumbing and wiring for the high flow regulated system that we will be testing with the 1,000 lbf regen biprop soon.
We got the new fiberglass nose and tail cones for the tube vehicle, and mounted the rocket tower to the top, which will pull the parachute out.
We got seven new 6" engine shells in. These have a slightly larger (2") throat, and have a full 2" radius of curvature on the throat, instead of our previous fairly sharp angle. We will be building the next vehicle frame to use four large differentially throttled engines instead of a single large engine with four pulsed attitude engines.
Our cavitating venturis from Fox Valve finally arrived, after we had wrapped up most of our testing on the 2" motors. Sigh. We may go ahead and do some tests with them on one of the remaining aluminum chambers that need to be flood cooled.
Dude, their pilot did better than their webserver...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Apparently the only real design concern is that the craft tends to roll itself up into a ball in emergency situations...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
The flight was shortened due to the fact that the company's webserver was located inside the rocket.
Ahh... the slashdot effect is now one step closer to entering orbit.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
2,000 pounds of steel, 20,000 poounds of thrust, and a pair of very dark shades. The world's first fully cybernetic, SSTO-capable armadillo. Coming soon from Armadillo Labs. The Dasypian Future begins tomorrow...
(Yeah, I admit it, I'm way too old-sk00l for my own good. Carmack, if you're reading this - was that the inspiration for the name of your firm? -{}{}{}{}{}{}8>
As John posted to the Amateur Rocketry Listserv today, they are on track for a manned supersonic and unmanned spaceshot in 2003. That puts them in sight of the X-Prize for 2004. That is, if I don't get my butt in gear!
I am not suprised why it crashed so fast. http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=off&mo de_w=on&site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.armadilloaerospace.c om%2F&submit=Examine
About the same amount of time one might get with a Rocket Gun assisted jump?
When they got back to Earth (after the 6-second flight), did the pilot get a rub-down with the blue goo by the vulcan from Enterprise? :-)
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
After such a flight, we were planning to do more launches. Our Ultimate goal was space but we have been slashdotted, and our "burtable" bandwidth has killed our budget.
Thanks Slashdot.
-- Tim
TKrabec Pahh
the one passanger of the rocket was able to reach a height sufficient to obtain the coveted Quad Damage previously only accessible through a series of floating jump-pads. Experts predict this will give the passenger the edge needed to frag the camping BFG whore.
I wonder if we'll remember John as the Man that Sold the Moon...
Doom, Quake, Armadillos...let's hope all they have in common is success and John. ;)
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
was john always that portly? looks like the nerd lifestyle has caught up (i saw him in 1995 and he was a rail). i'm so OT.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Armadillo Aerospace
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
We really need some British input on here.
There used to be an ad for Dime bars in the UK, where they were compared to Armadillos (Harry Enfield did it I think)... in that they were soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside... Armadillos!!!
Pity since the sites has beenAre you local? There's nothing for you here!
Man, the trolls keep getting lazier and lazier; now they're giving us 300-in-1 troll posts, rather than going to the trouble to post that often...
... At least it'd be even easier to filter out... :]
Now, if only the spammers could do that & we could get 1 catch-all spam (instead of 30) offering to spam 1,000,000 people with length-enhancing herbal viagra that will repair your credit history and attract hot lesbian sluts, all while letting you know if your SO is cheating on you and giving you someone else's "nakked pics"
From - Mon Sep 30 16:45:19 2002
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Message-ID:
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 16:45:18 -0700
From: toqer
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.9) Gecko/20020513
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: xian@idsoftware.com
Subject: mirror?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Yo!
I'm a geeky webmaster that plays quake and has a lot of accounts
scatterered around the world. If you could tar.gz up that story and pics
and shoot em back in a reply, I'd love to post em up as a mirror
(because I am a shameless self promoting whore)
Regards and bonghits.
--toqer
No, Xcor has a rocket-propelled airplane running that they are using as a testbed for their space program.
Baldrson writes "Some guy named John Carmack wrote to the amateur rocketry mailing list "We finaly let someone ride on one of our landers. Only a few seconds in the air, but still pretty damn cool!""
Seastead this.
Once their site recovers, you might want to check out their weekly status reports. They've made a lot of progress in designing their higher thrust engines, and the manned lander has just reached the point where it's stable enough (namely, they don't change the design radically on a weekly basis) to put a person on it and hope to get the person back with all bones intact.
There's a lot of stuff that has to come together for them to achieve their goal, and they have at least some of it under control.
While trying to visit the website, I keep hearing the Quake 3 voice in my head saying, "Denied".
What you were expecting to see was a balistic missile. A "rocket" is mererly the motor.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
For a somewhat working version of their website try:
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
"It was a fun couple of seconds. When can I do it again?"
Russell Blink
First Amateur to ride a fully guided ballistic rocket?
"We had an ambulance on site, just in case. This is surprisingly inexpensive, and should be considered by anyone doing something potentially dangerous. The vehicle is chained securely to the ground, with chain wrapped around the main frame in two places, and connected to two big eye bolts sunk in the concrete. Nylon rope is wound through most of the chain links to act as a shock absorber, rather than let the chain come up hard."
Wouldn't the ambulance be more useful if it weren't chained to the ground?
pthththtt..
I think it would be equally or potentially more interesting to deploy a small army of ThinkGeek-style rovers. Perhaps small-scale industrial stuff later, all done via remote-control.
I agree. He certainly seems off to an auspicious start. Here's hoping it keeps going well!
BTW, Love the Heinlein reference but personally I'd like to think that he'll be remembered as the man who gave us "...the plans for our first hyperdrive, allowing mankind to open the doors to the stars."
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
This seemingly harmless substance is a leading theory behind the Kursk submarine explosion. Often used to power torpedeos, Great Brittan concluded in 1955 that it was too dangerous for use on subs after the Sidon (a UK sub) exploded from a hydrogen peroxide leak.
This is a boring sig
Cool, so fifty-five years after NASA sent a monkey into space, John Carmack could set a new first: first civilian [code] monkey launched into space. While Albert the monkey sadly perished on his maiden flight, *he* didn't understand the principles of rocket-assisted jumping or in-air turning. Elementary physics to any Quake veteran...
Geez, I'm fairly sure it was sarcasm. Get a new detector. You're kinda ugly, but here goes... *lart*
Want Linux games? HERE.
They have now discovered a much better source of fuel than any previously known.
This new means of propulsion has been designated "The Slashdot Effect Field". By placing a web server inside the rocket and redirecting requests in a controlled manner from a specially designed composite thruster, the rocket is able to achive any desired velocity and range.
The only conventional fuel required is the amount required to raise the rocket six feet, at which time the news post can be generated to initiate the Slashdot Effect Field.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Don't forget the Royal Navy submarine HMS Explorer (AKA HMS Exploder), which was powered by hydrogen peroxide.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Yeah, sure. Cater to the dozen or so people that still use Windows Media player at the expense of preventing the rest of the world from seeing the videos. Great idea. Oh, and I don't know if you've noticed, but RealOne is shite. It randomly pops up other "promotional" video clips instead of the one you want to watch...
I don't know which catalyst was used, but I seem to remember that with pure H2O2, there was a lot of choice!
Actually, I was replying to a comment above mine who was talking about using .wmv, or Realplayer format. I meant to quote the guy but forgot. The post is here.
We're now really offtopic, but I don't care 'cos I've got a ton of karma.