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ULA Interns Launch Record-Breaking 50-Foot Rocket (space.com)
schwit1 writes: A team of United Launch Alliance (ULA) interns, working in their spare time, have successfully launched the largest model rocket every built. Space.com reports: "On Sunday (July 24), ULA launched the 50-foot-tall (15.24 meters) Future Heavy rocket out of Fort Carson Army Post, breaking the record for 'the largest sport rocket launched anywhere in the world,' according to a statement from ULA. The Future Heavy is also notable because it was built entirely by company interns and their mentors. 'We like [our interns] to have a very realistic experience,' ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno told Space.com at the Space Symposium meeting in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last April." Calling it a "model rocket" really isn't fair. The thing is big, and really ranks up there with many of the suborbital rockets NASA used to routinely fly out of Wallops Island. [The fact that] ULA has provided support for this effort again suggests that the leadership of Bruno is reshaping the company into a much more innovative and competitive company.
The German V-2 rocket was smaller than this thing, and it's been accurately described as the first successful ballistic missile.
It just goes to show, depending on who builds it, something may be an enlightened amateur rocket or a dangerous enemy weapon.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Actually they meant Avery. A guy called Avery made it, and it's the largest Avery built.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Supposed to be a 1/5 th model of the Shuttle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The SRBs were 150ft tall, so 1/5 would make it only 30 feet. But there are two of them!!
[ Monday is a terrible way to spend one seventh of your life. ]
Meh. The SpaceX interns got theirs to land tail-first and is reusable!
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
It improves mine. If you intern at a company doing X, it's usually because you're interested in X. 95% of the time you end up running errands and making coffee and maybe being exposed to X a little bit, sort of by osmosis. These guys took their interns and actually let them play KSP in real life. That's awesome.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Their whole marketing department has probably come down with depression over the last few years, so it's clearly time to trot out the interns doing something fun and not particularly consequential. Maybe next year they'll do a viral video.
(For the record, I'd like to see them doing well again. The more competition at the cutting edge, the better. But they got complacent, and it looks like SpaceX is about to eat the rest of their lunch, with Blue Origin possibly stealing a bit, too.)
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
. [The fact that] ULA has provided support for this effort again suggests that the leadership of Bruno is reshaping the company into a much more innovative and competitive company.
No, what it means is that they are getting their asses beaten so badly by SpaceX that they have moved to desperation and PR tactics.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
ULA interns get paid.
That could mean anything from the mentors pretty much designed the whole thing and used the interns for unskilled labor to the mentors stood back and watched the interns to make sure nobody got killed. Kind of like like the range in FIRST Robotics.
Couple of friggin' interns built a working rocket. That means a lot of math needing to be done right, a lot of engineering problems to overcome, a lot of thinking to be done, a lot of self-reliance and a spraying of some of the gung-ho proverbial of the rocket industry. I'm taking my hat off and making a large flourish.
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"built entirely by company interns and their mentors" means the company funded it and the experienced engineers did the hard part.
Regarding the negativity, it's just one idiot. He obsessively posts the same crap in every story. Slashdot really should require people log in to post, even if they want to post AC. Then they can be tracked and banned.
I don't have my copy of the Handbook of Model Rocketry handy, what is the ISP of meth + LOX ?
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
A model rocket would have no function and would just sit there on a display stand...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Size does, in fact, matter
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Couple of friggin' interns built a working rocket.
Not by themselves they didn't. They got help from experienced engineers and someone else funded it. It's kind of like US First competitions where much of the heavy lifting is actually done by real engineers and the students watch and (hopefully) learn and help out where they can. Now these interns are undoubtedly FAR more capable than a high school student and probably did quite a lot of the actual work but they also undoubtedly had a lot of help.
It's not negativity, it's just that pretending that a bunch of interns did this on their own simply isn't true. From TFA "For the past five years, interns were given the option to work on the Future Heavy rocket as a side project (outside of normal working hours). Approximately 300 people "had a hand in" building the rocket, according to ULA, while 68 interns and 22 mentors from ULA as well as 37 interns and 19 mentors from Ball Aerospace participated this year. Interns at multiple ULA facilities were able to contribute to the project"
Note the non-trivial number of "mentors" (read experienced engineers) involved in the project. I'm pretty sure they did a lot more than sit back and drink beer while the interns did all the work.
A model rocket would have no function and would just sit there on a display stand...
You seem confused. You can build a working model of something. I've built an Estes model of a Saturn V rocket that flew. Not a very accurate model but a working model all the same.
