The Step-By-Step DIY Approach To The X-Prize

HobbySpacer writes "According to this article, John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace team is making steady progress towards a X PRIZE rocket vehicle. Playing the tortoise to Burt Rutan's hare , the Texas team just might win the race to 100km altitude. At least if some of the other teams don't get there first."

Comments

NASA/ESA are just not the right guys

[the man with the pla]

It always makes me laugh when I see this comment about letting the private sector take over space exploration.

How would you feel if for the sake of arguement the eventual winner of the X-Prize were to become the MS of space exploration, with almost total control over who does what in space. The private sector is not about bettering mankind, its about profit and many private sector companies are not averse to using very dubious, and in many cases downright criminal methods to achieve their aims. Suppose they discover valuable caches of materials. Do you think they are going to share them with the rest of the world or make us pay thru the nose ? What will the visa requirements be for landing on Planet Microsoft I wonder ? Suppose you are vacationing on Mars and disaster strikes, what do you reckon the odds would be the highest bidders get the first seats off the planet.

In typical fashion the private sector will not become a serious player in space travel until NASA and the other space agencies have made serious reductions in the cost of entry with lots of tax payer research dollars. The private sector will then demand access and want to cherry pick the most lucrative aspects. Remember, there was a time when Bill Gates was an entreprenuer.

Re:NASA/ESA are just not the right guys

[adeyadey]

Well you can take normal air-flight as an example. The Military (Air force) did a lot to improve designs, but it took private companies and innovators to open up the skys to all. Sure there are problems - regulatory bodies have to ensure fair trade practices, but its still better than none at all.

It could be the same with space - and Cheap Access To Space (CATS) is a critical step for so many other things we want to do up there, manned and unmanned. At the moment it costs way too much to shift payload into LEO - the Shuttle isnt even flying - $3 billion/year for 0 payload - and I am not convinced that NASA/Shuttle-2 will give us true CATS either.

The US should stop wasting money on the Shuttle tomorrow - graceful retire the old hardware & put in in a museum with other 60's/70's vintage hardware. NASA could then build a simple Soyuz type capsule to fit on one of the best available/reliable commercial rockets for now, and set up X-Prize style competitions to generate true cheap re-usable vehicles.

Did I miss it or....

[Y-Crate]

Did the article totally ignore the whole "the X-Prize contenders must repeat their success within 2 weeks by using the same vehicle?" aspect, which in my opinion isn't exactly a minor point.

A one-off launch is one thing, but to return the craft to service within 14 days is something else entirely.

Private vs Public sector innovations

[Avihson]

Not trying to nitpick, but how many truly positive monumental advances in the human condition were made by a government entity? Mass production? The Industrial Revolution? The cure for Polio?

To paraphrase the parent post:

The Government sector is not about bettering mankind, its about power and many public sector bureaucrats are not averse to using very dubious, and in many cases downright criminal methods to achieve their aims.

A benevolent Gov't may sponser and fund the private sector if the advances are in the interest of the Gov't. Remember that just 100 years ago, every government on this earth knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Horseless carriages and the Aeroplane were nothing more than rich man's toys. The Railroad was all that was needed to tame the wild frontiers, and even that was private enterprise.

Re:Private vs Public sector innovations

[shocking]

Not trying to nitpick, but how many truly positive monumental advances in the human condition were made by a government entity? Mass production? The Industrial Revolution? The cure for Polio?

Well, the Internet (via DARPA) for one ....

Re:Private vs Public sector innovations

[koreth]

The Internet? Universal postal service? Free education? Eradication of smallpox? Abolition of slavery? Going to space and landing on the moon? Weather satellites? Transcontinental highway systems? The banning of "whites-only" shops and restaurants and schools?

Nope, nothing valuable there, you're right. Because everyone knows that they don't let you apply for even the lowliest government job without passing the Power-Hungry Would-Be Dictator Test. All the altruists in the world are forced to sit in corporate boardrooms, while our most sinful megalomaniacs cackle with glee on the way to their jobs running county homeless shelters.

