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Catching Up With The Rocket Guy
Jedi Holocron writes "The full article is at Space.Com and reports on the current status of Brian "Rocket Guy" Walker's home-brew space program. This is the guy who is planning to build a rocket in his backyard, funded by his toy inventions. He's scaled back from an X-Prize launch to a mere 15,000 feet with a sky-diving return. This could be the next ride installed next to Disney's Mission:Space if he has his way!!! All told he's now calling it an amateur rocket, however it doesn't look like the model rockets I remember."
I imagine is shooting him out of the top with a parachute on his back the way that an Estes does.
Some people don't give up on their childhood dreams
There's some equipment you might need when you catch up with him. For example, this might be useful. And to load him up, you might need one of these. Of course, to be truly prepared, make sure you have access to plenty of these and some of this.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
and that he's building a *rocket*. I'm sure this will inspire a lot of kids to go into science if it works.
I'm also sure it's good for him because he can turn around and make action figures of himself and his rocket!
Anybody in serious contention for winning the x-prize is motivated by far more than the prize itself.
Those who are working on a budget that makes the prize itself impressive do not have a chance.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I thought *he* was the rocket man?
He's scaled back from an X-Prize launch to a mere 15,000 feet with a sky-diving return.
Isn't that what a lot of small airfields propose under the name of "parachute jump" for $100, 1-hour training session included for first-timers ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Then, there's the thrill factor. You've gone into space. Twice. And you've the technology to go there again. But it's too expensive to go it alone. So you start advertising for N'Sync musicians interested in a visit to Low Earth Orbit.
(After which, you tell him the music is carp, read him some Vogon poetry, and throw him out of the airlock. After which, he has 30 seconds to be rescued by a shoe.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
In carting the rocket on a truck around town, Walker said he hangs a simple right to bear arms sign on the back: "I take my second amendment rights real seriously."
If I owned one of these I could change my bumper to stick to read "My rocket has killed less people than Ted Kennedy's car" That would be sweet.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
If he's only shooting for 15,000 feet, why not just build a modern day ME163 rocket fighter? I seem to recall that it could fly at around 30,000 feet, and there was an improved B version that had enough fuel for 15 minutes of flying time.
If they just fixed the whole nasty "randomly exploding" problem it was prone to, it could be fun.
I don't know much about the lil rocket, but didn't the Russians also build a version? Anyone know anything about that?
I hope you were not serious. 15,000 feet is not that high, we have mountains that high in the USA. ICBMs reenter at 200,000 feet plus and have a screamingly high velocity. Plus anyone watching on radar would see it go UP first. If he is smart enough to build it I'm sure he will notify someone he is launching it. It won't look like an ICBM -- I guarantee. (apologies to Justin Wilson) I just hope he launches it somewhere (like the middle of the desert) that whatever comes down does not hurt anyone or destroy some property, otherwise it's a cool idea! I hope he makes it!
Anyone up for a game over the Rockies?
Are you sure the Rocket Guy is not trying to catch up with the road runner?
This guy was recently on Invent This! on TechTV.
He talked about some system to distill 50% peroxide into 90%. Didn't Carmack say that wasn't feasible to do in the volume he needed?
As technology advances, it becomes tougher for the small-scale individual to do pretty much _anything_ themselves. I'm really psyched that this guy is trying.
When airplanes were new, anybody could build a decent one that would compete with at least the low-range commercial ones. Same with computers, cars, operating systems (but then, hey, look at Linux now!). I guess what I'm trying to say is that no matter how may people call this dude a fool, I think he's doing something really cool =:-)
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Play Six Pack Man. I
A ship poorly built is a raft
an airplane poorly built is a cart
a rocket poorly built is a bomb.
314-15-9265
I did RTFA. I'm not worried about his FUTURE plans, that will never happen for a number of reasons. He even realizes it... When the self-made space traveler began the quest several years ago, the idea was to fly up 50 miles to the border of space. He has since stepped back from bankrolling a full-size rocket design to a more modest missile -- one that shoots to 15,000 feet. ....
