X Prize Race Heats Up

Armadillo by tra2499 · 2003-07-11 22:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

It's interesting to note that Carmack, with Armadillo Aerospace, is taking more of an Open-Source approach to the X-Prize by participating in mailing lists and discussing various aspects of his designs with others in the rocketry community. While he's not going full-disclosure, he's at least sharing a lot more than Rutan.

I'm cheering for Armadillo.

Re:Armadillo by Flounder · 2003-07-11 22:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

Carmack may be "open source", but Rutan is probably the most likely person currently participating in the X-Prize competition. This is the guy that designed, built, and flew the Voyager (the first non-stop around the world plane with no refuelling).
Open source doesn't always mean successful. I'm sure if Oppenheimer was "open source" while developing the atomic bomb during WWII, it would have been ALOT more difficult to win the war.
Agreed, comparing The Manhatten Project and the X-Prize is a stretch. But it's less of a stretch than comparing OSS and rocket science.

--
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Re:Armadillo by tra2499 · 2003-07-11 23:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

I don't disagree about Rutan's chances vs. Carmack's. Rutan has quite a lead. Even Carmack has commented on Rutan's chances.

I think you might have read too much into my comments. I didn't say I thought Carmack was likely to win because of his approach. I said I was cheering for him.
Re:Armadillo by Eight+01 · 2003-07-12 10:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Burt Rutan designed and built the Voyager, but it was flown by his brother, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager. Dick Rutan is the older brother, and focused his energies on flying including a distingueshed record in Vietnam. Burt Rutan's interests were model airplanes and design. His company, Scaled Composites, was formed to scale up model airplane manufacturing techniques to create larger planes such as Voyager and White Knight.

tumbling by Hanzie · 2003-07-11 22:50 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'd hardly call rocket engines added to a working design of a plane a "junkyard wars" approach.

More like two reliable systems mated together. Sure, the union isn't inherently reliable, due to unforseen interactions, but the individual components of each certainly are. They may be behind, but it's no reason to scoff at them.

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Re:tumbling by tra2499 · 2003-07-11 23:02 · Score: 4, Informative

The problem is that the airframe and the wings are NOT designed to withstand the necessary stress of escape velocity.

If you look at the successful "space plane" type vehicles that NASA or any other big research team has developed, you'll see that it required designs that looked more like a rocket than an airplane to get anything anywhere near the edge of space.

If not a "junkyard wars" approach, it is an extremely optimistic design. I would expect the wings to rip out at the roots when they light up the rocket motors.
Re:tumbling by Flounder · 2003-07-11 23:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

If not a "junkyard wars" approach, it is an extremely optimistic design. I would expect the wings to rip out at the roots when they light up the rocket motors.
The article describes that the rocket motors would be incremently ignited. IANARS, but I would assume this would lessen the stress on the wings. However, I would be interested to see how they handle re-entry. The frigging space shuttle burned up, why wouldn't a modified LearJet?

--
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Re:tumbling by tra2499 · 2003-07-11 23:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's not necessarily the sudden shock that makes parts separate themselves from each other. The airframe was rated to 0.8 Mach. Okay, let's assume that the FAA is being their usually pessimistic selves when it comes to airframe ratings and that it can sustain twice that much for a short duration. The speed of sound (Mach 1) is roughly 780 mph. If the airframe is capable of short bursts of 1.6 Mach, then I can't really see it surviving 2.97 Mach.

Once they hit transsonic, they will undergo a severe amount of turbulence. The longer they spend in the transsonic region, the bigger danger to those long, thin wings.
Re:tumbling by ColaMan · 2003-07-11 23:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Well.... it seems the 100km point is the top of the curve for them, so they're only going relatively slowly as they re-enter.

Still, they would fall an awfully long way before they can actually get any lift off those wings again. They mention approximately 180 seconds of free-fall - so at 9.8m/s^2... thats 1700m/s at the end of that stage, discounting any drag (which , if they're in free fall, implies none).

Shuttles generally begin de-orbit at about 6,000m/s or so , but they're in a 'proper' orbit, not suborbital.

