The Carmack 100kft Micro Prize

[Blackjax]

In discussions on the mailing list aRocket of the relative difficulty of launching a rocket to 100,000 feet, John Carmack established a $5,000 prize for the first person or group to reach that goal.

http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=376

Several other people have supplemented his funds to kick the prize amount up above $10k

I'm thinking they should start a Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/ project to enable smaller contributions to the prize. Alternately, perhaps there should be other prizes created for different things via Kickstarter (or similar service) that are started grassroots from within the enthusiast community. Ideas anyone?

[Downix]

You do realize as I am sitting here working on an injector cup for my own pressure fed rocket engine which should reach 20klbs, this is more than doable.....

Hmm, time to ask the wife if that would be an ok use for my summer projects time.

[Robotbeat]

You do realize as I am sitting here working on an injector cup for my own pressure fed rocket engine which should reach 20klbs, this is more than doable.....
...

It should be noted that the main motivator to this project (started on the ARocket--Amateur Rocketry--mailing list) was to get the constant stream of people who say, "pssh, 100kft and recovery is easy peasy" to put up or shut up.

It's a hell of a lot harder than you think. I'd be impressed if you even end up running a successful ground test of a rocket engine that can generate even 10klbf of thrust. And the engine itself is just a small part of the whole rocket. Doing it with a liquid rocket is probably the hardest way to do it. At that level, solids are probably a much better approach (as I continue to work on my own bipropellant rocket...).

[jongoff]

You do realize as I am sitting here working on an injector cup for my own pressure fed rocket engine which should reach 20klbs, this is more than doable.....
...

It should be noted that the main motivator to this project (started on the ARocket--Amateur Rocketry--mailing list) was to get the constant stream of people who say, "pssh, 100kft and recovery is easy peasy" to put up or shut up.

It's a hell of a lot harder than you think. I'd be impressed if you even end up running a successful ground test of a rocket engine that can generate even 10klbf of thrust. And the engine itself is just a small part of the whole rocket. Doing it with a liquid rocket is probably the hardest way to do it. At that level, solids are probably a much better approach (as I continue to work on my own bipropellant rocket...).

Robotbeat,

I'm glad you made this point, as a lot of the other media places that have picked up this (5 month old) story have missed the reasoning behind this. Carmack has also offered other prizes for rocket engine performance and such. The reality is that almost everyone who gets into this industry (myself being no exception) reads the textbooks, thinks they know everything, can't understand why everyone else are such screwups, and how it should be easy for someone to do tons better. Sometimes they may be right (about it being possible to do better), but usually this is when the hard knocks start.

~Jon

[Downix]

You do realize as I am sitting here working on an injector cup for my own pressure fed rocket engine which should reach 20klbs, this is more than doable.....
...

It should be noted that the main motivator to this project (started on the ARocket--Amateur Rocketry--mailing list) was to get the constant stream of people who say, "pssh, 100kft and recovery is easy peasy" to put up or shut up.

It's a hell of a lot harder than you think. I'd be impressed if you even end up running a successful ground test of a rocket engine that can generate even 10klbf of thrust. And the engine itself is just a small part of the whole rocket. Doing it with a liquid rocket is probably the hardest way to do it. At that level, solids are probably a much better approach (as I continue to work on my own bipropellant rocket...).

I never said easy, I said doable.  And I'd be happy with 1,000 lbf, honestly.  But the design is rated to 20,000 lbf by my math, so we shall see.  It's more a case of seeing if modern manufacturing techniques can deliver on a design which previously was too complex to build.

[Robotbeat]

You do realize as I am sitting here working on an injector cup for my own pressure fed rocket engine which should reach 20klbs, this is more than doable.....
...

It should be noted that the main motivator to this project (started on the ARocket--Amateur Rocketry--mailing list) was to get the constant stream of people who say, "pssh, 100kft and recovery is easy peasy" to put up or shut up.

It's a hell of a lot harder than you think. I'd be impressed if you even end up running a successful ground test of a rocket engine that can generate even 10klbf of thrust. And the engine itself is just a small part of the whole rocket. Doing it with a liquid rocket is probably the hardest way to do it. At that level, solids are probably a much better approach (as I continue to work on my own bipropellant rocket...).

I never said easy, I said doable.  And I'd be happy with 1,000 lbf, honestly.  But the design is rated to 20,000 lbf by my math, so we shall see.  It's more a case of seeing if modern manufacturing techniques can deliver on a design which previously was too complex to build.

Are you on the ARocket mailing list? I highly recommend it. ***ESPECIALLY*** if you're making a rocket engine! People there have a lot of experience doing the exact same thing you're trying to do, (relatively) a lot of them are in the process of doing it, and they are usually very helpful.

