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Inventor to Launch Pop Bottle Rocket into Space

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the next-comes-the-lawn-chair-with-balloons dept.

DrButts writes "An inventor in British Columbia wants to be the first to launch a pop bottle rocket into space. 'This could be impossible, but the CEO of AntiGravity Research already holds the altitude record for boosting an elongated plastic pop bottle — propelled by a bicycle pump, water and a bit of soap — into the air. Firing the ubiquitous, two-litre plastic container usually consigned to the recycle bin into space might create a whole new definition for space junk, but the dream keeps Schellenberg going.'"

9 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Uh.... right. by mark-t · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Has he even broken Mach 1 yet?

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    1. Re:Uh.... right. by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And for that matter, there's nothing at least in the summary that says anything about orbit... just space. Technically, that refers to an altitude, not a velocity. Yeah, something launched would fall back down to earth if it didn't have enough momentum to break out of the Earth's gravity well, but that doesn't mean such an object didn't reach space, at least by the traditional definition thereof.

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  2. I don't know... by biased_estimator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IMHO once you start reinforcing it with kevlar it ceases to be a pop bottle. At least I've never drank soda out of such a thing before...

  3. Re:Ony the facts could stop this intrepid adventur by Dunbal · · Score: 2, Insightful

    (air resistance excluded)

          You're cheating. In real life air resistance will not do you the favor of excluding itself on the way down. I have no fear of being hit on the head by a falling empty plastic soda bottle from ANY height.

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  4. Re:But what if... by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Insightful

    they'd probably send back pamphlets detailing the benefits of recycling plastic bottles.

          Yes because chopping down trees to create pamphlets to send to another planet is much more ecologically sound than sending them our plastic ;)

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  5. Re:I can hear Nasa now by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Think it through. First of all, when the satellite blows up in near-vacuum, most of the hydrazine will never get a chance to diffuse into the atmosphere at all; it will boil off into space. Next, as the fragments of satellite come down, they'll burn up themselves, so any hydrazine they're carrying with them will be exposed to just as much heat as it would if the satellite re-entered intact. (More, quite possibly, since there will be a higher ratio of surface area to volume.) Finally, hydrazine is such viciously reactive stuff that any quantities that survive the explosion and re-entry will happily combine with whatever is in the immediate environment -- the by-products may be toxic, I don't really know, but in any case the pollution will be much less severe than if the satellite came down in one piece.

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  6. Mythbusters tried this... by gillbates · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In one of their recent episodes, Mythbusters researched using compressed air and water "bottle rockets". The highest flight to date of a compressed air and water rocket was about 500 meters, IIRC. And it was made from materials far stronger than a 2 liter bottle.

    The fundamental problem, as Mythbusters showed, is that a 2 liter bottle just can't hold enough pressure for the impulse necessary to put the bottle into orbit.

    Nice dream, though.

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    1. Re:Mythbusters tried this... by veranikon · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This article is almost certainly a hoax. The thrust available from pressurized propellant is in no way adequate for any body to even approach escape velocity. The article mentions the inventor's ongoing refinements to the bottle's capacity and structural integrity (elongation, kevlar, carbon fiber), along with the bit about using multiple stages. However, all these things amount to adding weight to the missile, which means more propellant at higher pressure (= more weight), which mean more structural enhancements (= even more weight). The inventor will not be able to achieve necessary thrust vs. weight ratio to attain any kind of significant altitude.

      There is a very simple reason why rocketry traditionally uses combustible propellants: the combustion creates superheated gases at pressures far exceeding the pressure at which the propellant is stored in the onboard tanks, effectively converting chemical energy into massive amounts of thrust. This pop bottle rocket does not enjoy the same energy conversion process.

      If the inventor could devise a way to store superheated plasma (i.e. hotter than core of the sun) in a small, low-weight package that requires little to no containment energy, then yes, perhaps it could escape the atmosphere, but he'd need something much more elaborate than a bike pump to the charge it up.

  7. I would call this guy a success already by serutan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Schellenberg has been making his primary living with AntiGravity for seven years through sales almost entirely on the web"

    Makes his living selling toy rockets on the web. Who can read that without a trace of envy?