Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
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.
What if the bottle rocket eventually encounters an advanced civilization, who enhance it and sent it back to Earth on a mission of death and destruction? Hasn't this fool learned anything from what happened to Voyager/VGER?
he could get $2 billion for this project from the pentagon if he words the application right and he donates $10K to his senator's reelection fund
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
a Coke-and-Mentos second-stage booster and he should be set.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
He's not using any mentos at all.
Only 79.8 km (out of 80...) left to go, if you take the lowest recognized definition of outer space.
He's from British Columbia... they don't need jet fuel to fly. Hell, they smoke anything out there... I even hear tell they smoke salmon.
Seriously, though, I've met this guy before, and the definition of "space" might be a little loose, but crazy wins over reality, every time.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Schellenberg's two-stage model is easily capable of reaching altitudes of well over 200 metres.
Several years ago, one of his "toy" rockets - actually a Kevlar-reinforced, experimental, single-stage missile pressurized with compressed nitrogen and packing high-tech instruments - flew to just under 379 metres.
Based on that research, Schellenberg is now convinced that it will be possible to put a bottle rocket into orbit.
Wow, 379 meters. With just a few more improvements, he could eek out the other 159,621 meters to Low Earth Orbit with no problem!
Reid
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
We don't dump our satellites in your recycling bin, please don't shoot your pop bottles into our space.
*obligatory "We're Bigger And We're On Top, Bitch" post*
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
If you dropped a pop bottle onto Earth from a great height, say a million miles, it would splat (air resistance excluded) at about 25,000 MPH. Seven miles per second. Analogously, if you wanted to reverse the course of the pop bottle, you'd have to launch it from the Earth's surface at a similar speed. Now IIRC at about Mach 1.5, aluminum begins to soften. I suspect the plastic in a pop bottle melts at a somewhat lower temperature. So even if you could get enough dry ice or Mentos to launch the bottle at seven miles per second, it would probably melt in about two seconds. Not to mention that air resistance would slow it down considerably on its upward journey, so it's unlikely to have enough speed for the long run.
He needs to get with the mythbusters team, tie five bottles together and see if they can life Jamie off the ground.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
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...
Has he even broken Mach 1 yet?
There's actually not much in the way of a rule that says something going into orbit has to reach 'escape velocity'.
That's a barrier for barking huge spacecraft, but if you went slowly, and gradually kept up the acceleration, you'd get into space, and with a little assistance from Earth's own gravitational well you could slingshot out and away into interplanetary space.
(Straight from TFA...)
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
When you learn to capitalize, you should learn to read the usernames of ALL posters. I know you replied to me... I am entirely unaffiliated with Australia. However, I will take your example, and assume that, based on your username, you are a two-dimensional shape, and thus unable to type. Color me impressed.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
You're calculating the speed it would need to start at if all thrust were exerted at ground level and it had to coast up to space (again excluding air resistance). If on the other hand you apply thrust throughout the flight, space can be achieved without ever approaching 25,000 MPH. For instance, Space Ship One never flew 25,000 MPH yet it made it to space.
Also note that I don't believe he'll make it either, and I've always considered 80km to not really be space flight. Just pointing out that the facts you mentioned won't necessarily be the ones that stop the adventure.
There is no magic speed which must be obtained to get into space. The oft-cited 25,000 mph escape velocity is simply that vertical speed which, if obtained at ground level (and completely discounting atmospheric drag), will allow an object to coast (constantly decelerating at 1G) out of the gravity well of Earth - not simply to the altitudes commonly used for low-earth orbits. Any vertical speed whatsoever, if maintained long enough will get an object into space - and eventually out of the Earth's gravity well. A space elevator would not require massive initial velocities or acceleration - just a lot of climbing up the cable.
Entering orbit is another matter as the object will need to be traveling horizontally (relative to the surface of the Earth) at a speed in the 17,000 mph range
For a Canadian, you sure are uptight. I didn't think it needed explaining, but it seems the OP was also trying to be funny by assuming you were, in fact, a wombat.
The guy's web site. I did a google search on "Mr Widget" bottle rocket and the results were all from news sites to do with this story. Searching on antigravity research was better.
Loose lips lose spit.
No, but you have to get almost there. Low Earth Orbit is 7.8km/s, escape velocity is 11.2km/s. In addition, any non-escape ballistic trajectory that starts from the earth will form an ellipse that will eventually intersect the earth, meaning your rocket must accelerate sideways a fair bit once it's up there.
You need much less speed to merely reach space and fall back down, but the article clearly said 'orbit'.
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.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
He stretches the bottles. This is a very important point that you have missed. So far he has only stretched them slightly but if he stretches them to be 100km long then he's made it.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
This sounds the perfect rocket motor for the Japanese origami paper airplane.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
"It's 'soda', not 'pop'."
"It's 'coke', not 'pop'."
"It's 'pop', not 'soda' or 'coke'."
Fuck you lot, it's 'fizzy drink' and you know it.
"Inventor to Attempt to Launch Pop Bottle Rocket into Space."
That makes more sense.
/* No Comment */
But when you finally got into space, you'd be (very nearly) moving at escape velocity. That's how we define escape velocity, after all: it's the speed required to overcome the earth's gravitational attraction. The difference between your actual speed and escape velocity will be negligible once you're far enough away, but you have to get there or you can't escape. It's easy to show mathematically.
Legalize it.