Make a hole with a gun perpendicular
To the name of this town in a desktop globe
Exit wound in a foreign nation
Showing the home of the one this was written for

My apartment looks upside-down from there
Water spirals the wrong way out the sink
And her voice is a backwards record
It's like a whirlpool and it never ends.

- From "Ana Ng" by They Might Be Giants

Sorry for interrupting, but since the thread was wildly off-topic anyway, I figured what the hell.

Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

Why would I want to jump in after digging the hole? I would already be in China, so jumping in would put me back on the wrong side of the planet.

No, I think I'll stick to my original plan, thank you.

Anyway, not to stray too far off topic, It seems that this guy could have picked a better lauch location than his back yard. Not only that, I would think he could find a better platform too. It would seem to be *much* less expensive for him to simply hire a large jet to carry his device aloft to a high altitude, and then use the rockets to get the rest of the way to "space".

rot13 to email

And pure H2O2 is pretty dangerous. I've used it in a semiconductor lab.

The stuff you buy at the drugstore is 3%, BTW.

And of course, you aren't about to off yourself if he succeeds, are you? :)

But anyway, call me obnoxiously optimistic, but I really REALLY hope that this fella is able to make his flight, survives, and everything goes well. You probably aren't wondering: why do I hope for this? I'll tell you. Because I want to do this too one day, damnit! When I was a little boy, I dreamt of flying into space the way Armstrong, Aldrin, Ride, and any of the other semi-mystical people the TV and my parents told me about, did.

If this guy takes this first step, as a civilian, whats to stop someone else (or maybe even he himself) from taking the next? And the next. And the next. Space travel is something I want to live to see myself, and I fear that if it stays completely in the hands of the governments that, as a civilian, I'll never get to fly there myself.

Sure, I could join the military and become a pilot or maybe transmogrify myself and become a NASA scientist or whatever, but I'd like to see the day when Joe Average Person can buy his space ticket, get on a flight, and take a jolly holiday to the moon or to the next inhabited planet over.

Is that really so much to dream?

I too hope he makes it, but this is just about as dangerous as things get, sitting on a pile of volatile rocket fuel and then lighting it on fire.
One Man Army - Dark Fractal 2000.

If he succeeds, he will have accomplished a great feat, outdoing even the greatest one-person accomplishments in history (such as crossing the atlantic in a dingy and stuff like that). Going into space really is the final frontier. I say: GOGOGOGO! :)

One Man Army - Dark Fractal 2000.

Secondly, I never said this wasn't how manned spaceflight started, or any other form of advanced new communications for that matter. I just hope he documents what he does if something goes wrong. I don't remember NASA's development of manned spaceflight ever being a one-man enterprise.
One Man Army - Dark Fractal 2000.

Okay, first off, you said the exact same thing the guy above you did. Read all the posts before replying.

We need a beowulf cluster of Natalie Portman's, naked and petrified, set up with pnuematic wrists on tracks so that they can all come by my chair and pour hot grits down my pants to feed my penis birdz while screaming for Signal11 from thier digitized speakers and holding a sign for OSM in thier other hands.

An open forum will always have a lot of "gambits" that turn up all over the place. Check out Usenet and you will find the same kind of thing. You will just have to learn to filter through the crap and try to get out the nuggets (very hard I must admit). The single most helpful thing I did was to set my lowest threshold to 0 to filter out the Anonymous Cowards and from there it's just a matter of ignoring lengthy posts that start out with "Captain Picard! We have a Natalie Portman sighting!".

One Man Army - Dark Fractal 2000.

One cure for this could be to give 1 Indistructible Karma point per day for every 10 karma you have. This point can be given to a story and cannot be moderated down! (This would only work if there is a minimum score for a story, like -2 which I think is the score at which a reply no longer appears in slashdot without special measures).

Hopefully only serious people get 10+ karma and hopefully they use them on serious posts. If the system doesn't work, then just throw it out. :)

One Man Army - Dark Fractal 2000.

Here is the link to that newspaper article (in German!): Lottogewinner

The optimum place is actually near the middle, but you can get big problems with the blue-hot exhaust playing on the outside of your big tanks full of nasty explosive fuel. That's why modern rockets usually put the nozzle at the bottom and gimble the exhaust to ensure stability.

Incidentally gravity doesn't help or hinder stability- the acceleration due to gravity is identical for all parts of the rocket at all times.

