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Technology Entertainment

Rocket Racing Gets Its First Team 74

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the rednecks-of-the-sky dept.
quad4b writes to tell us Wired is reporting that the Rocket Racing League (RRL), launched last October by Granger Whitelaw and Peter Diamandis of Ansari X Prize fame, has its first official team. "Leading Edge Rocket Racing" was launched by entrepreneurs and former F-16 pilots Don "Dagger" Grantham and Robert "Bobaloo" Rickard who see this as the "next great flying experience."
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Rocket Racing Gets Its First Team More

Rocket Racing Gets Its First Team

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  • Come On Elon (Score:3, Interesting)

    by b0r1s ( 170449 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @01:40PM (#14642528) Homepage
    Once Spacex gets their launch vehicle off the ground, maybe Elon can put up some money for this, too. Come on, put PayPal's money to some good entertainment use.

  • But "Team Rocket"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04, 2006 @01:40PM (#14642530)
    They weren't even that good at catching Pokemon.

  • safely (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gcnaddict ( 841664 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @01:41PM (#14642544)
    Ill *safely* call this a gimick for now, but to be honest...

    I wont be surprised if this does end up getting off the ground in a few yea--er, decades (pun definitely intended)

    • Re:safely (Score:2, Informative)

      by POKETNRJSH ( 944872 )
      Not a gimmick. Tons of info in PopSci (was it PopMech? one of them) last month on it.

      • PopMech... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) <slashdot...kadin@@@xoxy...net> on Saturday February 04, 2006 @05:32PM (#14643341) Homepage Journal
        Not that I think this is a gimmick, but just because something makes the cover of PopMech doesn't mean it actually exists, ever will exist, or is even remotely practical. It's a pretty low bar.

        Not to say that the stuff they have on there isn't usually very cool, it just has a tendency to fail to materialize later. (Examples off the top of my head ... 1:1 reproduction of the Titanic, giant 'floating island' aircraft carrier, 747-sized gyroplanes, supersonic Skycars...).

        These are the same people who were saying in 1955 that there'd be a big lump of plutonium in everyone's water-heater in 20 years, and last time I checked, mine's not sheathed in lead. I wouldn't use it to back up any claims of possibility.
        • I remmeber a copy of Pop Mech (or was it Pop Science?) that I read perhaps 30,.. well, probably 40 years ago, published just after the Luna-1 (I think that was the name) went around the Moon and photographed the FAR SIDE OF THE MOON for the first time.
          Humans actually got to see what was on the other side!
          Of course those pesky commies named the various Lunalogic features there after Soviet heroes- Crater Mendeleyev, Mare Moscovium, Sea of Lenin, etc.
          The rag in question claimed it was all a big hoax.
  • The fact that there is no popular "airplane racing" sport to speak of should tell these people something. It's hard to watch and boring. I think they're letting their own enthusiasm for rockets cloud their reasoning.

    But hey, let 'er rip and we'll see what happens.

    • Yeah, because the popular sporting events are MUCH better.

      I don't very much care how popular something is. Why do you?

      • Re:Not going to work (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .101retsaMytilaeR.> on Saturday February 04, 2006 @01:57PM (#14642613) Homepage Journal
        I don't very much care how popular something is. Why do you?

        The point isn't whether YOU personally care about the sport, the question is whether enough people care to make it economically viable. Assuming you want it to work, you should care how popular it is.

        Yeah, because the popular sporting events are MUCH better.

        Not all popular sports are good (soccer, for example, is really a pretty damn bad sport from the standpoint of offensive/defense balance; it's far too heavily biased toward the defense), but that doesn't mean all unpopular sports are somehow more noble.

        Again, there's a reason airplane racing has never "taken off" (so to speak). It sounds good on paper (machines blazing through the air at hundreds of miles per hour!! Wow!!), but in practice there's not much to watch, and it's too much like a boat race. The first one to get the upper hand will almost always win. There are not enough variables to introduce strategy during the race. A rocket race will be worse -- they're not even as maneuverable as an airplane. It'll be more like a drag race, except they'll be gone so fast you can't see anything.

        • Re:Not going to work (Score:1, Interesting)

          by Moofie ( 22272 )
          You didn't say "economically viable". You said "popular". NASCAR and football are popular, but I'd rather rearrange my sock drawer than watch that stuff.