--

You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Re:tumbling by AdEbh · 2003-07-12 00:16 · Score: 2, Interesting

The problem is that the airframe and the wings are NOT designed to withstand the necessary stress of escape velocity.
Correct, yet only shows that you did not follow the link & read. If you had, you know that their flight plan calls for sub-orbital speeds. Sub-orbital speeds are, as the name implies, slower than orbital speed. Which in turn even slower than escape velocities, which for some strange reason your talking about. Escape velocity is the speed at which you totally escape (hence the name) the gravitational pull of a body (i.e. Earth).
If you look at the successful "space plane" type vehicles that NASA or any other big research team has developed, you'll see that it required designs that looked more like a rocket than an airplane to get anything anywhere near the edge of space.
That's because they are designed for orbital speeds. Take the space shuttle. It has not only to flight at sub-sonic & super-sonic speeds, it also has to flight at what is called ultra-sonic speeds. At ultra-sonic (> mach 15 if I remember correctly, though someone will know doubt correct me) the aerodynamics of the shuttle change again. The designers had to take this all into account. That's why the shuttle handles little better than a brick while landing. Indeed to call what the shuttle does during re-entry flighting is being rather kind.
I would expect the wings to rip out at the roots when they light up the rocket motors.
You did not read much did you? They slowly increase the angle of accent as they increase trust & altitude. They only hit mach 2.97 at an altitude of 55 km. Thus the wings are not exposed to the range of forces that you seem to be imagining.
No, where the wings will face the most stress is in re-entry. It looks like they may have not full worked out all the details for this bit as they are bit sketchy on the details.

PanAero - ascent sounds plausible, descent doesn't by Anonymous Coward · 2003-07-11 23:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

I can accept that PanAero's ascent plan may well work, but I suspect the standard airframe will have objections to the proposed 70 angle of attack descent. Their team profile on xprize.com makes no mention of how they're going to control the attitude (the conventional control surfaces won't be any use).

Re:Armadillo? Ouch!!! by MickLinux · 2003-07-11 23:05 · Score: 4, Funny

From the website:

The flight profile of the Black Armadillo starts out in a familiar fashion, but shortly after reaching the peak altitude of 107 km (67 miles), it operates in a manner which can only be described as "ground breaking."

I don't think I want to be a passenger in that particular entry. Breaking ground is a pretty severe way of landing, in my opinion.

--
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Wanna fly it? by davids-world.com · 2003-07-11 23:38 · Score: 4, Informative

Interestingly, the simulator Scaled Composits uses to train their pilots is available for cheap: X-Plane does the job at Scaled Composites with their own sim cockpit.

Runs on OS X, OS9 and Windows. Warning: Harder to fly than MS Flightsim -- of course!

X-Plane, being fairly realistic, even has an FAA rating so it can be used (with a $150.000 motion platform) to log hours towards your Airline Transport Certificate.

Re:Wanna fly it? by hayesjaj · 2003-07-12 05:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yes, it is more realistic, but it still needs work. From an experienced pilot's point of view, out of the box, X-Plan isn't as "real" as M$ Flightsim 2002 Pro (I'm sorry, but I did a snap roll in a 747 at 250 knots in the new xplane beta out of the box...that won't happen) . If you have some time (and the knowhow) to tweak it, it can really rock though. It is way more customizable and the graphics are much prettier. They need to add some more joystick support though...our setup here uses 6 usb joys for the throttle quad, yoke, pedals and switches. Xplane won't handle that yet. Here's hoping.

--
The world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.

To the PanAiro folks. by AltGrendel · 2003-07-11 23:50 · Score: 5, Funny

Don't do it. It'll void your warranty.

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The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination

- Douglas Adams

In space, no-one can hear you scream by Andy_R · 2003-07-11 23:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

which significantly reduces the problems of going transsonic. Once you take the lack of air into account, turbulence becomes a lot less of a problem!

--
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a

Are Competitors Building Dead-End Technology? by reallocate · 2003-07-11 23:57 · Score: 4, Interesting

I don't mean to demean any of the efforts, and all that cash is an obvious incentive. But, are any of the competitiors building something that isn't dead-end technology?

Consider: Rutan and others plan to boost a more-or-less conventional aircraft to a few times the speed of sound, coast to altitude, and glide back. (You can't just put a bigger firecracker in the back, remember. You need life-support, navigation, communications, and, especially, safe passage through re-entry.)

So, one of them bags the X-Prize, but in the end you still have a vehicle with a maximum velocity of 1500-2500 mph. That's a long way from the 17,000 mph needed to reach and sustain orbit.

Are any X-Prize competitors building something that can be the basis of a realistic orbital vehicle?

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Re:Are Competitors Building Dead-End Technology? by MtViewGuy · 2003-07-12 00:13 · Score: 4, Informative

Fortunately, Scaled Composite's entry into the X-Prize competition is not as dead-end as some people think.