EDIT:Lots of practical advice, theory, and links to similar projects. THE best source for that sort of thing on the Internet. Also, Armadillo Aerospace's news archives are full of all sorts of liquid rocket engines.

[Danderman]

About 20 years ago, I attended a rocket exposition held at Gardena high school in the Los Angeles area. The floor of a high school gym was littered with exhibitors; at that time, the flavor du jour was to show an Atlas vernier engine as the main engine of the rocket. Anyway, probably at least a dozen entities were there with part or all of a liquid fueled rocket, all of them claiming to be able to fly at least 50 miles up with their rocket.

As far as I know, none ever launched.

When it comes to rockets, talk is cheap. Apparently, so is exhibiting hardware.

A few years later, I prepared a $250,000 prize for the first amateur rocket to hit 200 kilometers altitude. As the prize neared an announcement, the representatives of the person providing the cash went to an LDRS, and were told by the participants that our prize was stupid, because someone would win it in just 2 weeks from the announcement - the prize would be too easy to win.  So, the representatives of the donor got all agitated since it appeared they were throwing their money away. Based on the Gardena experience, I told them not to worry.

[Jason1701]

Whatever happened to that prize, Danderman?

[Danderman]

Whatever happened to that prize, Danderman?

http://archive.spacefrontier.org/Projects/CatsPrize/

[LegendCJS]

Whatever happened to that prize, Danderman?

http://archive.spacefrontier.org/Projects/CatsPrize/

According to the information on that link at least two competitors for the Cheap Access to Space prize reached over 100kft in 1997.  Would those competitors have qualified under Carmack's prize rules if they had achieved those feats today?

[Moe Grills]

You do realize as I am sitting here working on an injector cup for my own pressure fed rocket engine which should reach 20klbs, this is more than doable.....

Hmm, time to ask the wife if that would be an ok use for my summer projects time.

20,000Ibf of thrust? ...That's awesome for a private citizen's project.
Don't disturb your neighbors with the static tests though.
 
By comparison the first stage of the Vanguard rocket that put America's 2'd artificial satellite in orbit had about 28,000Ibf of thrust at liftoff.

As for 100,000 foot altitudes for private citizen rockets?
A private group did send up a sounding rocket they made a few years ago to a 79 mile high altitude.
Then some other rocket group sent up a tube payload to 50 miles
at Black Rock Desert.

Besides money, and government regulations, the obstacles
are?
Power, sustainability and control.

[hop]

Besides money, and government regulations, the obstacles
are?
Power, sustainability and control.

I would put testing over the last three. It is very difficult for a private, low budget player to do envelope expansion up to 100kft. Sure, you can go to Spaceport America or Black Rock or a few other places, but the logistics and scheduling constraints tend to encourage rushed, Hail Mary attempts rather than incremental improvement. Armadillo and Copenhagen Suborbitals both provide recent examples of this.

[Robotbeat]

Besides money, and government regulations, the obstacles
are?
Power, sustainability and control.

I would put testing over the last three. It is very difficult for a private, low budget player to do envelope expansion up to 100kft. Sure, you can go to Spaceport America or Black Rock or a few other places, but the logistics and scheduling constraints tend to encourage rushed, Hail Mary attempts rather than incremental improvement. Armadillo and Copenhagen Suborbitals both provide recent examples of this.

Both of those are examples of envelope expansion working. They learned a lot. In the case of Armadillo, they have done a lot of successful envelope expansion in the past, and some regulatory constraints pushed them to go for too big of an envelope expansion.

[hop]

Both of those are examples of envelope expansion working. They learned a lot. In the case of Armadillo, they have done a lot of successful envelope expansion in the past, and some regulatory constraints pushed them to go for too big of an envelope expansion.

Working inefficiently. They learned a lot, but they paid a relatively high price. I'm not saying they made the wrong decisions, my point is that the the limitations around high altitude flights force you down this path, which makes the whole thing more risky and expensive. The smaller your are, the worse it hurts you.

If you read the Armadillo report, you can see that a lot of the problems boiled down to
- Having a fixed, limited launch window
- The test site being a long, expensive trip from the home shop

Same of Copenhagen. From what I understand, they *knew* their FCS wasn't ready, but they only get one shot per year, so they flew with what they had.

If you look at the history of these things, you see this pattern over and over.

[Robotbeat]

Both of those are examples of envelope expansion working. They learned a lot. In the case of Armadillo, they have done a lot of successful envelope expansion in the past, and some regulatory constraints pushed them to go for too big of an envelope expansion.