          The organizers think they have a business model. You think it won't be popular. We'll see who's right.

          "A rocket race will be worse -- they're not even as maneuverable as an airplane. "

          Did you even bother to look at the pictures? They ARE airplanes...with rocket engines. But you're the Reality Master, so those facts probably don't have much to do with
          • His points are fairly valid - and the fact that you have unusual taste doesn't make you the entertainment master.
            • Where were the valid points? Were they when he changed the metric from popularity to economic viability, or when he demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the vehicles in question?
              • His point that fast vehicles on loose courses make for boring races is pretty much on the money (although that's subjective), as is the correlation of popularity to economic viability. I know you don't like either one of those, but I humbly submit you aren't looking at it objectively.

                Personally, I don't care either way. I watch American football, and little else, and the popularity and viability aren't in question there. The excitement may be, but that's personal taste, again.
                • You're putting assertions in my mouth. I didn't say that popularity and economic viability were disconnected. I said that popularity is not a meaningful metric TO ME.

                  I don't know if this will be an interesting sport or not, but I don't think that popularity is going to change its interestingness to me. That's all I'm saying.

                  Am I looking at this from my own point of view? Duh, of course.
          • You didn't say "economically viable". You said "popular".

            I said both, and made the point that the two are tied together. Refusing to understand my point doesn't make it less valid.

            NASCAR and football are popular, but I'd rather rearrange my sock drawer than watch that stuff.

            Again, it's totally irrelevent what you as an individual care about. What matters is what people care about statistically when it comes to making a viable sport. If you have enough people who care and are willing to pay, then you

            • "Again, it's totally irrelevent what you as an individual care about." Nonsense. The only things I care about are things I care about. What other people care about is irrelevant to me. Of course my predilections are irrelevant TO YOU. They are, by definition, the only things that are relevant TO ME.

              This is your objective assessment? I think you need to think this through a little better.

              "They're not airplanes as such; they're rockets with wings"

              Uh, what do you think an airplane is? Is the Bell X1 not
              • You're refusing to argue against the point I'm making, and instead being deliberately obtuse and arguing against what I'm not saying.
                • *eyebrow* Okay, Reality Master. Lay it out for me. You say that it won't be popular. I say that raw popularity is irrelevant. If there's an audience, it will be successful. If there isn't, there won't be. You haven't said anything that convinces me that you've got your finger on the pulse of the sporting universe, so I assert that you don't have anything to hang your argument on.
            • Oh yeah, and you're speaking about yourself in the third person. That is definitely not a good rhetorical tactic to get people to think you have any association whatsoever with the reality the rest of us are enjoying.

              Just a thought.
        • too much like a boat race

          Except those boats races where the boats skitter across the surface of the water and occasionally take flight and cartwheel across the water shedding bits of boat as they go. That always gets in the evening news. Just like speedway car crashes.

          Rocket races need a deliberate flaw: something like having your engines started by sticks of TNT with a manually lit fuse sticking out the tailpipe. Explosions and popularity guaranteed.

        • The point isn't whether YOU personally care about the sport, the question is whether enough people care to make it economically viable. Assuming you want it to work, you should care how popular it is.

          I doubt very much that the America's Cup yacht race is "economically viable", or popular enough for many people to watch. Yet it continues.

          Just another way for rich guys to convert money into fun.

        • Re:Not going to work (Score:3, Interesting)

          by CastrTroy ( 595695 )
          Just because nobody watches it, doesn't mean it's not a good sport. I know a guy who's really into unicycling. They get big beefed up unicycles and ride around on dirt trails, jump around, and do a bunch of really fun stuff. As a sport it's pretty good. Low cost to start, $600 gets you pretty much the best unicycle there is, and you can do it just about anywhere. It's very exciting, and very rewarding, as you can judge your success on how much you can do, compare to what others can do.
        • The point isn't whether YOU personally care about the sport, the question is whether enough people care to make it economically viable. Assuming you want it to work, you should care how popular it is.

          Yes, racining requires that at least two people are interested enough and have the werewithal to make it happen.

          This may come as a shock to you in this day when every participant sport has been converted into a franchised Circus Maximus to sell a shitload of Tshirts, but there are still sporting events that lar
        • Again, there's a reason airplane racing has never "taken off" (so to speak). It sounds good on paper (machines blazing through the air at hundreds of miles per hour!! Wow!!), but in practice there's not much to watch, and it's too much like a boat race. The first one to get the upper hand will almost always win.

