1 Amateur Rocket Crashes, Another Explodes

prostoalex writes "A 23-foot-long space rocket carrying 3 dummies exploded in the Pacific Northwest after reaching about 200 feet. The team was competing for Ansari X Prize, offering $10 million to the team that successfully completes a low-budget private space rocket capable of carrying men into space. Google News offers more perspectives into the event, the team is saying the rocket, whose parachute malfunctioned, would have to be rebuilt." And AmiNTT writes "Everygeek's favorite rocketeers over at Armadillo Aerospace have suffered a fairly serious setback over the weekend - the crash of their 48-inch vehicle link in a test hop at their 100 acre test field. Of course there is video and pictures - 2 3... This setback should keep them from flying for about five weeks, but will give them a chance to make some design changes. I'm sure they will be back better than ever. (Armadillo have shown up on Slashdot many times in the past.)"

"The Right Stuff", part 2?

[oostevo]

Did anybody else look at that video and immediately remember the montage sequence from The Right Stuff with archival footage of NASA's rockets blowing up?

That didn't set them back, and somehow I don't think this will set back these private experimenters either.

You can get your own genuine space rocket debris!

[johnnliu]

http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Ho me/Paraphernalia [armadilloaerospace.com]

Check the bottom for Armadillo Droppings.

Re:Armadillo aren't stopping...

[Kris_J]

I don't believe the proportion of costs of launch vs development are clear cut enough to justify the "Uh" at the beginning of your post. While I don't have figures at hand, launch prices appear to be in the order of US$80m-US$100m. I'm sure it costs a lot more than that to develop and build most satellites. This article [space.com] suggests value in some sort of satellite support system, though it's discussing pushing satellites into higher orbits or repairing/refueling them in space, rather than returning them to Earth.

Re:poor dummies

[Aadomm]

Oh come on, people all over the world endanger themselves in ridiculous undertakings all the time even without financial incentive. There is the annual 'running down a hill chasing a rolling cheese' race in England just for starters. At least the X prize has the advantages of both producing some interesting and potentially useful new technology and providing a fantastic spectacle for the rest of us. I am sure the pilots are all fully aware of the risks and would still tell you they are having the times of their lives.

Re:"The Right Stuff", part 2?

[feargal]

To be exact, they haven't done any test flights yet. They haven't revealed when they will do them, but have stated that they do have a number of drop tests scheduled.

I do share your fear though, in Wild Fire's case the project leader, Brian Feeney, will be the pilot so I remain optimistic that adequate testing will be done. If not, at least he's not playing with other people's lives.

Prizes can also lead to shoddy engineering

[Morgaine]

It seems as if there's a lot of cool stuff being developed by the impetus of the prize.

Looking at SpaceShipOne, I have to agree. But on the other hand, looking at Armadillo ....

This had also happened on the previous 12" engine after a few runs (you could see a couple red hot catalyst rings fly out in one of the static test videos). It didn't seem to be progressive last time, so we went ahead and left it alone, expecting the test run to squash the rings down into an interference fit again.

Rings fly out of the engine and they aren't too worried? They think rings may be loose but they expect them to squash down to interference fit again? Words fail me.

There's good engineering and there's also appalling engineering covered in wishful thinking and viewed through rose-tinted spectacles. The X-Prize has very worthy goals, but it's sad that by setting a date and making it a race, it necessarily attracts also those who are totally out of their depth in the kind of engineering discipline required for such an endeavour.

This is sloppy work

[Ge10]

Rocket science is not easy, but almost all of Armadillo's mishaps were due to easily forseeable problems, such as:

*battery connectors coming off
*no protection against inductive kickback(essential around any combination of electromechanical and electronic devices)
*not restricting allowable user inputs (ie joystick)
*underrated power transistors for drive unit (this is very basic stuff)
*finally, not setting minimum fuel level for takeoff

When you are dealing with a field as complex as this, you can't afford to make such stupid mistakes.

Re:This is sloppy work

[Ge10]

It doesn't take a rocket scientist, it just takes someone with a moderate understanding of fundamental electronic principles. John Carmack is no dunce, but like other programmers seems to place a far stronger emphasis on practical implementation rather than theory. This is a great approach for software design, but not when you're dealing with components which will progressively weaken then fail.

Re:Bah! Amateurs!

[Mongo222]

Actually what Armadillo is doing is far more complicated than the design that scaled composites is using.

SC is taking thoroughly engineered airplane concepts and strapping a rocket engine to it. They have no autonomous vehicle control system, a pilot is the control. It's all down to aerodynamics and piloting, concepts that are very well understood at this point in their development.. Their engine was designed by an outside firm to their specs and paid well for it.

Armadillo has come up with a new engine chemistry and by engineering and trial and error to the point where they now have a engine that can run with a single propellant, that is easily obtained and cheap. They can use a single pressure vessel to hold the propellant, and with their current engine design is hypergolic (self igniting). They have also successfully designed a built a computer system capable of vertical take off and landing and all the balancing and control issues implied with it. Both of these are infant technologies and Carmack and crew should be congratulated on developing a lot of new technologies and pioneering new ground. The only thing that even comes close to complexity of the control system they have is the now mothballed Delta Clipper launch system.

While I fully support Burt Rutan and the Scaled Composites effort, and expertise in implementation of their chosen design, I have to give Props to Carmack and crew for doing more new engineering and pioneering. What they are doing really is cutting edge work.