JC's test liftoff successful...

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/armadillo_test_040617.html

Next stop Mars... ;)

heh, cool.
rockets are long, hard and fast. just like action doom!

I don't see how sending stuff 131 feet in the air has anything to do with sending three people 62 miles into the air.

Its proof of concept before they actually blow a wad of money on a huge experimental rocket.

That and they're both in the same direction :P

AndrewB said:

I don't see how sending stuff 131 feet in the air has anything to do with sending three people 62 miles into the air.

Because if they have all the technology to make a rocket go up 131 feet and land perfectly, then basically all they need to go up 62 miles is a bigger rocket and more fuel.

Here's their publicly accessible web site.

Linguica said:

Because if they have all the technology to make a rocket go up 131 feet and land perfectly, then basically all they need to go up 62 miles is a bigger rocket and more fuel.

Without tearing and/or burning up? I don't see how you can increase the scale of a project by 2500 times without running into new complications.

AndrewB said:

Without tearing and/or burning up? I don't see how you can increase the scale of a project by 2500 times without running into new complications.

2500 times? maybe if the mechanical parts changed by that scale you'd have a point. The real difficulty is re-entry from space and the technology is already there and proven.

Sure there will be niggles, thats why you build a model that won't leave a big crater when something goes wrong.

I don't know, it seemed like Ling might have been being sarcastic right there.

AndrewB said:

Without tearing and/or burning up? I don't see how you can increase the scale of a project by 2500 times without running into new complications.

They're not increasing the scale by 2500 times, they are merely running the rocket engine for a longer time. The rocket is designed in such a way that it doesn't "burn up" at all -- there's no ablation or other planned degradation of the parts during a flight, and Carmack has said that they could theoretically turn it around and do a second hop an hour later. Remember, this is not an "orbital" vessel, which by definition needs to accelerate to like 18,000 MPH or something to stay in orbit. This ship is basically going straight up and straight down.

The rocket is going FASTER in the space jump, sure, but the accelerations involved aren't particularly any greater, and certainly not anything close to 2500 times greater. If they have the control systems down to where they can go up a significant distance and come right back down on a dime, the only big thing stopping them from going up indefinitely is how much fuel they can hold.

That's not the only thing stopping them from going up indefinitely. You forgot to mention that after a certain point up is no longer a distinguishable direction! :D

LOL

That post was almost as useful as this one.

They are limited to 15 seconds of thrust time by the federal government. Please check your local laws before launching all space bound aircraft. Thank you, have a nice day.

According to Carmack they can travel 1/5 of a mile with the test model.

The really amazing thing is firing a rocket into the air and getting it to land exactly from where it launched off. This may initially seem like being as difficult as playing moon lander(really easy). But factor in real world physics and the fact that the rocket is homemade and you have yourself a winner. My only question is that with the h202 propellent, doesnt the excess water released dampen the thrust a great deal? It only burns at ~3000F according to carmack, too low to actually cause water to molecully seperate and further combust.

I am really excited by all this, not just Carmack but AirSpaceOne which is launching on this monday. Hopefully they are plagued by non-fatal problems allowing Carmack to be the first person to have a private space ship enter space. The title of the headline afterward would be :

John Carmack, game programmer, solely fends off unexpected alien invasion, underbudget.
When reached for comment on when the complete destruction of the alien homeworld would take place, Carmack responded, "When it`s done"

Captain_obvious said:

They are limited to 12 seconds of thrust time by the federal government. Please check your local laws before launching all space bound aircraft. Thank you, have a nice day.

They are limited to 15 seconds of thrust time by the federal government. Please check your facts before posting. Thank you, have a nice day.

Fredrik said:

They are limited to 15 seconds of thrust time by the federal government. Please check your facts before posting. Thank you, have a nice day.

eh big deal.

so like how are they gonna know they went for 20? also would they really do anything to them, well best not to push their luck.

this is really cool though.

next they need to do a orbital and a space walk.

i think it is a good idea because it gets more people involved. also with restricted budgets people can find cheaper and easier ways to get into space

Sephiroth said:

so like how are they gonna know they went for 20? also would they really do anything to them, well best not to push their luck.

Because they are law abiding citizens with nothing to gain and everything to lose from pissing off the feds.

Captain_obvious said:

My only question is that with the h202 propellent, doesnt the excess water released dampen the thrust a great deal? It only burns at ~3000F according to carmack, too low to actually cause water to molecully seperate and further combust.

IANARS but from what I understand, they were originally using 90% peroxide which worked fine until they could no longer find a supplier willing to deal with them. So what they're using now is 50% peroxide mixed with some certain amount of methanol, which provides the extra kick in the pants needed for full combustion. From what Carmack has said, it's actually a little better than the 90% peroxide in terms of performance, plus it's a whole lot cheaper.

Peroxide burns at something south of 2000 F, which isn't nearly high enough to separate the water into its component parts. But that doesn't matter since the gas/steam generated is plenty for their purposes. They're just trying to go into space, not set a new speed record.

THIS JUST IN: TERRIBLE SPACE TRAGEDY HOLDS OFF RELEASE OF DOOM 3 INDEFINITELY! ACTIVISION STOCKS PLUMMET!

John Carmack of id software yesterday was found dead upon landing after a test space flight. Logs indicate that some terrible secret encountered in space during the flight caused instrument failures. Radiation and Venus were implicated, but their roles are so far unknown. More news at 10.

OMFG R U SERIUS!!1

Yes. Yes I am.

Wow, you've really spammed up this thread.

Seems like another team is ahead of the game.

KoRn said:

Seems like another team is ahead of the game.

On the other hand John Carmack doesn't need another half-dozen Ferraris.

SpaceShipOne's flight was successful, and it indeed entered space for a short time.

Grimm said:

Wow, you've really spammed up this thread.

It was more of a troll, and you helped to feed it. Congratulations!

so someone beat carmack into space.

i thought the X-prise was for 1 person to go into space and to do it agian in less than 2 weeks. also i thought there was a limit on how much the craft could cost.

Sephiroth said:

so someone beat carmack into space.

i thought the X-prise was for 1 person to go into space and to do it agian in less than 2 weeks. also i thought there was a limit on how much the craft could cost.

3 people