          That's certainly not true in yachting. The problem is that yacht races tend to be held over too large an area for spectators to be able to see most of the race. GPS and computer graphcs have solved
        • The "people to care" don't always have to be passive observers. This is a very modern phenomenon - the football (American or soccer) fans sitting on their fat arses watching other people having fun taking part in sport...

          FWIW though, there *are* adventure sports catering to the spectator market. In hang-gliding there's a discipline called "speed gliding", which is basically a hang-glider following a downhill skiing course, complete with checkpoints where they have to go under/over/round a gate. You're ri
      • Red Bull sponsors everything. I swear to god, I came home one day and my cat had a Red Bull logo painted on him. I asked him what was up and he said he needed the money because he was tired of eating god damn whiskas everyday.

    • Re:Not going to work (Score:5, Informative)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:00PM (#14642629) Journal
      no popular "airplane racing" sport to speak of
      Define popular.

      http://www.airrace.org/racingClasses.php [airrace.org]

      Those nutjobs go out and fly anywhere from 200~500 mph around a course. And they have fans.

    • Re:Not going to work (Score:2, Insightful)

      by jonv ( 2423 )
      They plan to make use of technology to make it more interesting for the spectator. Overlaying live action onto a track for spectators and letting on-line competitors join in. Should have some interest amoung the slashdot crowd.
    • I think the definitive difference between rockets and airplanes that would make this a mainstream interest is the several meter flame of hot gas spraying out the backside to keep it humming.

      Frankly, I'm sure that everyone has an intrinsic interest in seeing people steering giant fireworks to compete in a race.

      Even George Carlin would probably flip over it. Much better explosions when someone goofs up than even the Indy 500.

      How many people try to watch a launch of one of Nasa's ships?
      • I don't think you really understand airplanes very well. I also don't think you understand that the vehicles in this race will be airplanes with rocket engines, not Flash Gordon tail-sitting cylinders with fins.

    • Re:Not going to work (Score:4, Insightful)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:41PM (#14642777) Journal
      The fact that there is no popular "airplane racing" sport to speak of should tell these people something.

      Yes, that nobody has even tried it yet.

      It's hard to watch and boring.

      I'd say watching cars drive around a tiny circular course is far more boring than FRICKIN' ROCKETS.

      Besides, I seem to recall airshows being very near the top of the list of most popular spectator sports, worldwide.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Not going to work (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Reno Air Races get an attendance of over 200,000 each year.

      http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2005/09/13/10 8687.php [rgj.com]

      The EAA AirVenture Oshkosh show gets 750,000+ visitors.

      http://www.airventure.org/2006/about/history.html [airventure.org]
    • Airplane racing used to be HUGE back in the early days of aviation.

      Unfortunately, due to safety concerns (there were quite a few crashes, some of the racing courses were right over densely populated urban areas), air racing was mostly legislated out of existence.

      If these guys can come up with a reasonably safe system that remains exciting, air racing will come back.

      Keep in mind that safety and excitement are not mutually exclusive - NASCAR vehicles have so many safety systems that drivers often walk away fr
    • Prop aircraft type go so slow you can barely see them move from the ground. Jet aircraft are fast but hard to see. Rocket aircraft would be both startlingly fast, and very easy to see (because of the 20ft flame and the persistent smoke trail). They would if anything be easier to watch than NASCAR, owing to being in view all the time, rather than disappearing behind hills and bits of track furniture. Plus they could layout the track so the racers whizz past on a straight, 100 ft overhead above the viewing st
  • The rocket powered aircraft will only be able to turn left.

  • Maverick's re-engaging sir! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    was launched by entrepreneurs and former F-16 pilots Don "Dagger" Grantham and Robert "Bobaloo" Rickard

    Are all fighter pilots given nicknames and if so, are they used, as seen in the 80s classic Top Gun, as callsigns over radio? Are they painted on helmets and on the side of planes? Anyone from the services got any cool examples or stories?