Now calling this a "model" rocket doesn't make sense unless it is modeling some other rocket. Really this is just a rocket, not a model rocket.
What type of engine was used? Hybrid? Bi-liquid?
In addition to this, with the exception of working at a government lab, I was well paid at over $40k/year, inflation adjusted.
The median annual Engineering Aide I salary is $45,378, as of June 24, 2016, with a range usually between $39,997-$53,985 A number of students that I worked with dropped out of college because the pay was good and continue working to this day after decades. They do the same work as engineers, but are paid about 50% less for not having a diploma.
Unfortunately real engineering is mostly grunt work. You are extremely lucky if you can land a job that isn't. Even science for that matter.
Everyone has different jobs, but I would not have had spare time for outside activities.
When I was an intern, I was often the one doing the heavy lifting because I was up on the latest technology having learned it only months or weeks prior instead of having to learn about it from a journal using decades old math skills
Please point me at any college program where they teach you the real details in how to build an actual working rocket using the latest technology. I'm sure these interns are smart people and I'm sure they did a very substantial amount on this project. I'm equally sure that the rocket would never have flown if it wasn't for some very experienced (literal) rocket scientists helping out. The "latest technology" in rocketry typically is not taught in schools. That's why this is such a great project - it allows young engineers to get involved in the real nuts and bolts of building a rocket which simply isn't something you get access to normally.
I'm an engineer and quite frankly, most of what they taught me in school counted for close to nothing in the real world. While I've been an intern as well and made real and substantial contributions, I won't pretend for a moment that I was usually the one doing the heavy lifting on the engineering. Maybe you found a project where you were well positioned to lead but that's the exception that proves the rule.
The article uses confusing terminology. There are three classes of rockets (in the USA). The lowest is "model rocketry". For this you can build any airframe you want, but you can only use off the shelf engines up to size 'G'. Then there is high power rocketry. For that you can again make your own airframe and you can use engines up to class O. These first two classes must use *premade* motors. Though there are provisions in High Power for engines with consumable parts and durable parts--so the whole thing doesn't need to be replaced. The last class is amateur rocketry. For that, the sky's the limit. You need DOT explosives permits and various other certifications.
So, this article seems confusing when they say 'model' when this is likely 'high power' rocketry. Maybe even amateur rocketry, but I doubt that any intern there will have the permits. Maybe one of the full time staff did that part.
Yes, yes, that's all very nice, but did it have a Reliant Robin attached to it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
North Korea might be wanting to steal the plans, as this is more powerful and successful than any of their rocket launches...
. . .at least by the definitions used by the FAA. See CFR 14, 101.22, viz.:
101.22 Definitions.
The following definitions apply to this subpart:
(a) Class 1—Model Rocket means an amateur rocket that:
(1) Uses no more than 125 grams (4.4 ounces) of propellant;
(2) Uses a slow-burning propellant;
(3) Is made of paper, wood, or breakable plastic;
(4) Contains no substantial metal parts; and
(5) Weighs no more than 1,500 grams (53 ounces), including the propellant.
(b) Class 2—High-Power Rocket means an amateur rocket other than a model rocket that is propelled by a motor or motors having a combined total impulse of 40,960 Newton-seconds (9,208 pound-seconds) or less.
(c) Class 3—Advanced High-Power Rocket means an amateur rocket other than a model rocket or high-power rocket.
Using these definitions, in the US the rocket is legally either a "High-Power Rocket" or an "Advanced High-Power Rocket", depending on the total impulse of the motor(s), but it is clearly not a "Model Rocket."
*your
Context, people. SpaceX wins the PR battle, even when their vehicles faceplant, because that is *how* you get your ass off the planet and into space, and every engineer, technician, scientist and anybody with even a smidgen of Captain Kirk's spiritual DNA knows it. Hey look, ULA can launch rockets, too! It's bigger than even a V2! Remember those, kiddies? What? Ixnay on the V-2? That's not a good thing? Well damnit, what should we do/say? And no, don't keep showing me youtube videos of spectacular SpaceX failures. Those are failures, right? Nobody wants to see failures like that. They want successes like the V-2! Why do you keep rolling your eyes when I say V-2?
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The two are incomparable. The V2 was a power beast, fuelled by ethanol/water and liquid oxygen, it flew far higher and much further while at the same time carrying a heavy payload.
(V2 verses Future Heavy - lateral range 350 Km verses maybe 5 Km, altitude ceiling 200 Km verses 3 Km, Payload 1 ton (1000 Kg) verses maybe 20 Kg)
(Posted in wrong place before!)
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..