Remember, by launching SpaceShipOne at over 50,000 feet altitude, that right there saves a tremendous amount of propellant needed to fly to the 62.1 mile altitude. It's the same method that allowed the relatively small X-15 with its XLR-99 rocket motor to reach over 354,000 feet, or 67.5 miles into space. During the late 1980's, there were serious studies about building a small spaceplane launched from the top of a modified 747-200 that has been fitted with a de-rated version of the Space Shuttle main engine; Rutan could apply what he learns from SpaceShipOne and build a small spaceplane that could carry as many as seven crew or its equivalent in cargo to the International Space Station. Indeed, I've heard of a company that proposes towing a fully-fueled spaceplane behind another large jet and then launching it at around 40,000 feet; because it launches at this altitude, the spaceplane needs far less propellants to reach low Earth orbit (LEO).
Re:Are Competitors Building Dead-End Technology? by seanthenerd · 2003-07-12 02:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

Actually, I read in a PopSci article (right here) that Rutan does have plans for the SpaceShipOne/WhiteKnight, but that he wants others to build and commercialize them:

Rutan's historical model is Wilbur Wright's tour of France in 1908, which sparked tremendous growth in the industry. Rutan wants SpaceShipOne to kick-start a similar burst of innovation. Hence his ambitious post-X-Prize testing and demonstration plan: Fly every Tuesday for five months, 20 flights in a row on schedule, to determine the system's cost and reliability. Though he envisions everything from 10- passenger suborbital tour buses to a giant White Knight that uses eight 747 engines to launch a 300-ton spacecraft, Rutan says those are for others to build: "The Wrights didn't build the world's first airliner--they didn't need to," he says. "I hope people don't expect me to certificate a spaceship and offer rides. I want to be doing something more exciting by then."

Go, Burt!

Knicker elastic powered X prize by Dollyknot · 2003-07-12 00:08 · Score: 3, Funny

Three jet aircraft take off. Two jets at either end of a long piece of knicker elastic. The third jet would have the payload of a space rocket attached by a hook to the middle of the knicker elastic. When all three planes have reached their ceiling. The middle plane flies earthwards, the other two planes fly horizontaly in opposite directions, loading the knicker elastic with the mathematical maximum of energy. When this point is reached, the middle plane releases the space rocket. All the energy stored in the knicker elastic will be transfered to the space rocket. How fast would the space rocket be going before it fired its engine, how much fuel would it need to achieve escape velocity?

I am not a mathematician, nor a materials scientist, so I do not know how much energy can be stored in knicker elastic. But I'm sure that it can be released in an effective way to be able to claim the 'X' prize.

I will not die happy if I never see elephants dance the pas de deux. Or human beings achieve true bird like flight. Or humanity starts the herculean task of putting the earth back the way they found it. Come on lads parties over, lets clean the place up, and put all the trees back. I know a place where there is lots of space, lots of room, its very quiet, very clean, no bugs, and twenty four hours a day sunshine. No earthquakes, no typhoons, hurricanes, very few neighbours.

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It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet

If I was one of them fancy "dot-com" rich fellas.. by Braintrust · 2003-07-12 00:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

... I'd be spending my moolah on propulsion technology research, as opposed to the more high-profile Drive For The X-Prize.

Dense and compact energy sources... hell, fund fusion research for a start... more powerful and efficent ion engines... I don't happen to be a rocket scientist, but you get the idea.

To me, the one who revolutionizes propulsion, will be the first trillionaire in history. Not to mention a true hero to future generations.

The name's Cochrane... Zefram Cochrane... it could be you...

I would like some interplanetary travel (at least!) before I pass from this place. Someone help me out...

--
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".

Too much Star Trek! by Omkar · 2003-07-12 00:27 · Score: 3, Funny

I believe that Slashdot is the only place where you can hear serious talk about international terrorism and antimatter bombs in the same post.

Armadillo and Scaled Componsites by XNormal · 2003-07-12 02:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

Carmack may be "open source", but Rutan is probably the most likely person currently participating in the X-Prize competition. This is the guy that designed, built, and flew the Voyager (the first non-stop around the world plane with no refuelling).

Building a single rocket recovered by parachute is simpler than building two complete aircraft.

I agree that Rutan's approach is more likely to lead to a safe and commercially viable suborbital tourist vehicle. But Carmack's approach still has a fair chance to win the X-Prize first. Carmack is taking a lot of shortcuts that a more advanced design like Rutan's simply can't use.

--
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.

Reaching space is much easier than orbiting by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · 2003-07-12 03:32 · Score: 2, Informative

There's an important difference between going up-and-down and attaining orbit.

To stay in orbit, you've got to accelerate to orbital velocity. That takes about an order of magnitude more energy than just lifting yourself out of the atmosphere.

Notice how long the shuttle's engines keep burning after it is fifty miles up.

That's part of the answer to the question about reentry heating. The business jet won't be braking from 18,000 miles per hour.

