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New XCOR Rocket Engine Passes First Test
apsmith writes "XCOR Aerospace just successfully test-fired their new liquid oxygen/kerosene rocket engine. This is significantly more powerful than the engines used in the XCOR EZ-Rocket vehicle, and will be further developed for use in the Xerus suborbital vehicle. XCOR is one of the serious X-Prize contenders, and partly funded by John Carmack of Id and Armadillo Aerospace (Carmack's in-his-free-time X-prize contender)."
The Iraqi "army" (that lovable, rag-tag gang of uniformed special forces and plainclothes civilians with AK-47s) has spent the past week fighting dirty. They are not following the new rules of war: humane treatment of prisoners, uniformed service, conventions of surrender, et cetera. No no. Iraqis are fighting this one old-school: anything goes, and their wonderfully simple goal is to kill as many Coalition forces as possible, by any means necessary.
Well, I'd like to suggest the US and the rest of the Global Beatdown Squad return to their Barbarian roots, and effect a new strategy: Kill every male over 14 in Iraq.
Think about it. Our family, friends, cousins and countrymen are stepping into a hornet's nest the likes of which has not been seen since Vietnam. To worsen the matter, the enemy is not above breaking any good-faith conventions in order to lure GIs to their sandy grave.
They are breaking the rules of the Game. They checked their moral character at the door; they neither ask for nor deserve pity.
Then why do we coddle them, nagging and pleading them to surrender and limiting our territorial prospects with "surgical strikes"? They are not coddling us. They are beckoning us towards their taxicab and blowing us apart with searing-hot shrapnel. They are flying a white flag and opening fire when we get close enough.
I'll put it this way: Every male fifteen years old or above in Iraq must be killed.
Americans are not safe in Iraq until the entire country is either peaceful by choice, or (in the case of the Iraqi "military") peaceful by force. The Coalition is fighting a clean war, making an effort to avoid civilian casualties and honestly hoping for nothing more than a cease-fire and a clean transfer of power.
Yet these Iraqi bastards stop at nothing to spill American blood. There is only one solution; it has been considered generally unpalatable for several hundred years, but there is no doubting its effectiveness.
Kill the men.
We need not rape and enslave the women and children. In order to ensure a future for a stable Iraq, we must allow their lives to remain as unchanged as possible. This is why we need only kill fightworthy males.
What if Iraqi troops attempt to surrender, when they see half the men in the country dead in a trench? They too must die, for only by holding to a strict discipline may we win this war with honor and dignity.
During the new Iraq's reconstruction, the Coalition could pay to fly eligible males to Iraq for free, along with their possessions. There would surely be a worldwide rush to accomodate the naturally-beautiful Iraqi women.
In conclusion, Iraq has rolled the clock back hundreds of years on the etiquette of warfare. It is both morally justified and militarily correct to reciprocate, and when I ask myself "What would Attila do?", the answer is to totally exterminate of the Iraqi adult male.
fuck you
One step closer to having honey moons in space? Wooo
Note that omitting a reentry vehicle could substantially save on fuel costs.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
to fit the current world leadership into so that we can clean up all their messes?
Bush, Hussein, I'm talking to you!
The Iraqi "army" (that lovable, rag-tag gang of uniformed special forces and plainclothes civilians with AK-47s) has spent the past week fighting dirty. They are not following the new rules of war: humane treatment of prisoners, uniformed service, conventions of surrender, et cetera. No no. Iraqis are fighting this one old-school: anything goes, and their wonderfully simple goal is to kill as many Coalition forces as possible, by any means necessary.
Well, I'd like to suggest the US and the rest of the Global Beatdown Squad return to their Barbarian roots, and effect a new strategy: Kill every male over 14 in Iraq.
Think about it. Our family, friends, cousins and countrymen are stepping into a hornet's nest the likes of which has not been seen since Vietnam. To worsen the matter, the enemy is not above breaking any good-faith conventions in order to lure GIs to their sandy grave.
They are breaking the rules of the Game. They checked their moral character at the door; they neither ask for nor deserve pity.
Then why do we coddle them, nagging and pleading them to surrender and limiting our territorial prospects with "surgical strikes"? They are not coddling us. They are beckoning us towards their taxicab and blowing us apart with searing-hot shrapnel. They are flying a white flag and opening fire when we get close enough.
I'll put it this way: Every male fifteen years old or above in Iraq must be killed.
