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Visual Guide – the Making of a DIY Space Capsule
Kristian vonBengtson writes "Wanna build your own space capsule capable of doing an atmospheric re-entry on a suborbital mission? Well, here are some production hints and a visual guide."
The initial stages begin with sketches on paper before moving to 3D design software. He writes, "A whole bunch of sketches were done to get some kind of initial idea of the size, subsystems layout and how to actually produce the capsule while keeping an open structure for further development and potential changes. One of the main concerns was the small size and the ability to easy install and replace avionics. This led to the decision that all external side panels will have to accommodate being taken on and off – no welding, only on the main structure." Afterward, he moves on to show the final metal cuts and how the pieces are put together via bolts and welding.
Really? "Wanna"? You may slur the words together like that when you speak, but please try to use the written language properly - especially if you are representing a legitimate magazine/internet site like Wired.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I like it. With such a high fineness ratio, I wonder a little about stability-- does it stay heat-shield down? Is there an alternate stable mode with the nose down?
I do notice a ballute-- this is probably to stabilize the heat-shield-down attitude when it's too high for a parachute to open. This may work for stability for the relatively low entry velocities needed for suborbital, although I'd be curious about the ballute holding up in hypersonic conditions.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I'd use my apple II computer to generate some kind of force field / inertial dampening bubble around my capsule. Then the capsule can be hastily cobbled together from household items.
...Jonathan Ive!
I wonder if the 500 kg weight for the final model is inc. or ex. the payload and what the ratio is.
Good luck and lets hope it's not "Per aspera ad astra".
Long live the workers control over the means of production ; ).
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
1. No mention of where they're sourcing their imipolex G from. Ex-NAZI rocket scientists are hard to come by these days.
2. China & India, you really need to step up your game.
It's not quite as big a boost to national prestige when hobbyist makers are getting their stuff launched. If SpaceX starts providing unused space for hobby payloads to fly standby, every school science project could get launched.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"THAT is a spacecraft, sir. We do not refer to it as a 'capsule.' Spacecraft." - Alan Shepard in "The Right Stuff"
Personally, I use Kerbal Space Program to design my re-entry modules.
I knew all about making my own space vehicle back in 1985 when the docu-drama "Explorers" came out. An expert tale crafted by the 'Gremlins' director Joe Dante, and staring a young Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix. It explains how a dream of a circuit board can manifest into "ThunderRoad" and I can make smoochie faces at extra terrestrial life.
Movie poster
Seems like a lot of work considering that you more often than not end up dumping everything into the Baltic sea.
To the /. editors.
Why do we have to see this crap?
It's so obvious that Kristian vonBengtson is only using this as his own personal advertisement space for Copenhagen Suborbitals. He's only trying to get more people to join Copenhagen Suborbitals Support, so he and his friends (especially Peter Madsen) can continue their hobby while other people pay for the rent of the buildings, the ships, the materials and everything else. It's the same each and every time we hear anything from any of them.
Can you please stop giving them free advertisement space until they actually succeed with anything that has something to do with the original mission statement instead of wasting time on all their irrelevant side-projects?
It's impossible to take them serious when all they do is act like little kids playing NASA. Kristian, we all know that Gene Kranz, George Low and the other NASA-guys used to smoke celebratory cigars when NASA had done a successful launch. You don't have to smoke a cigar when you and the rest of Copenhagen Suborbitals (again!) dump your rocket at the bottom of the Baltic sea. It only makes you look like an complete idiot.
The initial stages begin with sketches on paper before moving to 3D design software. He writes, "A whole bunch of sketches were done
Now hold it right there.
Kids these days don't know how to draw with pencil and paper.
"Is it getting hot in this capsule, or is it just m....."
FWOOOFFF!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I recently attended a lecture about homebrewing a spacesuit. A professor from Portland State has always been fascinated by spaceflight and high altitude balloon flight and has designed a spacesuit. His group is called Pacific Spaceflight (pacificspaceflight.com). During his talk, he discussed what goes into designing a spacesuit and demonstrated the prototype suit they designed by pressurizing the suit (and the person wearing it) to 1-2psi above the ambient atmospheric pressure. From what they learned building the prototype they will build the flight version. Their suit is at about the tech level of a spacesuit from the Mercury program. One of his main talking points was that if everyone concentrates on one aspect of spaceflight, then it can be done affordably. Copenhagen suborbitals is working on the launch vehicle and capsule, he's working on the spacesuit. Others have other pieces of the puzzle. The Pacific spaceflight suit is the suit that will be used for a suborbital flight on the Copenhagen suborbitals vehicle hopefully some time in 2015
This is a technique known to aerospace engineers for fifty odd years.
The timing of it's original discovery and implementation had a unexpected impact on space history though... NASA first encountered the same problems with Mercury - not so much because it's size, but because all the systems were packed inside one on top of each other with no provision for access. This caused many problems during assembly and launch preps as often connections had to be broken and unrelated equipment removed to get at a part that needed replacement, repair, or adjustment. So, when NASA and McDonnell (they hadn't yet merged with Douglas) were evolving the design into the Mercury MKII and eventually Gemini, they re-arranged things. They shrunk the pressure vessel a bit, enlarged the structural shell a bit, and packed as many systems as possible into the space between and behind access doors.
But Apollo's design was already largely frozen - it retained the Mercury type design of having almost everything packed into the pressure vessel. (Yes, the design sequence goes Mercury-Apollo-Gemini, out of order from the flight order.) The result was that it was extremely difficult to work inside the Apollo capsule, to track work accomplished, and easy to damage adjacent systems and equipment - damage that was later believed to have been the source of ignition for Apollo 1.
/paulharvey