Here's my question ... by SuperDuG · 2003-07-12 04:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why is it that we're only hearing about this in ninche geek websites. Shouldn't "The average man's race for space" be newsworthy? I mean the race for the moon had nearly everyone with a television at the time glue to the newscast to see just how close everyone was getting NIGHTLY.

Armadillo and Scaled Composites have quite the financial backing and I think everyone believes that it's just a matter of time before either they succeed or take part in the most expensive darwin award to date. I'm kinda tired of the top news story being W's and Blairs lies and the "war in Iraq" that's supposed to be over yet we're still reportting casulties on both sides.

Everyone dreams of going to space, everyone has looked up in the night sky and thought I wonder what it's really like up there, and everyone at one time growing up pretended they were an astronaut/cosmonaut. I really wish the Ministry of News would declare this newsworthy beyound the nince websites and occassional backpage news blurb.

So who do I call, I'm curious, is there a director of the Ministry of News that declares everything in america newsworthy? Isn't it time that we started focusing on individual efforts for success rather than constantly dwelling on what's gone wrong for the last year? Did the war in Iraq stop these guys? Did september 11th (well legislation limiting their supplies sure didn't help)? Are they terrorists in disguise? NO NO NO NO NO, I want everyone to see that there's hope for the future and not everything is so dark and abismal.

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Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed

Re:I have safety concerns, though. by Centurion509 · 2003-07-12 10:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

>I mean, has Armadillo actually started constructing a rocket that can lift three crew members to 62.1 miles altitude, return safely, and do it again within two weeks??

The short answer is yes , the vehicle is almost done. Here's a picture of it parachuting to the ground during a recent drop test on July 5th: http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/Images/RLV/Armadi llo/dropTest-669801-R1-20A_md.jpg . (For more pictures of the vehicle, go to http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Ho me/News?news_id=215 . For an article about the drop test, go to http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /armadillo_test_030707.html .

But I must note that Scaled Composites will probably fly their vehicle to suborbital altitute before Armadillo does. John Carmack, leader of the Armadillo Aerospace team, posted some comments about his progress and schedule at http://groups.google.com/groups?dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=U TF-8&safe=off&frame=right&th=3e74ec8f14362b26&seek m=c0e0a1dd.0307071349.7e9778e0%40posting.google.co m#link7 .

>I believe that the Starchaser team are well-advanced on constructing the Thunderbird rocket that will attempt to win the prize late this year.

Actually, Starchaser's current schedule calls for the Thunderbird launch in late 2004. What you are probably referring to is the Nova rocket, which will be launched this year to a height of 30,000 feet, carrying one man. Check out http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/RLV/PR/ME DIA%20ALERT_%20British%20Company%20to%20Unveil%20M anned%20Rocket%20Capsule.htm .

X Prize timing... by Centurion509 · 2003-07-12 10:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

One of the greatest side-effects of the claiming of the X Prize will be something that no one could have predicted just a year ago:

The X Prize will be won while the space shuttle is grounded.

So what, you might ask. Well, it's a big deal. For years, various groups have been trying to persuade NASA to work with, not compete with,
private ventures. And NASA has always given many reasons to refuse, the biggest one being "when was the last time a private company flew a man in space on their own rocket... er, never?" Of course, that's a perfectly legitimate concern.

But when the X-Prize is won while the shuttle is grounded, I think it will send a big message to both NASA and the people in the Administration who hold the purse strings, and we might see some interesting changes in NASA policy, the kind of changes that might speed up the day when every middle class American can enjoy a trip into space for a reasonable price.

Cool, huh?

And it's clear that the X Prize is going to be won soon. Check out
this article, which describes Rutan's plans to fly into space by December.

Here's the damn thing HTML Formatted by DrMorpheus · 2003-07-13 09:44 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm posting this under my login, being the karma whore that I am. Next time I won't be so nice!

I mean, has Armadillo actually started constructing a rocket that can lift three crew members to 62.1 miles altitude, return safely, and do it again within two weeks??

The short answer is yes, the vehicle is almost done. Here's a picture of it parachuting to the ground during a recent drop test on July 5th.

For more pictures of the vehicle, go here. For an article about the drop test, go here.

But I must note that Scaled Composites will probably fly their vehicle to suborbital altitute before Armadillo does. John Carmack, leader of the Armadillo Aerospace team, posted some comments about his progress and schedule.

I believe that the Starchaser team are well-advanced on constructing the Thunderbird rocket that will attempt to win the prize late this year

Actually, Starchaser's current schedule calls for the Thunderbird launch in late 2004. What you are probably referring to is the Nova rocket, which will be launched this year to a height of 30,000 feet, carrying one man. Check out.

--
Debunking the "59 Deceits"

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