Americans are not safe in Iraq until the entire country is either peaceful by choice, or (in the case of the Iraqi "military") peaceful by force. The Coalition is fighting a clean war, making an effort to avoid civilian casualties and honestly hoping for nothing more than a cease-fire and a clean transfer of power.
Yet these Iraqi bastards stop at nothing to spill American blood. There is only one solution; it has been considered generally unpalatable for several hundred years, but there is no doubting its effectiveness.
Kill the men.
We need not rape and enslave the women and children. In order to ensure a future for a stable Iraq, we must allow their lives to remain as unchanged as possible. This is why we need only kill fightworthy males.
What if Iraqi troops attempt to surrender, when they see half the men in the country dead in a trench? They too must die, for only by holding to a strict discipline may we win this war with honor and dignity.
During the new Iraq's reconstruction, the Coalition could pay to fly eligible males to Iraq for free, along with their possessions. There would surely be a worldwide rush to accomodate the naturally-beautiful Iraqi women.
In conclusion, Iraq has rolled the clock back hundreds of years on the etiquette of warfare. It is both morally justified and militarily correct to reciprocate, and when I ask myself "What would Attila do?", the answer is to totally exterminate of the Iraqi adult male.
...and one step closer to getting me off this rock.
What do you reckon the chances are of me being able to get hold of one of these babies for my car?
- Welcome the coming of the New World Odour
"For more than 30 years, the general public has waited for an opportunity to enjoy the space frontier on a first-hand basis. The X PRIZE Foundation is working to make space travel possible for all. The spaceships that compete for the X PRIZE are designed to carry passengers."
I'm as likely to ride on something called "EZ-Rocket" as I am on "Valujet". Isn't rocket science supposed to be... uhrm, rocket science?
I want to be a space man with my kerosene rocketship.
X-ellent!!!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Fuck you assholes for being dickless losers without any life. Hey mods - fuck a duck, you douchebags. Seriously...you're assholes.
I was playing Socom: U.S. Navy Seals the other night and I told some kid that he needed to settle down. He replied with something so I called his mother a dirty whore. I like teaching little kids new words - it's entertaining. Watch out for the blacks - I heard they're up to something. Peace out niggaz!
Hey, did you see Oprah eat that chunk of feces on TV today? That was fucking awesome!
France, go fuck yourself!
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
He wasted his time writeing games.
"Geeks! In Space!!!"
WURD!!
I'm no scientist, but I am aware that liquid oxygen or LOX as it's reffered tho happens to be compressed oxygen (approx. 4000 times the amount that in the air), and this will dramatically increase the speed that a shuttle will be incinerated during a disaster, as the LOX will feed the explosions.
With advancements comes risk in my opinion.
Anybody who knows more then me, would be able to soothe my thoughts and tell me someone on such a shuttle would have a chance of survival is this were to leak?
Posting useless rant since 2003.
Hey, don't stop with all the males over the age of 14! Stalin said it best, 'The only innocent are the unborn.' Haven't we all learned something from the Godfather movies?
The Iraqi "army" (that lovable, rag-tag gang of uniformed special forces and plainclothes civilians with AK-47s) has spent the past week fighting dirty. They are not following the new rules of war: humane treatment of prisoners, uniformed service, conventions of surrender, et cetera. No no. Iraqis are fighting this one old-school: anything goes, and their wonderfully simple goal is to kill as many Coalition forces as possible, by any means necessary.
Well, I'd like to suggest the US and the rest of the Global Beatdown Squad return to their Barbarian roots, and effect a new strategy: Kill every male over 14 in Iraq.
Think about it. Our family, friends, cousins and countrymen are stepping into a hornet's nest the likes of which has not been seen since Vietnam. To worsen the matter, the enemy is not above breaking any good-faith conventions in order to lure GIs to their sandy grave.
They are breaking the rules of the Game. They checked their moral character at the door; they neither ask for nor deserve pity.
Then why do we coddle them, nagging and pleading them to surrender and limiting our territorial prospects with "surgical strikes"? They are not coddling us. They are beckoning us towards their taxicab and blowing us apart with searing-hot shrapnel. They are flying a white flag and opening fire when we get close enough.
I'll put it this way: Every male fifteen years old or above in Iraq must be killed.
Americans are not safe in Iraq until the entire country is either peaceful by choice, or (in the case of the Iraqi "military") peaceful by force. The Coalition is fighting a clean war, making an effort to avoid civilian casualties and honestly hoping for nothing more than a cease-fire and a clean transfer of power.