Walker is not gunning for the X Prize. That's the worldwide competition to hurl passengers to the edge of space and snag a $10 million purse.
What appeals to Walker is building a client base of rocket riders, drawing from the skydiver community. Eventually, in step-by-step fashion, rockets toting skydivers and non-skydivers alike can be designed, built, and flown to ever-higher heights, he said.
Unless he has some VERY deep pockets or some investors with them he isn't going to get 50 miles up. That requires at least two stages, serious rocket engines, real G&C, heat shield for rentry, life support, a support team, launch platform, etc. He is having fun at a high-level amateur level, but he isn't going to be making any sub-orbital flights. He is a crazy guy who is having fun, a harmless kook. He isn't the next Robert Goddard.
Concur.
and if it's anything like the systems that shot down the Iranian airliner "by mistake", it only has to fail once for this rocket guy to skydie.
Count on it to fail at least twice.
Failure number one: Mistaken identity is made, live fire at Rocket Guy.
Failure number two: The fucking thing misses Rocket Guy cleanly and then goes on to take out a 757 minding its own business at 45,000 feet, two states over.
Is it fascism yet?
Seems as if he only had one leg.
Turns out he was a ME163 pilot and lost the leg to a young man flying a Spitfire who managed to hit him and blow his leg off in the process, but not quite take his Komet out of the sky.
My elderly friend said getting shot with the 50 calibre through the upper leg knocked him unconcious.
So consider what ensued: You wake up in agony, only to look down and see that one of your legs no longer belongs to you. You then notice you're piloting a heavily damaged airplane. You further surmise that your airplane has no fuel (Komet's shot their wad and coasted back to earth) and no landing gear (Komet's landed on a sort of skid). Now get the damned plane back on the ground to a dead stick landing without finishing off either the plane or yourself.
Radical dude, radical!
Is it fascism yet?
Yes:
http://www.snopes.com/spoons/noose/balloon.htm
When choosing a launch location, a very significant factor is the downrange property damage considerations. Since modern rockets tend to be devices that explode on a fairly regular basis, and they do so when travelling at very high speed, there is a very high likelihood of high velocity 'junk' impacting downrange of the launch point.
With that in mind, the ideal launch location is atop a 60,000 foot mountain located on the equator, with little/no population base for a couple thousand miles eastbound of the launch location. There is no such location on earth, so, most launches happen from a 'compromise' location. The us government long ago deemed the safety factor of launching over the ocean was worth more than the cost savings of a high altitude launch location.
Payloads headed to a polar orbit tend to have slightly different dynamics associated, and the initial launch vector is actually somewhat westbound, to offset the rotation of the earth. An ideal location would be a high peak located exactly 'on the pole', where there is no velocity penalty from the earths rotation. Altho the southern polar region does have such locations, the logistics of launching from there turn out to be more expensive than spending a little more on the launch vehicle, and launching it from home. US military payloads destined for a polar orbit tend to depart terra firma from Vandenberg, where the initial westbound vector will indeed take em out over the water again.
In both cases, the potential for downrange impact damage outweighs the cost savings achievable from a high altitude launch location. Conscious decisions were made in selecting launch locations where politics and impact potential outweighed launch efficiencies. Politics said it had to be within the lower 48, impact potential said it had to have a downrange pointed out over the water.
From an engineering perspective, high up in the mountains of Hawaii would be a much more efficient launch location. It has the benefit of altitude, the downrange ocean, and provides every major airport on the west coast as a 'launch abort alternate landing location'. In the real world though, the logistics of transporting all launch hardware out to that location will cost more than the savings incurred, so the point becomes academic. Still, remembering the issues of weight control during the construction of the initial apollo moon landing hardware, cant help but wonder how much more could have been done if the Saturn 5 was launched high atop the mountains of Hawaii. I'm sure that would have increased the available moon orbit throw weight by a few thousand pounds.
Tm
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