"I've failed and failed and failed" Until six or seven years ago, Walker was destitute. "The one thing I've done more in life than anything is failed," he said. "I've failed and failed and failed and failed and failed and failed."

This is good.

If he succeeds, it will convince others that space is really within our grasp. It might kickoff some real commercial attempts to get there

Considering that space travel is still suffering from the Challenger explosion, yes you are correct. But when there is a success, people usually forget the failures.

So good luck to him, he can't really do that much harm, but if he succeeds he will do much good

Speak for yourself

I don't want to "trash the earth NOW", and nothing I said could even remotely be misunderstood like that.

Guess you must be an idiot.

Have you ever heard the phrase "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"? The earth is a small and fragile basket.

I say that at least some of humanity should get off this soggy mudball ASAP, before we get hit by a meteor, or a kilogram of antimater suddenly appears in the earth's core because of a quantom glitch, or whatever.

-------- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. -Chandon Seldon

On another track, I'm a little confused as to exactly how far this man is planning on making it into 'space'. Is he trying to surpass the Earth's atmosphere in a homemade rocket? Or is it not as extreme as it seemed the first time I read the article? Because that sure seemed to be the implication, and I couldn't believe it wasn't fiction, heh.

-- [Sig-less]

Only a crackpot would try to accomplish alone something that will always take the skill of thousands of people from the top 1% of university graduates. This moron is again one of those who think that formal education is waste of time and that inventing the wheel (and failing in it) is the right way. What a dork.

On the other hand, no-one except for major governments has ever launched a manned rocket, and even for non-manned rockets, large launches are all well funded, simply because it is difficult == expensive.

Robert Frisbee, senior engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Really. The rocket scientist's name is Frisbee?

My question is, with the financial ruin of Russia, they must have buckets of rockets sitting around without enough cash for gas. Why not just pick up one of those at the Moscow Multi-Family Garage Sale? Russia may not have the hottest safety record in space, but it's gottabe safer than a barrel of hair dye in a tube!

"Why should we limit computers to the lies people tell them through keyboards" Bill Gospar, 1965, MIT

Actually, the entire Apollo mission only had 64k of RAM at its disposal. Minesweeper uses more than 64k. Puts a whole new perspective on bloatware doesn't it?

"Why should we limit computers to the lies people tell them through keyboards" Bill Gospar, 1965, MIT

"Why should we limit computers to the lies people tell them through keyboards" Bill Gospar, 1965, MIT

Sounds like the guy has all the technical challenges worked out... After all, the action-reaction stuff that drives a rocket is pretty simple.

Too bad the FAA and NASA and DOT and various other government acronyms are going to stop him.

(Unless maybe, just maybe, he gets enough public support through PR like this to keep any particular Bureaucrat from wanting to intervene. I would have kept it secret and done a "Oh? Did I need a permit?" after getting back...)

"Better to ask forgiveness than permission..." ;)

As for seeking forgiveness later, if you launch in the wrong spot, you won't be alive to seek forgiveness and neither will the people on the plane you hit.

That said, assuming that the design is not just totally stupid, which it sounds like it isn't, I don't see why the FAA would try to stop it as long as he can convince them he'll only kill himself.

As for having all the technical challenges worked out, I dunno. For one thing, he's going to be travelling at the speed of the Earth's rotation so, while gravity may keep him upright if the engines fire with exactly the same amount of thrust, I doubt he's going to come down in the same spot he took off in (or anywhere near it for that matter). There's also the technical challenge of making all the parts work together which is never easy.

So I certainly wouldn't wanna be in that thing. But I say let him fly - he'll either make space or the Darwin Awards :)
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"

Perhaps, but current algorithms for analyzing rocket plumes (as seen from military satellites) are certainly advanced enough to know the difference between a real missile threat and some guy's backyard spacecraft's retro rockets. I could tell you more, but then I'd have to kill you. ;-)

Say hello to zMac.

-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't. :P)

I fly (not quite that big) rockets for fun out in the NV desert - friends of mine made an attempt at over 100kft a while back (officially a sub-orbital flight) - the paper work is amazing - you have to do a lot of faiilure analysis, all this population density downrange statistics etc etc finally resulting in a final number estimate of the fraction of a person you will kill (statistically) during your flight ....