Yet these Iraqi bastards stop at nothing to spill American blood. There is only one solution; it has been considered generally unpalatable for several hundred years, but there is no doubting its effectiveness.
Kill the men.
We need not rape and enslave the women and children. In order to ensure a future for a stable Iraq, we must allow their lives to remain as unchanged as possible. This is why we need only kill fightworthy males.
What if Iraqi troops attempt to surrender, when they see half the men in the country dead in a trench? They too must die, for only by holding to a strict discipline may we win this war with honor and dignity.
During the new Iraq's reconstruction, the Coalition could pay to fly eligible males to Iraq for free, along with their possessions. There would surely be a worldwide rush to accomodate the naturally-beautiful Iraqi women.
In conclusion, Iraq has rolled the clock back hundreds of years on the etiquette of warfare. It is both morally justified and militarily correct to reciprocate, and when I ask myself "What would Attila do?", the answer is to totally exterminate the Iraqi adult male.
In a stunning suprise move, the Iraqi army has placed all of its efforts into repelling the foreign invaders. Thousands of U.S. soldiers were either killed or injured while attempting to lay seige to the great city, caught in a gauntlet of Artillery fire and crude oil trenches.
The American second wave commenced, slaughtering innocent women and children who lined the streets with protest banners. One soldier had run out of bullets, and started using first his sidearm, then his rifle-butt against the crowd. Chemical weapons, in the form of tear gas and pepper spray, were hurled into the crowds of civilians, who trampled each other to death as they attempted to flee from the streets. At that point, Iraqi military began the demolition of buildings onto the Coalition forces.
Blood ran like the tigris from Bagdhad. Truly a humanitarian mission!
I'm particularly fascinated by the educational uses. How long until high school teachers fire real rockets to demonstrate Newton's third law? That'd be the day! No more boredom in school :)
right to the point. fuck you why? nobody knows. all we know is that it is we who are to be fucked.
I'm just one man god-fucking-dammit; I can't fix the whole motherfucking world. I suggest you take some responsibility yourself and stop pissing into the stew. Having a fetish for drinking urine must run in your family.
GO U.S.A. - In the future, Arabs will be an extinct species. [Notice: I said species on purpose - they're not human. Have you seen the way they look? They're lower than monkeys and fish.]
Hey, did you see Oprah eat that chunk of feces on TV today? That was fucking awesome!
When it runs low on pressure, do you have to pump the little plunger a zillion times until you're back to full-blast?
(if you haven't been camping and used a coleman lantern, you won't get this.)
Please help metamoderate.
...that you're trying to turn an urban legend into a real Darwin Award.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I hope he names the final design the BFR-3000.
The government's moral compass is controlled by GPS.
In times of crises, they alter it to suit their needs.
First tests are easy, now ye must answer me these questions three!
What is your name?
What is your quest?
What is the power of lobbyists for the current technology?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Go to that page and check out the new, improved ignitor that is shown. Looks a lot like an off the shelf spark plug inserted into a gas discharge nozzle.
Not sure if this proves that they are amateur hacks without a prayer, or budget-minded folk trying to build a low cost replacement for big-bucks aerospace hardware.
My bet is that these guys will go boom an awful lot!
I have no problems with people shootin rockets this way and that, as long as its no where near me.
Amateur rocketry usually leads to one thing (think "smoking empty boots sitting at the bottom of a large crater"), and I don't want to get hit with the shrapnel.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Challenger... I rest my case.
LOX (Liquid OXygen) is used because it is both cheap, freely avilable and less dangerous than most other oxidisers. For more info on propelants in general, see here. For LOX + kerosene in particular, the link is here. Off course, if you want to get away from the nasty cryogenic oxidicers, you could always go for hydrogenperoxside and kerosene (se data here). Off course, H2O2 is more expencive and way more poisonous than LOX, but it's give and take... In large quantities, 95 per cent hydrogen peroxide then cost approximately $1.00 per kg - LOX on the other hand cost about 0.08$ per kg. Or you could get exotic and use Liquid Fluorine and Kerosene wich gives a Isp: 322.00 sl. compared to a Isp: 300.00 sl. for LOX/Kerosene (se data here) - but then LF was kosting 6.00$ in 1959, and I don't think the price has dropped.
So in short, LOX has a few drawbacks, but the benefits of using it outweights them. Oh, and Encyclopedia Astronautica is a good place to find this sort of info.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Close study of the Igniter shows that a key component is a Champion Y-8 Spark Plug?
