Spaceflight on the cheap

New Scientist ^ | Tuesday, September 19, 2006 | New Scientist

[BigTex5]

How much does it cost to put a rocket into space? Three engineering students at Cambridge University in the UK reckon they'll be able to do it for just £1000 ($1879).

[BigTex5]

And they've just sent a lunchbox-sized aircraft, called Nova 1, into the stratosphere where it captured some very nice pictures of the Earth and the upper atmosphere. Nova 1 was carried to an altitude of 32 km beneath a high-altitude helium balloon and snapped more than 800 images, many like the one above.

The students involved, Carl Morland, Henry Hallam and Robert Fryers, have also released a short video showing the launch in Cambridge. When the balloon carrying the Nova 1 finally burst due to expansion, a parachute deployed to carry it safely back to Earth.

Nova 1 featured some simple, off-the-shelf technology. This included GSM text messaging as well as radio for communications and an ordinary 5 megapixel camera. The students tracked their payload's descent using telemetry and by simply following it in a car.

Eventually they hope to fit a rocket beneath a balloon and use this to carry their craft to 100 km - the edge of space - all for just £1000. It would be no mean feat. Especially when you consider £1000 is about price of one door handle on the space shuttle. And that Anousheh Ansari just paid 13,245 times that for a tourist trip to the International Space Station. Good luck guys.

[BigTex5]

The snapshots of the take off and stratosphere

Movie of the launch

[Paladin2]

Ahhh, thankya boyz!

[Turbopilot]

Impressive on the cost front, but suborbital isn't really the name of the game anymore. The hardest part is getting from there into orbit, and achieving orbital speeds. It can certainly be done cheaper than NASA, the Europeans, or the Russians do it now, but only by a matter of degree with current technology. Cutting the cost by orders of magnitude is going to require a breakthrough in technology to replace the big-ass rockets that have been the only way to do it for 45 years, and that breakthrough hasn't been made yet.*

*-actually, it was made some time ago. But the solution to get lots of mass into orbit (or beyond) very cheaply isn't politically tenable.

[Andy from Beaverton]

www.hemp-blog.com?

I knew someone has to be stoned.

[Liberal Classic]

"HARMLESS SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT"

I can imagine this thing coming down in some conspiracy theorist's backyard...

[ikka]

I think this kind of thing is awesome. Kudos to the young guys doing this!

Ever seen the movie "October Sky" based on the book "Rocket Boys" by NASA engineer Homer Hickam?

[RadioAstronomer]

Here are some links you may enjoy: :-)

http://ian.kluft.com/blackrock/#claims-to-fame

http://ian.kluft.com/blackrock/jpa199905/

http://www.stratofox.org/pics/csxt-booster-2004/

[Luke Skyfreeper]

And what would that solution be?

[annie laurie]

Ping

[Rebel_Ace]

I believe he is referring to the use of Nuclear Explosions to power a payload into orbit (or beyond). I think this design was known by the name 'ORION'.

Basically, a big shield called the "pusher plate" would have a bunch of atomic bombs fired off behind it in a controlled sequence. The actual payload would be protected on the opposite side of the pusher plate, cushioned by an elaborate shock absorbing system.

[jmcenanly]

These Cambridge students aren't the only ones doing this sort of thing. The Huntsville Area L-5 society is also doing much the same thing.http://www.nsschapters.org/al/HAL5/HALO/

[Tennessee_Bob]

Basically, a big shield called the "pusher plate" would have a bunch of atomic bombs fired off behind it in a controlled sequence.

 Wouldn't that leave the launch pad extremely dirty?

I'm thinking that Tehran would be a good place for the next Cape Canaveral.
 

[MikeD]

Lunchbox sized aircraft? What is the mass? So it goes up 32 km on a balloon, and they hope to go the remaining 68 on a rocket? We'll see if they can do it for 1000 pounds. No offense, but I'll believe it after they've flown.

[Turbopilot]

Project Orion

The gist of it is that you drop nuclear explosives out the back of a spaceship, explode them behind the ship, and use the energy from the blast to propel you. For various reasons this is doable without endangering the crew or the ship. Miniature versions powered by conventional explosives have been tested successfully.

Using the technology of the 1950's, such a design could launch a spacecraft weighing literally millions of tons, and could propel it not just to orbit, but to the moon, Mars, the edges of the solar system, or beyond. You'd launch from an offshore platform in the middle of the Pacific as far away from everyone and everything as possible; with so much extra power you don't have to worry about being near the equator. With modern nuclear explosives, such a ship would work out to about an extra x-ray for everyone on earth, in exchange for basically getting enough men and materials into orbit that permanent settlements, mining, and construction work could begin and you'd never again need to bring material out of Earth's gravity well.

As I said, though, all the scientific studies and proofs of safety in the world are worthless to 95% of people as soon as you mention "atomic bombs". Orion will never fly (literally and figuratively) for that reason.

[BigTex5]

Yes, that's one of the best movies I've seen. I think we've all tried the same fence explosion in our youth ;)