Personally I think he's crazy - I've seen a LOT of rockets go wrong (Murphy LOVES rockets they're his favorite thing :-) - I'd want at least a half dozen successfull unmanned flights under my belt brfore I strapped my skin into something like that

But in my posting I was refering to the next step which is where FAA jurisdiction cuts out (~100k ft I think) and the DoT OCS (I think that's what they're called) agency cuts in - their job is to make sure he doesn't drop his whopping big tank, or himself, on say Vancouver CA (or Seattle for that matter) - so when you're space shot goes awry and you're charged with 'criminal manslaughter' or whatever - we'll write you in jail ..... in whatever country you end up dropping in on .... say Turkey?

Its orbital or extra-orbital re-entry that egts fiendish beacuse of the unmatched velocities

the heat sheilds they need for re-entry are because they are using the atmosphere as a brake to match speeds with the bit of ground they want to hit (and brake's get hot)

/pedant mode off

'There is a Light that never goes out.'

Actually straight vertical re-entry is really easy

Aside from when you hit the atmosphere and go splat, like a 100 mile per hour bellyflop. After that, it's clear sailing! ;)

Reentry is always diagonal, because at those speeds, the air may as well be cement.

Entry/re-entry of the atmosphere is only the issue because things tend to be able to go so dang fast once they escape friction.

Its the use of the atmosphere as a brake that makes re-entry difficult if "other means" to match velocities were used then it wouldn't be a big deal.

"other means" have to date been more difficult of course

'There is a Light that never goes out.'

I'm not sure I agree that it's actually so terribly smart of a thing to do. I mean, the guy is planning on going 60 miles into the atmosphere. NASA supposedly defines space as starting at 62 miles up. What happens if his already rough-sounding calculations are off by a couple of percent, and he ends up in space for real? Spend the next 30 seconds desperately trying to formulate an atmospheric re-entry plan? (Make sure Gary Sinese is on call...)

Personally, I don't use any mode of travel that comes close to escape velocity. But that's just me.

I bet the Darwin Awards people are watching closely. The number of things which could go wrong is enormous.

If my memory was any good I'd put in facts and figures about the guy(s?) who went to the edge of space in a baloon and parachuted down. I'm sure that would be a lot easier than Mr. Walker's plan - and you'd get better pictures.

"I'm only carrying so much fuel. I can only go so high, and when I run out of fuel, I'll come back down."

Well, at least he's bound to get one thing right (assuming he gets off the ground in one piece).

Sorta clever too.

This is what Goddard originally thought also, but evidently it had problems so IIRC he switched to tail exhaust with some stablising mechanism.

In one of Goddards original designs he had 3 engines that were mounted on a frame which held the engines away from the body of the rocket, I thought that this had solved most of these problems

But it has been awhile so I could easily be wrong

...I'm not the guy who is going to have to scour the neighborhood, digging through body parts, in a futile attempt to find the jawbone so that a positive dental identification can be made.

Will there be lawsuit for this guy taking their idea?

RSI injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates!

But you are right, how interesting could a show about people being stranded on a desert island be?

Or a show about a bunch of strangers living in the same house.

RSI injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates!

The show didn't live up to the movie, but then, what show ever does?

But it did take them a few seasons.
--- Open standards. Open source. Open minds. The command line is the front line.

Sounds like "Lost in Space" meets "Sanford and Son" - now there's a remake I'd pay $9.50 to see at the multiplex!

I/O, I/O, it's off to sleep() I go.

What, you mean you forgot about "Homeboys in Outer Space" on UPN from a couple years ago? For shame.

(Not that I'm choked about them canceling "Nowhere Man" to bring on this classic, mind you. Nope, not me.)
--sugarman--

[I hereby grant full permission for any and all to retransmit, archive, republish and broadcast all of my postings to Slashdot, past, present and future]

Of course, if I'm not mistaken, as an american citizen, you're still governed by our agencies, what ever happened to Oceania?

No, you're thinking of Tintin's dog Snowy.

1. What is the chemical byproduct of the H2O2 > silver reaction that he is planning to use, and is it harmful?


2. Breifly explain why it is infeasible to use this reaction to power an automobile I know it's wrong, but I don't know why


3. Tell us that it is not wrong. There may be slight disadvantages but overall, it is good for the World, The Internet, the Nation, and Mollie Sue Porter
   
4. Compile the report in (3) and extend the excercise with a cost/benefit analysis.
   
5. Explain how you will make it feasible using the power of th' Internet


6. IPO!

(2)H2O2 + Ag --> (2)H2O + O2
You end up with water and oxygen (and heat)

2.Breifly explain why it is infeasible to use this reaction to power an automobile I know it's wrong, but I don't know why

A bottle of 3% H2O2 solution costs about a buck for 16 ounces at the local drugstore. Now calcuate what the 90% would cost.