Re:X-Prize == Darwin Awards??

[nels_tomlinson]

Rocket technology aiming at supersonic suborbital flights built by privateers using off-the-shelf components? Sounds more like Darwin Awards, especially after you take a look at the level of technology.

When you consider that we went to the moon with Sixties technology, designed by guys (girls didn't do engineering back then) with slide rules, I don't think that the technology level poses an obstacle.

How do they even know that their rocket is aerodynamically stable?

I'll bet that Burt Rutan knows. He's designed some of the most impressive light aircraft in the world, some of them jet propelled.

Building robust, real-time control systems to adjust the attitude during flight at a sub-millisecond rate can't be that easy either.

If NASA engineers could do it almost 50 years ago, using cardboard, string and slide rules, I suspect that most any electrical engineer could do it today.

Analogies

[cybpunks3]

What people seem to forget is that there is not a linear increase in challenges between air travel and space travel.

The reason is that the energy required to lift an object into or beyond earth orbit is incredible, which is why the Saturn V was almost nothing but a fuel tank (or the Shuttle for that manner).

That plus the materials science necessary to protect said object upon reentry.

The most reliable manned launch platform remains the traditional multistage rockets currently employed by the Russians (and soon the Chinese). These are cheap by aerospace standards but are never going to reach the volume of flights or pricepoint of the airline industry.

The privatization of space requires new methods to escape the earth's pull. I'm actually rather skeptical that any new method can be devised that will reduce the cost enough to make mainstream tourism possible.

Remember, they just retired the Concorde. If we can't even create affordable supersonic travel, what makes you think we can have space tourism?

That's not to say it can't be done cheaper; clearly launching a rocket off of a jet at high altitude is a proven technique (satellites can be launched this way). I also think there is merit to high altitude balloon launch platforms, but it sure sounds risky to launch a rocket near a fragile balloon.

How much cheaper remains to be seen.

But since the X-Prize is for suborbital flights that require little heat shielding and less involved life support, I don't think it in itself is a good metric for the privatization of space. It's "space lite", not really the real deal.

If the challenge were to launch a craft that could dock with the ISS, that's a different story. I know Nasa could use a vehicle like that right now ;)

It's not technology, not political, it's economics

[WolfWithoutAClause]

I've studied space for a long while, and one thing I've found out: it's not the technology- it's the economics. The more people go into space per year, the cheaper it gets to go; and very much so.

Forget reusable, nuclear rockets, space elevators; although all of these tricks work, and will help and doubtless will be used, but they are one-time tricks and the trick that has the biggest effect is simply to launch, and launch a lot. Economies of scale.

Now, NASA cannot and will not be allowed to launch a lot. NASA takes a small(ish), relatively constant chunk of the American tax each year, and launches some stuff with that. There's a limit to what they can do with the money they have; which they reached about 2 decades ago. NASA as a government department cannot sensibly take a profit, and has built the wrong rockets for making money with anyway. That means that, unlike a business, they won't grow exponentially. Even if NASA were to be given more money, they still can't grow manned space flight- it would be a flat one-time increase. Only continuous growth works, and NASA can't do it.

That means that they will only launch a fixed number of rockets per year, and hence the economies of scale cannot be utilised more than they are at the moment. Since economies of scale are the most powerful way of reducing the costs of spaceflight, this means that NASA cannot take us to space; it can only take a lucky few chosen by a bunch of bureaucrats to be termed 'elite'.

Rutan the Hare?

[LWATCDR]

I find it odd to call Rutan the Hare? He has designed many airplanes over the years from small but very cool homebuilts: the VariEze, Long Eze, and the Quickie. He got out of that because of the lawyers. He also built the first plane to fly non-stop around the world with out refueling. He is without a doubt very good at what he does, make flying machines. Rutan has already built stuff that flys into space. Look on his page www.scaled.com they help design and build the Pegasus. I am sure that John Carmack himself does not think that Rutan is rushing his program unwisely. My money is on the Rutan team. If they can get the stability issues solved quickly they have a good chance to win. No matter what they will have a good craft that can do the job.