Rocket Racing Gets Its First Team

quad4b writes to tell us Wired is reporting that the Rocket Racing League (RRL), launched last October by Granger Whitelaw and Peter Diamandis of Ansari X Prize fame, has its first official team. "Leading Edge Rocket Racing" was launched by entrepreneurs and former F-16 pilots Don "Dagger" Grantham and Robert "Bobaloo" Rickard who see this as the "next great flying experience."

Comments

Not going to work

[Reality Master 101]

The fact that there is no popular "airplane racing" sport to speak of should tell these people something. It's hard to watch and boring. I think they're letting their own enthusiasm for rockets cloud their reasoning.

But hey, let 'er rip and we'll see what happens.

Re:Not going to work

[Reality Master 101]

I don't very much care how popular something is. Why do you?

The point isn't whether YOU personally care about the sport, the question is whether enough people care to make it economically viable. Assuming you want it to work, you should care how popular it is.

Yeah, because the popular sporting events are MUCH better.

Not all popular sports are good (soccer, for example, is really a pretty damn bad sport from the standpoint of offensive/defense balance; it's far too heavily biased toward the defense), but that doesn't mean all unpopular sports are somehow more noble.

Again, there's a reason airplane racing has never "taken off" (so to speak). It sounds good on paper (machines blazing through the air at hundreds of miles per hour!! Wow!!), but in practice there's not much to watch, and it's too much like a boat race. The first one to get the upper hand will almost always win. There are not enough variables to introduce strategy during the race. A rocket race will be worse -- they're not even as maneuverable as an airplane. It'll be more like a drag race, except they'll be gone so fast you can't see anything.

Re:Not going to work

[jonv]

They plan to make use of technology to make it more interesting for the spectator. Overlaying live action onto a track for spectators and letting on-line competitors join in. Should have some interest amoung the slashdot crowd.

Re:Not going to work

[evilviper]

The fact that there is no popular "airplane racing" sport to speak of should tell these people something.

Yes, that nobody has even tried it yet.

It's hard to watch and boring.

I'd say watching cars drive around a tiny circular course is far more boring than FRICKIN' ROCKETS.

Besides, I seem to recall airshows being very near the top of the list of most popular spectator sports, worldwide.

Re:And the nominations for the Darwin Awards are..

[XNormal]

Yes. People will die in these rocket races. People die on car race tracks. People die surfing. People die exploring Antrarctica, too.

NASA astronauts are treated like national treasures which must be protected at any cost. The whole country goes into mourning when they die and the space program is halted for years. When people will die in these races their comrades will drink to their memory in the evening and climb into another rocket vehicle the next morning.

These rocket races will give small companies a chance to get their hands dirty with rocket engines. The engines that will eventually power the vehicles that take us to space.

Crowd pleaser..

[slashmojo]

While I think its cool and certainly support anything related to the xprize and rocket technology in general, I suspect most people will only watch this for the inherant 'disaster factor' which is presumably way higher than F1 or any other form of racing plus you wont have to sit through 127 boring laps before the sh*t hits the fan so its a sure thing as far as ratings.

Still I have no doubt people will be dying to have a go.. ;)

PopMech...

[Kadin2048]

Not that I think this is a gimmick, but just because something makes the cover of PopMech doesn't mean it actually exists, ever will exist, or is even remotely practical. It's a pretty low bar.

Not to say that the stuff they have on there isn't usually very cool, it just has a tendency to fail to materialize later. (Examples off the top of my head ... 1:1 reproduction of the Titanic, giant 'floating island' aircraft carrier, 747-sized gyroplanes, supersonic Skycars...).

These are the same people who were saying in 1955 that there'd be a big lump of plutonium in everyone's water-heater in 20 years, and last time I checked, mine's not sheathed in lead. I wouldn't use it to back up any claims of possibility.