--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
Slash

Or even perhaps the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulatoor

--
Cynicism is not sophistication. In fact, it is exactly the opposite.

Actually from my extensive cartoon research I have determined that on his first attempt he will either:

a) Leave the parking brake on, preventing him from going anywhere or...

b) Put the darn thing in reverse, driving him backwards into the ground approximately half the length of his ship before he corrects the problem and blasts off properly.

This post is stupid and should definitely not be moderated up... Maybe a little reverse psychology will work...

I know is is here somewhere....

"I'm only carrying so much fuel. I can only go so high, and when I run out of fuel, I'll come back down."


My mom is not a Karma whore!
Bored? Low standards? Go here

I shall cut down all who oppose my reign!

Relax... just a joke... sheesh... well, perhaps if Gates and Ellison want to visit Mars... I don't think anyone will have anyproblem with it....

It's kinda cool though... this guy has balls the size of church bells, I'll give him that... hope he doesn't have any children though... that'd suck for them.
mizhi

Still and all, if it goes well it can only be a good thing overall. Has anyone heard anythign about the X-Prize recently? Last time I checked, they were trying to get funding to sponsor an award for the first craft that could bring a crew into space twice in like two weeks. It doesn't seem to be his goal, but this "Rocketguy" just might be on track to claim the prize if he so chose...




poof

Oh, God no! Heh, I can't imagine who would play the part of Aaron Meehan (my insignificant role I mentioned in another post in this thread). Or worse, what if I'm not even included in the movie at all! Ack!

The only way it could get better is if somehow parlays it into some nookey (unfortunately, in my experience real women aren't impressed by this kind of thing, at least not from a passing on the genes standpoint).

They'll have to be women from somewhere other than Bend, Oregon, I tell you. I don't think too many have been that impressed so far (except maybe by his BMW Roadster, ow!) Oh, that's all I should say in a forum such as this :-) Now, if he succeeds... we'll just have to see if I should start following him around the bars. ;-)

- Aaron Meehan

As someone who knows the man I can say this is somewhat true. Brian is a very smart, very decent man who has made a good deal of money. Yes, toys! The first time I met him was at a local bar and he was showing off a completely useless laser gadget that he had invented that probably made him mucho dollars. Ahh, useless to me, anyway.

Much later, while enjoying a good local beer after work one day, Brian told me about his rocket plan, and that he wanted a domain name -- rocketguy.com. I honestly thought he was crazy, but knew if anyone could do it, it would be Brian. I do remember thinking that he probably needed a girlfriend...

For reasons unknown to me he transferred his web site elsewhere. Too bad -- I would have liked to see if our web server could survive a slashdotting. :-)

Quite a few people are gaining karma making smartass comments about Brian and his plan. I understand why people are tempted to do that, but I would ask a favor: think at least one good thought about the man, whether you feel him brave or stupid (or both :-), because he is a good man who deserves our best wishes. (I almost shudder to think what other peoples' good thoughts might be.. ;-)
- Aaron Meehan

This .sig is here to make you think, "Him again?"

Subj: Tornado Shelter on Launch Day

'Cause, reading the article, the guy looks like he might actually get off the ground. (FAA may or may not be the only sticky point.)

I'll bet money that this will end badly for both him and his neighbors.

In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that:

--Forager

A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe, 'The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.'

Article text... blah blah blah

It sounds crazy.

More article text... blah, blah, blah...

Posted with mozilla

There is a 10 million $ prize for the first private space shot, but you have to reach 100km.

Oh well, I guess he's not doing it for the prize anyway, but it seems like a shame to risk your life and not get the honor. I think there is some other millionare using a much more sensible approach involving a 747 boosted rocket plane.

For more information, check out http://www.xprize.org/.

Correction: For "space", read "smithereens".

If you look through the history books, there are so many CRAZY things that have to happen in order for something truly new and great to occur, and yes, people have to take incredibly retarded chances.

I really think that this is just stupid enough to work, and when it does I'll be more excited than during any other boring old space launch on CNN.

