Inventor to Launch Pop Bottle Rocket into Space

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.'"

Comments

Volume

[Harmonious Botch]

The sin qua non issue here is volume. TFA speaks of 'stretching' the bottles. If you are allowed to increase volume enough when stretching, then, yes, a coke bottle might make it into space. It requires stretching the bottle so that it's volume is several orders of magnitude larger than the original, then putting on lots of carbon fiber ( as per TFA ) on it.

Since TFA speaks of A coke bottle, I assume we aren't allowed multi-staging. But some of the effects of staging could be achieved - I think - with different fluids. At the bottom would be a layer of mercury with some depleted uranium dissolved in it. Next is the water layer. Maybe the third layer would be a hydrocarbon of some sort ( perhaps chosen for it's ability to dissolve gasses under high pressure, thus using precious volume for both compressed air and reaction mass.

Personally, I don't want to be anywhere near this contraption at liftoff, when it is spraying tons of toxic heavy metals all over. But I do want to see the video on youtube.

Re:Volume

[Dunbal]

Unless you mean longitudinal "stretching", I can imagine this fat, spherical bottle offering too much cross sectional area (and therefore drag) to be able to go any far. There's a reason rockets are the shape that they are. Dunno how far you can stretch a pop bottle along its length, though. I guess I'll leave that to the "real scientists", lol.

Re:Hey, 200 Meters ain't bad for a pop bottle rock

[srussia]

Only 79.8 km (out of 80...) left to go, if you take the lowest recognized definition of outer space. Heck, I've done 200m with a butane canister with the bottom cut out (the seamless top withstands the pressure wave). I punch a hole on top, jam a firecracker inside (mainly just around 10g powdered aluminum--otherwise known as a "five-star") with the fuse sticking out the top and launch it from a pan filled with water. This was at age 10. The best aspects of this technique were virtually silent detonation (just water splashing out of the pan) and extremely homogeneous thrust (the thing went straight up, eventually landing just a few meters beyond launch point).

Re:Extrapolating the data points...

[Detritus]

The Kármán line. I was just reading about it last week. The air is so thin at 100 km than an airplane would have to travel at a speed greater than orbital velocity in order to generate sufficient lift, and if it's traveling that fast, it doesn't need lift.