    • I suspect most fighter pilots will aquire such a nickname, but no, they are almost certainly NOT used as callsigns. For a start, the radio callsign identifies the aircraft, not the pilot; secondly most militaries forbids the transmittion of names (and one assumes that includes nicknames) in radio calls.
    • Yes, most of them acquire nicknames. It's somewhat a sign of acceptance by your fellow pilots.
      No, they don't use that nick as a radio call sign.
      In the USAF, a pilot may have his name on the side of a plane, but it's not 'his' a/c. That's just for a pic to send home to mom. He flies whatever maintenance gives him that day.
      This [cloud9photography.us] pic shows the right side of an F-16, with the crew chief's name on it. Some pilots name will be on the other side [f16viper.org], sans nickname.

  • Get in on the action (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thebear05 ( 916315 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @01:51PM (#14642587)
    "Fans on the ground will see the virtual track superimposed over the action on giant TV screens as well as on specially developed handheld units. A video game also in development by the RRL will pit fans at home against actual pilots during races." their are alot of gamers out there who i think would love the oportunity to take on actual f-16 pilots

  • Rocket racing huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @01:52PM (#14642595) Journal
    Sound like just the kind of thing Joe-sixpack can relate to.
    • Not all entertainment has to appeal to the lowest common denominator. And anyway, the public don't neccesarily need to relate to something to find it entertaining, look at how popular airshows are.
    • Yes. People will die in these rocket races. People die on car race tracks. People die surfing. People die exploring Antrarctica, too.

      NASA astronauts are treated like national treasures which must be protected at any cost. The whole country goes into mourning when they die and the space program is halted for years. When people will die in these races their comrades will drink to their memory in the evening and climb into another rocket vehicle the next morning.

      These rocket races will give small companies a c
    • Well, considering they race on virtual tracks, you probably won't see many of them collect an award.

      It all seems a bit of a let down to me. I think I'd rather play on a flight simulator, watch aerobatics, or watch Alan Szabo Jr. hammer the crap out of an RC heli only 1m above the ground.

      I've always thought about having car-like races with RC planes, flying low to the ground, around and over objets etc. So I guess I was expecting something like that when I heard of this. Of course, treating full-scale ai

  • It might just be their "next great dying experience" as well.

  • Crowd pleaser.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by slashmojo ( 818930 )
    While I think its cool and certainly support anything related to the xprize and rocket technology in general, I suspect most people will only watch this for the inherant 'disaster factor' which is presumably way higher than F1 or any other form of racing plus you wont have to sit through 127 boring laps before the sh*t hits the fan so its a sure thing as far as ratings.

    Still I have no doubt people will be dying to have a go.. ;)

  • Significance; prototype test-pilot video (Score:3, Informative)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @04:56PM (#14643243) Journal
    Hm... I tried submitting this story a couple times in the past week, with no luck. I've pasted my submission below, which has a little more info on why the Rocket Racing League could be significant, and a video of former Shuttle Commander Rick Searfoss test-piloting the rocket-plane prototype:

    X Prize founder Peter Diamandis's Rocket Racing League [rocketracingleague.com] has announced its first rocketplane team [wirednews.com], headed by two F-16 pilots. The team's expected annual operating cost is up to $1 million, compared to $18 million for a NASCAR vehicle. A video is also available of former Shuttle Commander Rick Searfoss test-piloting [google.com] a prototype racer at the 2005 X Prize Cup. It's hoped that the competition will help foster the development of more robust, economical, and reliable rocket technology.

    I'm still not sure on whether or not this League will be successful. It's a neat idea, but it'll be tricky to do this well, without making it boring or too tacky.
  • I say someone should put these guys in touch with the physics students who built the drivable couch

    rocket-powered drivable couch, anyone?!?!

  • Joke (Slightly OT) (Score:3, Funny)

    by rikkards ( 98006 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @06:28PM (#14643530) Journal
    Leading Edge Rocket Racing" was launched by entrepreneurs and former F-16 pilots Don "Dagger" Grantham and Robert "Bobaloo" Rickard who see this as the "next great flying experience."

    What is the difference between a jet fighter and the fighter pilot inside it?

    The jet stops whining when it's turned off. /Thanks I'll be here all week! Enjoy the Prime Rib!
  • Anyone remember this game?

    Rocket Jockey [gamespot.com]

    This is what I was reminded of when I saw the headline. Too bad, they would never add the elements Rocket Jockey had. That would definitely get me to watch it.

    Sign me up though when people will be straddling rockets and trying to clothesline each other with ropes. :D

  • Thanks, but I'll wait for Rocket Jockey.

    http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2094 [the-underdogs.org]

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