Hmm, anyone know what Joey Skaggs is up to lately ? :)

It doesn't guarantee the comments are his, of course.

I'm going to turn off my cynicism filter for a while and wish the guy luck (he's going to need it!)

zaugg

So - if the FAA doesn't give him a license, and he blasts off into space without one, will they allow him to re-enter US airspace after he re-enters orbit?

And what kind of fine will they impose on him?

The only picture of the hovercraft moving, it shows what looks like a rope, pulling it forward.

There are no pictures of the sub submerged, either.

Maybe it's early yet and they're not at that stage of development... Or, maybe not.

20% of the comments here express concern that the rocket is going to veer off course and land in either the guy's neighborhood, Kansas or some third world country. Lets review the facts:

• The rocket is expected to go 30 miles, straight up, from a desert in Oregon. One presumes that he will truck his rocket out to the middle of nowhere to keep clear of population.
• The capsule doesn't appear to have substantial wings. Left to its own devices, it won't glide all over the planet.

The world isn't going to end when this guy launches his rocket.

Could a change in the tank design elimnate the danger of this? I vaugely remember a technique where the fuel tank was divided by a honeycomb lattice from top to bottom -- effectively spliting the main tank into many (dozens...thousands) of small storage cells.

An inert plastic bag could possibly be used instead of metal to reduce the weight and distribute the pressure.

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Plaintiffs also contend that parachute jumping falls within the right to travel protected by the Fourteenth Amendment."

Skydiving Ctr. v. St. Mary's County Airport Comm'n, 823 F. Supp. 1273, 1279 n.2 (D. Md. 1993).

...in my pocket. It happens at times like these, whenever I gaze at your mom's lovely form (I'm posting from bed with my cell phone).

The only way to stop it would be to shoot it down...and I can't seriously believe that ANY government would sanction such an action.

It is rumored (or more?) that the USA has lasers that can fry satelites.

This guy's experiment isn't really applicable to satelites anyway, as his rocket isn't powerful enough to reach orbit.

It is rumored (or more?) that the USA has lasers that can fry satelites.

More. :)

The US has the cleverly named MIRACL (Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser), which was recently involved in a (controversial) test, where it fried some poor old satelite.

Not from the UK you can't. Or at least, not without Official Approval.

The Outer Space Act 1986 (and when you see a title like that in the index of statutes you just have to go look it up!) provides that you're not allowed to launch anything into space (I forget the precise definition) from UK territory without a government license.

[TOUTING]Anyone planning a stunt like this, do please get in touch for more detailed advice...[/TOUTING]

--

AndrewD

To crush my enemies, drive them before me, and hear the lamentations of their clients/

Not as silly a suggestion as I think was intended. I seem to recall there's been some work done on ship-mounted satellite launching systems - they offer flexibility in launch sites (some latitudes are better than others for some orbits) and no problems with protests from people living downrange of the launcher.

--

AndrewD

To crush my enemies, drive them before me, and hear the lamentations of their clients/

Why not build a monument to the "foolishness" of the Challenger 7 rather than to their "heroism"?

It's like when The Villiage Voice did an "expose" on Biosphere II. This "muck-racking counter-cultural rag" seemed incapable of appropriating similarly jaundiced coverage to NASA in proportion to the money wasted and hubris exhibited.

Ayn Rand would, of course, have a lot to say about this, but I think it goes beyond mere disrespect for "individualism" -- it is a loss of masculinity in the culture expressing itself in a rather dishonest fashion.

As I toasted on this last Mother's day:

"Our mothers risk their lives to bring us into this world so that we may risk our lives to disobey them."

Mama's boys have trouble leaving the womb -- just as humanity has trouble leaving the planet.

What heroism? They were told that the shuttle made space so safe, you could send schoolteachers & congressmen up. The heroes were the early astronaughts, who got to see rockets blow up, and then a few months later, they sat upon those same rockets putting their trust in the rocket scientists getting it right this time.

The Mercury & Vostok men knew that they were risking their lives, yet they still did it. That's the mark of a hero.

Is he going to be carrying an onboard GPS or other sort of positioning unit. Will someone donate it to him - I can see interest in watching the flight real-time.

With kind regards, Lion-O

"If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter."

- Pascal -

"If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter."

- Pascal -

"If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter."