Working inefficiently. They learned a lot, but they paid a relatively high price. I'm not saying they made the wrong decisions, my point is that the the limitations around high altitude flights force you down this path, which makes the whole thing more risky and expensive. The smaller your are, the worse it hurts you.

If you read the Armadillo report, you can see that a lot of the problems boiled down to
- Having a fixed, limited launch window
- The test site being a long, expensive trip from the home shop
...

Regulatory problems.

[NotGncDude]

Both of those are examples of envelope expansion working. They learned a lot. In the case of Armadillo, they have done a lot of successful envelope expansion in the past, and some regulatory constraints pushed them to go for too big of an envelope expansion.

If you read the Armadillo report, you can see that a lot of the problems boiled down to
- Having a fixed, limited launch window
- The test site being a long, expensive trip from the home shop

Really? How did having a limited launch window or having to do a long trip determine the recent results? At most they had some influence.

[Robotbeat]

Both of those are examples of envelope expansion working. They learned a lot. In the case of Armadillo, they have done a lot of successful envelope expansion in the past, and some regulatory constraints pushed them to go for too big of an envelope expansion.

If you read the Armadillo report, you can see that a lot of the problems boiled down to
- Having a fixed, limited launch window
- The test site being a long, expensive trip from the home shop

Really? How did having a limited launch window or having to do a long trip determine the recent results? At most they had some influence.

The long trip did have a lot to do with it (caused a fuel feed or something like that to get knocked loose during the trip, and they were too far from the shop with too short of a window to fix it, so they just went for it). And if they had an easier time getting permission to launch, they may well have gone for a more gradual envelope expansion.

[Downix]

You do realize as I am sitting here working on an injector cup for my own pressure fed rocket engine which should reach 20klbs, this is more than doable.....
...

It should be noted that the main motivator to this project (started on the ARocket--Amateur Rocketry--mailing list) was to get the constant stream of people who say, "pssh, 100kft and recovery is easy peasy" to put up or shut up.

It's a hell of a lot harder than you think. I'd be impressed if you even end up running a successful ground test of a rocket engine that can generate even 10klbf of thrust. And the engine itself is just a small part of the whole rocket. Doing it with a liquid rocket is probably the hardest way to do it. At that level, solids are probably a much better approach (as I continue to work on my own bipropellant rocket...).

I never said easy, I said doable.  And I'd be happy with 1,000 lbf, honestly.  But the design is rated to 20,000 lbf by my math, so we shall see.  It's more a case of seeing if modern manufacturing techniques can deliver on a design which previously was too complex to build.

Are you on the ARocket mailing list? I highly recommend it. ***ESPECIALLY*** if you're making a rocket engine! People there have a lot of experience doing the exact same thing you're trying to do, (relatively) a lot of them are in the process of doing it, and they are usually very helpful.

EDIT:Lots of practical advice, theory, and links to similar projects. THE best source for that sort of thing on the Internet. Also, Armadillo Aerospace's news archives are full of all sorts of liquid rocket engines.

Sounds good, will sign up.

I am thinking the design may be too much to start with after I'm having issues finding a sintering company able to handle the size.  Two inches too wide.

[NotGncDude]

Both of those are examples of envelope expansion working. They learned a lot. In the case of Armadillo, they have done a lot of successful envelope expansion in the past, and some regulatory constraints pushed them to go for too big of an envelope expansion.

If you read the Armadillo report, you can see that a lot of the problems boiled down to
- Having a fixed, limited launch window
- The test site being a long, expensive trip from the home shop

Really? How did having a limited launch window or having to do a long trip determine the recent results? At most they had some influence.

The long trip did have a lot to do with it (caused a fuel feed or something like that to get knocked loose during the trip, and they were too far from the shop with too short of a window to fix it, so they just went for it). And if they had an easier time getting permission to launch, they may well have gone for a more gradual envelope expansion.

1) This was on DALEK. How about STIG?
2) Maybe, maybe not. They could have tested DALEK in Texas first. Or tested STIG more gradually.

So yes, they had some influence.

[hop]

Really? How did having a limited launch window or having to do a long trip determine the recent results? At most they had some influence.

Reading back over the report, I agree. I overstated it in my previous post. Funny how memory conforms to preconceptions

Stig mostly seems to have suffered from design issues, if they had flown  from their back yard, the end result would likely have been the same. The problem with Dalek, and subsequent decision to fly were more what I had in mind, but there were certainly plenty of other factors there too.

I still get the impression there was a "crunch" to fly both these vehicles, at least partly driven by the constraints of the test site. Hard to say what extent the other issues would have been addressed if this weren't the case though.