Rocket Men

theodp writes "Slate reports on the guys who really, really want to fly, who got together the other week at the Niagara Aerospace Museum for the First International Rocketbelt Convention. To date, only 11 men in history have free-flown a rocketbelt (aka JetPack). More men have walked on the moon. Why? 'It's not a matter of if you get hurt, it's when,' says Eric Scott, an ex-stuntman who's in the exclusive club."

Comments

Re:Gyroscopic stabilizers

[evanbd]

And while we're at it, that's a *hell* of a lot easier said than done. You can't do it on cheap gyros (read: you're probably spending $5-10k per axis), and they're not particularly light weight (a couple pounds each may not seem like much, but it eats into your fuel budget quite quickly). And you need a *good* control program, which isn't easy to write. Getting it mostly right wouldn't be too hard, but would you trust your safety to "mostly right"? To date, only one VTVL rocket vehicle has demonstrated fully autonomous takeoff, hover, and landing (John Carmack's vehicle over at Armadillo Aerospace). It ain't easy.

Also, don't forget you have to build the rocket motors and feed system and such. Most belts so far are peroxide monopropellants -- a good choice IMHO, but peroxide is hard to get and takes a lot of care to handle safely. And building any size rocket motor and ensuring it's safe enough to stand next to is a bit of work.

What I'm saying is, if you're a single amateur, or a small group, then building just the rockets is a big project unto itself. It shouldn't surprise you that no one has the time, money, and skills to do that, *plus* build and test the IMU, *plus* write fly-by-wire control software for it. If a modest sized startup company decided to pursue the matter, with a bit of financial backing, I would expect they could get it all built without too much hassle (provided they had the appropriate expertise in all areas, obviously). Oh, and don't forget that your software has to handle a non-fixed CG if the person moves about much at all.

What about women?

[Dan East]

To date, only 11 men in history have free-flown a rocketbelt (aka JetPack).

According to the Wikipedia article, at least one woman (Isabel Lozano) has flown one as well (happened almost a month ago).

As to why haven't more people flown the device, take a look at Isabel's pictures, and you'll see that had to make a custom cast of her body for the mounting hardware the device uses. Also, for some reason many people may not feel very comfortable with jets of gas at 740 C venting at supersonic velocities mere inches from their body.

Dan East