- Pascal -

-------
CAIMLAS
(place random stupidity here)

Should be a pretty spectacular show. Here's hoping for a webcast!

Camaron de la Isla 'When I sing with pleasure, my
mouth tastes of blood'

This is the year 2000, and what's so odd about someone building a rocket?

Dr.E
AirCamper.org's temporary home

Does anybody have any information on the groups of Australians who have been working for the last few years on their own attempt at a privately built manned orbiting rocket?

I remember seeing a programme on the BBC (in the UK) on the group, they were pretty serious and had built two or three successful prototypes of increasing size and complexity. As I remember from the prototype they were getting close to building rockets that could carry human weight payloads, and were starting to be given some funding from the Australian Government (or military, maybe). Until I saw the programme I thought private attempts were a bit of a joke but these guys were going for it. All very serious, the Oz authorities looked like they were letting them use an old missile testing range and control centre, getting very real. Actually having visited Cape Canaveral last summer and actually seeing the Mercury rocket and capsule, I realise that there's not such a great divide between these private attempts and the first mad scrambles into space those decades ago...

Anybody got any details/ updates on these guys?

The Rocket Guy Package
Includes:

• 1 rocket
• 6 boosters
• 1 centrifuge
• 1 launch pad
• 7,000 gallons of fuel
• And other accessories

Or, try The Rocket Guy Deluxe Package: Includes everything from the Rocket Guy Package plus

• Cosmonaut training
• Skydiving training
• Funeral Arrangments (Just in case).

(Now where'd I put my Christmas list...?)

That looks like one of those eight inch long styrofoam airplane toys that you buy for a couple bucks at the toy store and launch with a plastic stick and rubberband.
---
seumas.com
gothicauctions.com

This is going to be the craziest bleach-job known to man.
---
seumas.com
gothicauctions.com

Nah, forget the rocket-powered motorcycle. You're better off using a jet engine.

On the workbench in my garage at the moment is an old General Electric J-85 jet engine. It's about 19" long, 12" in diameter and weighs about 150 lbs. It's a very compact jet engine, used as a thruster on helicopters. I work for a *big* Pentagon contractor - you'd know who if I dropped the name - and I happened to be in the right place at the right time when it was declared to be no longer airworthy. (Though, while I haven't run it yet, I've seen it run, and I know it still works.)

Sitting beside it is my old 1980 Chevrolet Chevette, which is powered by a Buick 3.8L V6 that I stuffed in during an otherwise boring weekend.

Now, the Chevette is plenty fast enough with the Buick 3.8L V6; drag strip tests have showed the car turning a quarter mile in 12.8 seconds. In fact, the car now has serious structural problems owing to too much horsepower for the car's body to deal with. I'm addressing these with a full tubular frame.

Even so, the Chevette will only weigh 1,600 lbs. The GE J-85 is rated for a thrust of about 2,200 lbs.

Since the engine's thrust is greater than the weight of the car, it's likely that, under full power, the J-85 could accelerate the car with a force greater than 1G. (This is what a mechanical engineer friend of mine came up with when he did the numbers for me.) And that's *without* adding in the thrust of the 3.8L V6.

The beauty of a jet engine as opposed to a rocket is that you can turn it off or scale back the power. Once you've lit the rocket, it's going. And then you're dealing with another JATO-Impala Darwin Award...

When I've mounted this engine, you can rest assured that I will try it out very carefully. 10% power (~220lbs) is more than enough thrust to know that the jet engine is working. I have no need to try to see how fast I can make a Chevette travel; it's all about acceleration.

The goal is to turn my faithful old Chevette into the world's first street-driveable jet-powered car. With the Buick V6 running, the car will be a fast street-driveable car. And when I've driven the car up to the drag strip and there are no tinfoil Hondas with plastic bumpers behind me, I'll pull off the covers and fire up the jet engine.

I'm all for speed, excitement, and building novel things just for the sake of doing it, but I think a little care should be exercised in any such exploit.

Yeah, actually, I'm aware of that, and it frightens the piss out of me. Hugh and I have been doing a little bit of planning for the angle at which the engine will have to be mounted in order to ensure that the exhaust will produce downward thrust enough (but not too much!) to maintain control. I think a little low-speed, high-thrust bursts trial-and-error will be the order of the day here. But I'm not really close to that point yet...