This is Rocket Science, man!
But seriously folks, 1800 lbs of thrust just does not seem very manly when compared to the Saturn V F1's 1.5 million lbs of studly thrustosterone. Ugh - more power!
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
nigger
This will boost the demand for XM Satellite radio, since it will be the only radio frequency to reach the moon
We are not currently an X-Prize contender. If the X-Prize is still available when our Suborbital vehicle is complete, it is conceivable that it could be modified to meet the requirements of the X-Prize. XCOR is more focused on the immediate possibility of revenue generating service from the Xerus spaceplane.
:)
For more information about our Suborbital program, visit our suborbital page at:
http://www.xcor.com/suborbital.html
--Mike Massee
XCOR Aerospace
"partly funded by John Carmack of Id and Armadillo Aerospace (Carmack's in-his-free-time X-prize contender)."
Cool, but where is Doom III?
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Lox with kerosene. Sounds incredibly powerful, and cheap and easy to get as well. I doubt carmack will be able to beat them with his' team's Hydrogen Peroxide engines.
Any stats on the energy/gram of that stuff?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I have heard of a company that was trying to use solid/liquid rocket technology that used regular rubber as the fuel source and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. The pictures of it were like the space shuttle solid rocket booster .
What happened to that company ? anyone know ?
I think he meant the moon where the honies come from!
Is the best approach.
Spark plugs are a proven, reliable, and mature technology.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Beam me up Scotty.... nope, technically impossible
Blow me up Scotty.... nope, not desireable
Blast me up Scotty.... Sigh, not the same ring to it
Lift me up Scotty.... Too perverse...
Fly me up Scotty.... Even worse
Oh heck, back to engineering.....
I checked out the XCOR website, but didn't see a timetable for when the Xerus might actually fly for the first time. Mike (or anyone else in the know), care to give us a guesstimate for when we can expect the test flights?
The EZ-Rocket carries the O2 tank in place of the passenger seat, primarily because it won't kill the pilot if it vents.
Well, what if they frezee to death?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
hydrogen peroxide is an oxidizer.
want prof add conc H2O2 to methanol, it spontaneously combusts.
2 H2O2 -> 2 H2O + O2
CH3OH + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O
CH3OH + 4 H2O2 -> CO2 + 4 H2O
We did this in my highschool geometry class using model rockets. We had several observers at known distances from the launch site who measured the angle of the rocket when it reached it's highest point. We then used the data to calculate the altitude of the rocket.
Model rockets are very widely available toys, and a lot of fun for junior and senior geeks alike. Me and my brothers built and played with them all the time.
I suspect they might consider it for the right price, if you could sort out the legalities so they don't get sued; rocketry is relatively expensive.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Anyone else notice the picture next to the quote at this link: http://www.xcor.com/XR4K5-firstfire.html
"The XR-4K5 also uses our most recent electrical igniter design that is smaller and lighter than previous generations."
Is an NGK spark plug bolted into the housing?
I can't see how that could possibly burn cleanly.
Take your father's penis out of your mouth.
Close your mouth.
Never again allow a man to penetrate you orally.
Now, in other news - I pooped YOUR PANTS. That's right motherfucker, I put your pants on today and I shit in them. How do you like those apples you dickless ass-goblin?
Now, go attack some Arabs.
[Apologies for posting this anonymously BUT these motherfuckers only let me post 2 times per day because my karma rules. Fuck the haters. They can iron my balls into a pancake and eat them with pure Vermont maple syrup and butter.]
Well, consider that the Saturn V weighed about 6.7 million pounds, and the rocket used five F1 engines providing a total of 7.5 million pounds of thrust, then the net upward force is actually only 800,000 pounds, or 160,000 pounds per F1 engine. So about 9/10ths of the thrust is used just to counteract the weight of the rocket itself (at least on liftoff).
I realize that this project isn't intended for launching sattelites/large payloads into orbit, but would a scaled up version be capable or are the weight/thrust ratios too low for large payloads?
Now YOU too can ride on a rocket and have your penis extended while taking herbal medication to supply you with energy for days on end!!!
this is not a sig.
Mike -- If your company is really interested in developing an educational project and are simply lacking the funding to begin the project, drop me a note (taylorja at clarkson dot edu). I'm a faculty member in the Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering department and would be willing to try to help out.
Actually, it really happened ...
... if you can believe this story.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana