http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=375


http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2011_05_14/IMG_1885_dr.JPG

http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2011_04_02/IMG_1105_dr.JPG



Did they really fly that with no shroud around the engine? I've never launched a rocket but I've flown my fair share of R/C airplanes and I know you shouldn't fly (outside of helis) with such unpredictable asymetric airframes. I don't think you could find a sane test pilot to go up in something like that. But what do i know...

Maybe now he can finally get back to working on Doom 4.

It looks kinda outdated compared to what we use now.....like I'm some kind of rocket expert.

It looks kinda outdated compared to what we use now.....like I'm some kind of rocket expert.

Well, compared to what NASA uses, it is child's play. I mean, NASA's stuff can get humans to the moon, while Carmack can't even get a rocket into orbit, let alone a manned rocket.

However, NASA is doing stuff like only a governmental body can do, using a semi-unlimited fund to launch things. Every pound of stuff NASA launches into space costs about $120 wholesale, and that's just fuel costs. If Carmack can eventually get his stuff up into space, he could be doing it on a budget that would make space travel reasonably priced. It would still be a once in a lifetime opportunity, but at least it would be one that an average middle class person could afford.

Did they really fly that with no shroud around the engine? I've never launched a rocket but I've flown my fair share of R/C airplanes and I know you shouldn't fly (outside of helis) with such unpredictable asymetric airframes. I don't think you could find a sane test pilot to go up in something like that. But what do i know...[/quote]

Pretty much all Armadillo vehicles (that I know) have been unmanned and use active stabilization via thrust vectoring, so this isn't as much as an issue as you'd think. In fact, there's actually a few larger rockets that have flown in weirder configurations. Look at Shuttle, for instance - it was so weird-looking that people didn't think it would ever get off the ground (before it did). For another example take a look at the different SRB configurations the Atlas V rocket can use:

[quote name='LainaLainnn' timestamp='1311456018' post='4839369']
It looks kinda outdated compared to what we use now.....like I'm some kind of rocket expert.

Well, compared to what NASA uses, it is child's play. I mean, NASA's stuff can get humans to the moon, while Carmack can't even get a rocket into orbit, let alone a manned rocket.[/quote]

If we're talking purely about human spaceflight, that hasn't been true since 1972, when Apollo 17 flew. NASA can't even get humans to the space station except through the Russians now that the shuttle has retired. The commercial crew program is supposed to remedy this, but none of the vehicles are due to come online until 2014-2015 or so as far as I know.

However, NASA is doing stuff like only a governmental body can do, using a semi-unlimited fund to launch things. Every pound of stuff NASA launches into space costs about $120 wholesale, and that's just fuel costs. If Carmack can eventually get his stuff up into space, he could be doing it on a budget that would make space travel reasonably priced. It would still be a once in a lifetime opportunity, but at least it would be one that an average middle class person could afford.
[/quote]

Actually, fuel costs are among the smallest parts of the cost of space travel. Most of it is labour costs. That's why STS (Shuttle) was as expensive as it was, it consumed ~$1.5 billion or so (I don't have the exact number on hand) per year without even launching anything. Granted, the cost per launch was supposed to go down a lot when you have a high flight rate, since shuttle had a pretty low marginal cost, but since they only few an average of about 5 flights per year instead of the 12-24 that they originally envisioned, that led to high flight costs. Armadillo Aerospace is doing things cheaper than NASA because they have fewer people working on the project. The same thing goes for a lot of the other commercial space guys, and is cited as one reason commercial spaceflight will be cheaper than government spaceflight. Less/no bureaucracy + less labour-intensive launch infrastructure = fewer people required to fly a vehicle = lower labour costs = lower infrastructure cost, in theory anyway.

I second everything in Oberon's post.

Basically the "technology" is mostly old - 1960s at the latest - and the primary challenge is operational and economic. SpaceX, for example, abandoned differentiating the first and second stage engines (except for a different nozzle shape) and has put a lot of work into manpower-light operations.

A second issue is flight rates. The Shuttle was radically complicated and thus expensive just to own, and it was designed to be cheap assuming a high number of flights. But because of design flaws I won't go into, they later decided (after Challenger and even worse after Columbia) to avoid its use.

So even though there were a number of updates planned and possible like easier to maintain main engines, reusable boosters that fly themselves back and so on, it would never be possible to be cheap and with the end of the ISS main construction it had little reason to exist.

The commercial efforts, and there are several, are all geared towards mastering the economics of it. The Moon? You can go there right now in a Soyuz if you have 150 million dollars. But if you want to do big things in space and not just fly by the next island in a 3-seat space canoe than we need this first step mastered. The Russians are not working that problem aggressively. NASA and American companies like Armadillo are.

The only alternative is if the US Congress not only bumps NASA's budget to 30 to 40 billion a year but this rate remains when the next Congress shows up, and the next one, and so on. And that right there is a piece of fantasy fiction that'd make Star Wars look like a documentary.

I mean, NASA's stuff can get humans to the moon

Nope. It can't. That was 40 years ago when they could.

Just like at one point we could build pyramids, but we no longer can or do.

However, NASA is doing stuff like only a governmental body can do, using a semi-unlimited fund to launch things.[/quote]
NASA's entire budget - everything - is around 18 billion. That includes ISS, shuttle, Hubble, probes, rockets, operations, research, fuel processing facilities, paperwork, ....

Or, as Apple would call it - a very slow quarter.

Just like at one point we could build pyramids, but we no longer can or do.

Wait, what? We some how magically lost our ability to make large piles of stone?

The Great Pyramids aren't really a complex engineering project, even by ancient standards. They're horribly labour intensive, but have nothing on something like the Parthenon as far as engineering goes.

No one builds Great Pyramids any more because there is no drive or desire to do so, and not because we can't. In high school a group of classmates spent a fall afternoon laying out the outer layer of 'stones' (actually hay bails) in a levelled field.




And in the spirit of rocketry, everyone should take a look at: Kerbal Space Program

[quote name='Antheus' timestamp='1311536857' post='4839708']
Just like at one point we could build pyramids, but we no longer can or do.

Wait, what? We some how magically lost our ability to make large piles of stone?

The Great Pyramids aren't really a complex engineering project, even by ancient standards. They're horribly labour intensive, but have nothing on something like the Parthenon as far as engineering goes.

No one builds Great Pyramids any more because there is no drive or desire to do so, and not because we can't. In high school a group of classmates spent a fall afternoon laying out the outer layer of 'stones' (actually hay bails) in a levelled field. [/quote]

[quote name='Luckless' timestamp='1311543171' post='4839743']
[quote name='Antheus' timestamp='1311536857' post='4839708']
Just like at one point we could build pyramids, but we no longer can or do.

Wait, what? We some how magically lost our ability to make large piles of stone?

The Great Pyramids aren't really a complex engineering project, even by ancient standards. They're horribly labour intensive, but have nothing on something like the Parthenon as far as engineering goes.

No one builds Great Pyramids any more because there is no drive or desire to do so, and not because we can't. In high school a group of classmates spent a fall afternoon laying out the outer layer of 'stones' (actually hay bails) in a levelled field. [/quote]





[/quote]

And that has as much in common with the Great Pyramids in Egypt as a golf ball does with the Death Star.