Being a helicopter-designed engine, the altitude ratings are significantly lower than that. They're trimmable, first off, so that they will produce maximum thrust in a lower altitude range... around 750-1500 feet. I'm already that high above sea level where I live. They also have huge (for the engine's overall size) compressor fans, owing to the hovering that helicopters tend to do. So yeah, they're both issues, but not really overly so - this engine is as well suited to automotive use as any aviation engine I've ever seen.

That must have been a hell of a ride in your friend's VW... too bad it didn't work out as well as was hoped. :)

For those of you interested in this sort of thing, without the added bonus of nutjobs like the protagonist in this article, there are many serious high-powered rocketry enthusiasts and groups throughout the US and the world.

The most successful is Tripoli, the high-powered rocketry association.

Also of interest is the Reaction Research Society, who has been looking for a real amateur space shot for a few years now...50 miles up.

Check em out. Part of this complete breakfast

If you want to send me email, I ain't no monkeyboy.

I was amazed to find out that some of my Mech. E. friends from college are happily building a rocket to launch to over 100km. I guess this is their equivalent of a little open source project on the side (and I'm wondering why I majored in CS if they get to build rockets). Apparently any Joe with enough perserverance (in this case a few 22 year olds) can go purchase enough liquid oxygen to blow themselves and a small town sky high, machine a few parts and stick it together, fill out nice forms for the FAA and friends, then send the whole thing sky high. Very cool.

Of course, I keep trying to convince them it should be computer guided so I can get in on the action, but they wisely seem to favor "simpler is better."

-m

There's actually a competition on right now for the first person or company to successfully launch a Spacecraft into orbit and sucessfully bring it back, and then repeat it within two weeks (Project X I beleive, Sorry, don't have the URL). Maybe he'll win this. It's a 10 Million Dollar Prize. I say good luck to him.

In particular, he needs to learn about guidance. His plan (if reported accurately, which is unlikely at best) will fail miserably -- once he is flying gravity will have no influence whatsoever on his orientation. A V2 (similar in scope to what he is working on) had both huge fins and thrust vectoring vanes to keep it stable. He desparately needs some kind of active guidance or he's going to end up a smoking hole in the ground.

Of course, if he's an engineer he probably knows this and the article was reported poorly.

thad

On his web page he writes:

What about guidance systems? The thrust will come out at the top of the rocket. An early American pioneer Robert Goddard did the same thing with his early test rockets. The rocket should "hang down" from the thrust like a pendulum. Since he is going straight up in the middle of a large desert there is no need for precise guidance.

Although Goddard's initial experiments had the propulsion nozzle in front, he quickly came to the conclusion that the nozzle placement has nothing to do with stability. This led him to develop gyroscopic control systems and to experiment with using deflector vanes in the exhaust to stabilize the flight through active feedback.

As any model rocket enthusiast can tell you, if you are going to make do with a passive control system, the important factor is to keep the center of pressure (CP) behind the center of gravity(CG). Objects in flight tend to rotate around the CG. The CP is roughly the sum of the aerodynamic forces. Adding fins to the tail of a rocket or airplane moves the CP aft, increasing the stability.

If you keep the CP behind the CG, a small perturbation in flight angle will tend to get cancelled out. This is the effect that makes a dart fly straight.

If the CP is in front of the CG, perturbations tend to increase and the system becomes unstable. If you try to throw a playing card without spinning it, it will flip end over end, for that particular reason: once it has turned slightly to the side, the aerodynamic forces will tend to increase the angle of attack.

On his web page there appears to be a small capsule with the engines that is set up so it is "towing" a fuel tank. I have no idea where the CG is going to end up, but I expect the CP to be pretty close to the front.

Judging by his assertion that nozzle location will make it stable, I hope that someone with a clue reviews his design for him before he spends too much money on his Kevorkian device

If he does try to fly it, I want to be far far away. -Jeff Bell

This was in memepool several days ago.

-p.

Grits! & Pronoblem

Hey, what's this button do? Everybody calmly file out, nothing to see here.

Not a bad though actually. A Dozen and a quartet of people with either a fatal or perfect (we'll have to see if he comes back in one or many pieces to determine that) mixture of brains, balls, and insanity. The world would be a lot more of an interesting place if we had more people like this around. We'd probably already have a colony on the moon and the first manned rocket to mars would be on its final approach. I think too many people have forgotten how to dream, which is worse than 1,000 space disasters. This guy should be applauded.

Who am I, and why am I over there?