Slashdot Mirror
Romanian Team Entering X-Prize competition
cripkd writes "Although two days passed already I am proud to announce that a Romanian team launched a sub-orbital unmanned flight. Demonstrator 2 is a prototype to the actual shuttle they will enter in the X-Prize competition, build with 30,000 USD, pocket money, as they say, compared to the other projects. The project's home site is here and an article about the launch can be found here.
PS. And it's all ecological as they produce oxygen and water vapours :)"
Aording to the article, the launch occured 7 seconds before schedule because of a smashed electrical wire that disconnected the engine's electro-valve. Beause it's using a mono-propellant with a catalyser (I believe it's hydrogen peroxyde), the engine auto-ignited and the rocket launched.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
there is no evidence that water vapor added to the ecosystem has a long term effect on the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. Most of it probably returns as rain. Additional CO2 stays in the atmosphere a long time and has a near continous effect.
They have been in the running for more than a year now. See older X-Prize newsletters on X-Prize site.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
was Hermann Oberth, from Sigishoara in Romania (birthplace of Vlad the Impaler). I visited Sigishoara last year and found that the town museum had a room devoted to Oberth. The first Romanian in space (in Soviet times) was awarded the "Hermann Oberth Gold Medal".
(So, I will use my mad language skillz, namely skillz at having friends who are Romanian, to translate said article)
Demonstrator 2, a Romanian small-scale model of the Orizont (Horizon) Rocket couldn't restrain itself anymore and burst into space two minutes before official launch at Midia Cap. The presurizing hose of the engine came off by surprise and triggered the tiny rocket by touching the contact and leaving Dumitru Popescu, president of ARCA ( Romanian Astronautics and Aeronautics Association) motionless.
Wrapped up in steam, Demonstrator 2 went its own way and, influenced by the gusty wind vanished into the clouds after reaching 1,200 m at 13 m/s before eventually sinking into the Black Sea, just off the to shore.
Even though the rocket didn't get to 2,000 m as planned, the ARCA students are now very confident they will find support and get the $200,000 they need to beat the American team Space Composites in the X Prize Cup competition, a team which already reached 100 km.
Apparently, Romanians are using a secret formula based on World War II technology for torpidoes, also used on the Kursk Russian submarine. It's all about decomposing oxygenated water with the touch of a mysterious catalyzer. And if it's not silver nor platinum, then what is it, we ask? "Just some tablets", Dumitru Popescu responds and that's the only thing we can wring from him.
Having spent only $30,000 to build Demonstrator 2, ARCA has already got offers to sell a miniature rocket in all the toy stores in the Unites States.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
To anyone interested in the subject, Romania (pre- fing WW2 and fing communism) has had potential for a strong position in the aeronautic industry. Henri Marie Coanda, known for the Coanda-effect and the first jet aircraft, was Romanian. More info about Coanda can be found here