Carmack Needs Rocket Fuel

Reality Master 101 writes "Saw an interesting post on the Experimental Rocket Propulsion Society BBS from John Carmack, who is working on an X-prize vehicle. Apparently he is having a lot of trouble getting Peroxide from the major suppliers, and is possibly thinking of helping someone set up a company to produce peroxide. With NASA's recent problems, there has been a lot of talk about promoting more private investment in rocketry. But how can it happen when the suppliers won't even sell peroxide to well financed, registered, X-prize teams? Anyone want to start a peroxide business?"

Comments

hair salons

[Mordac]

I'm guessing getting all the hair salons to chip in a gallon or two won't help here will it. Worth a shot I guess.

Re:hair salons

[stendec]

One day, a story was posted on Slashdot stating that Carmack needs rocket fuel. A rallying cry was quickly taken up.

PEROXIDE FOR CARMACK! shouted the geeks, sometimes at their monitor, sometimes at their cat, sometimes at their lunch.

It was only the second time since the Karma-for-Guns campaign that Slashdot gained the attention of the public.

PEROXIDE FOR CARMACK! shouted the public, sometimes at their spouse, sometimes at the television, sometimes to the telemarketer.

And soon did legislators of the United States take up the cry, carrying the battle to the floor of the Congress itself.

PEROXIDE FOR CARMACK! shouted the legislators, sometimes at each other, sometimes at the TV cameras, sometimes at their aides.

And soon did the President of the United States take up the cry, carrying the fight to the United Nations General Assembly.

PEROXIDE FOR CARMACK! the president would shout, sometimes at France, sometimes at Germany, sometimes at the teleprompter.

And soon did the world take up the cry, rousing its collective might and pooling together a vast supply of peroxide which was soon delivered to the house of John Carmack. The only man who might have objected was Hans Blix, but the last anyone saw him, he was staring into the mirror, nodding his head slowly and sighing.

And so, one day, Carmack was driving John Romero back from the hair salon. His old friend was raving about this new catalyzing-gel they use. Romero then opened the door, and that's the last anyone saw him. They say the explosion was like "two hundred thousand quad-damaged rocket jumps."

It's perfectly understandable

[eyegone]

He's obviously part of a terrorist plot to turn us all blond!

Carmack is fragbait.

[Tackhead]

The problem is the current NASA/government-contractor setup would just respond with "Why the fuck should we build a low-cost launch vehicle when we're getting $6B/year for Shuttle/ISS indefinitely?"

Or to be even more cynical, it violates something I consider to be one of Life's Universal Rules, which is this: You should never threaten to cost someone more money than it would cost them to have you killed.

For instance, suppose there's a market need for 20 commercial/military/ISS flights per year, and the government's willing to pay $500M per launch. That's $500M x 20 = $10B a year in pork to use the shuttle and our current unmanned vehicle capabilities. Against that, nobody is gonna build cheap launch capability, because it'll soon be a better business strategy to simply eliminate anyone who comes close.

For instance, suppose Armadillo Aerospace develops tech that enables them to launch a satellite for $1M. With reduced costs, there might be a market for 100 launches a year versus 20. NASA space scientists are elated, because they can finally send an army of cheap probes to every planet, comet, and moon that tickles their fancy. And geeks (myself included!) will rejoice because we can finally read about all the cool science while we're vacationing at the Space Hilton.

The big problem with this lovely picture is that as soon as Armadillo announces its $1M-to-orbit vehicle, $BIG_CONTRACTOR realizes that even if they buy Armadillo outright, the $10B/year gravy train (20 comm/spy satellites at $500M each) is gonna come up $9.9B short (20 comm/spysats, plus 80 space probes and Space Hilton modules, at $1M per launch). Someone will realize that you can hire a lot of assassins and saboteurs for $9.9B.

Congressmen, upon realizing that Armadillo's success will soon mean $9.9B less pork to distribute to their districts, will conclude that a major campaign contributor has discovered an "intriguing" solution to both their respective problems.

Both groups will publicly lament the "accident" at Armadillo that resulted in the flash-combustion of all personnel, and bemoan their sysadmins for the fact that all the offsite backup tapes containing design and technical data were unreadable, and use the "accident" to remind the voting and taxpaying public that space still isn't quite ready for private sector involvement.

I wish Carmack and anyone else trying to provide cheap access to space the best of luck, but I fear for anyone who comes close to achieving the dream.

Best response to a Slashdotting

[multimed]

(not counting handling the excessive load w/o getting Slashdotted of course)

Too many users... blah blah blah
Probable cause: http://www.slashdot.org

Try again in a few seconds...

-xian@idsoftware.com

Good Guess.

Re:What kind?

[brer_rabbit]

Sorry for the ignorance. What kind of peroxide is necessary for something like this?

Considering it's a bunch of pimple-faced geeks, benzoyl peroxide.

Re:Peroxide

[jda487]

Holy shit. I didn't see all these other posts with way better answers. My bad, sorry.

perhaps he should change his technique?

[Darth_brooks]

"Hi My name is John Carmack and I'd.....yes the same guy that worked on doom and quake.......yeah I'd like to order several thousand gallons of....yes those games are violent, lots of blowing stuff up.....anyhow I'd like to order several thousand gallons of highly explosive and caustic peroxide in order to...Hello? Hello? damn."

Maybe not such a good idea?

[cbuskirk]

Are we really sure that we want the guy who has spent is whole life working on games about blowning sh%t up to be building a giant rocket?

What I want to know is....

[Anonymous Coward]

...producing 98% concentration peroxide and selling it reasonably to several small outfits, as well as NASA and the USAF. I wound up buying a dozen or so drums from X-L, and everything was going well.....

You didn't happen to conveniently place those drums next to the people guarding your facility, did you? :)

-Greg