My First Shock Diamond!!

I think its cool that you use your free time to tinker and build things.

As for re-entry this should help, little pricy but not rediculously expensive, 3M Nextel woven ceramic fiber

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Look, we have had this conversation before, but I'm going to say it again....

I can put with your loud noises and your clanking and the sudden bursts of
flame at all hours of the night, but if you decide to fire this thing off and it
does anymore damage to my already scorched rose bushes or scares my dog
just ONE MORE TIME....

I am going to call the cops!

This is your last warning...

signed,
Your Neighbor

First off thanks for sharing your hobby/dreams with us! Now here is my 2 cents:

Have you considered blogging about your process in order to generate buzz? You could even go further and try the open source contributions like the "factor e farm" recentlty covered on ATS. You could also even consider advertising on said blog or even the craft (how many of us wouldn't take a certain amount of pride looking up at the night sky knowing the ATS logo is staring back at us?).

Well that is my contribution to your epic journey/suicide attempt. I genuinely wish you the best of luck and hope you come back to us in one piece.

You are a dreamer, and the world needs dreamers. But I have to, as an engineer myself, put my two cents in.

1 - You don't seem to be well enough financed to build and fly unmanned test vehicles. The chances of you getting all the stresses accounted for on the first try on a system with that much power are nil at best.

2 - Do you even have figures for the internal stresses from atmospheric pressurization? You wouldn't want to blow out a window or a casing panel as soon as you reach the vacuum of space. Normal atmospheric pressure is around 14 PSI plus change. But lets say, for arguments sake, that with oxygen enrichment you can get by on 10 PSI internal pressure in your vehicle. Now lets say that your pressurized capsule measures 4 ft diameter by 10 ft long. that should be enough for you and essential equipment and confinement gear so you don't become a ping pong ball inside of it. Just the end disc of your craft, at 4 ft dia, will have a little over 1800 sq inches. So if you only have 10 PSI (pounds Per Square Inch) the total loading on that 4 ft dia end alone will be a little over 18,000 pounds. You ain't holding that together with tack welds and 1/4-20 screws.

3 - You seem to be rather intelligent, if somewhat suicidal, so might I suggest that you contact one of the companies that are building private space craft and see if you have enough on the ball to get a job with one of them. That would put you in the position of working for a living at what you love while picking up enough extra knowledge to decide if you can even build a space vehicle on your own.

Hi Happykat, thanks for the reality check! hehe.. I've mentioned it before, designing the craft and the life support device (suit/pod/or similar) are definetly not within my skill set. Having people like you come by and show me where I have a gigantic hurdle helps though. I honestly didn't really know what to start looking at concerning the design of the structure or what I'm up against concerning presurizing. Also, I've thought about getting work with one of the pirvate aerospace companies. I think it would be totally cool, but I don't think my resume is spectacular enough for them. I'll give it a shot though, couldn't hurt...

Trollslayer - I'm not much of a writer, but a blog would be a good idea, thanks! I'm a little nervous about generating buzz right now though as I'm still at the very start of this adventure. The response here on ATS is pretty overwhelming to me so I think I'll slow down on the buzz for a bit..!! Ok its true... I like the attention.. Thanks for the encouragement.

Madquacker - Thanks for the tip! I haven't checked it out yet but from you posted it looks like it should do the job! Thats very handy, I thought for sure the heat shield would be something I wouldn't find or be able to make. Well I wasn't SURE about it.. hehe..


Robb

reply to post by JiggyPotamus
pollypeptide,
I am no scientist and I like my feet planted firmly on the ground. But I think this is a bad Idea. Seeing we have already, as a society conquered the mechanics of your project and I see no further need for experimentation. I guess it could be considered an avenue to rid ourselves of unstable personalities that would seek to do such things. I see no way you can survive such a feat. It is sad that we will lose you to vain uneeded glory. It seems that you have a very inquisitive and inventive nature. Would you consider something else more advantageous to us all and relieve yourself of this unconscious suicidal desire? Just a thought.

Why don't you take your enthusiasm and enroll yourself into more formal studies. Maybe somebody out there is offering grants into space / rocket engineering programs.

All this tinkering and experimentation has been done already, I don't see why you would have to re-do it.

As you already probably know Wernher von Braun was pretty much one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology. Maybe you can just study his works and discoveries and avoid redoing a lot of things (maybe not as fun).

Also launching a rocket into space is such a huge joint effort encompassing a world of many specializations. metallurgy, manufacturing and fabrication, computer science, etc. for fabrication of parts, mechanics, telemetry, life support, and all that stuff.. Probably hundreds of people are involved in making it happen.

I think you can do it though - you just need a good team and some financial backing.

Maybe you can also use a plane to get you there most of the way and then launch from there. Rockets that launch from the ground are not that size for nothing. I'm sure if they could have been smaller, they would have been.

or maybe you can forget about rockets altogether and try to figure this stuff out:

www.hyper.net...

Here is another way to do it:

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

Sure hope that this was not you *** PollyPeptide

www.abovetopsecret.com...

why not start off and possibly be satisfied with making a homemade satellite,

I would gear the project to buying equipment for the payload. Cameras. Your own cameras in orbit.

As far as the rocket, well just take the advice given to you. A smaller payload, with liquid fuel sounds better. You will probably get in trouble for having even small amounts needed of liquid fuel since you could also make a missile/ bomb out of it.

I would try a REALLY small satellite.

either way, good luck.

nice to have dreamers around in a world of nay Sayers.

I feel bad as I've kind of ignored this thread.. I'm kind of bad for that, once my mind takes off, I kind of forget about other things.. I mean no offence, and I'd like to thank everyone that posted for their comments. I've gone a bit further in my quest, and am planning something a bit bigger. I posted a new thread on the subject, I invite you all check it out...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

From both the responses above and the conclusions I've made on my own, I've come to fully accept that this is totally impossible on my own. I've thought about going to back to school and getting educated in the field, but I have a hard time with that... Dyslexia and all, that old chestnut...

Instead of dedicating too much of my time to the experimentation side of this, I've decided to persue a different avenue. Yesterday, I submited an application to register a not-for-profit business. If it gets approved, it will be a research and development firm, owned and opperated by the public. I don't want to say too much as I don't know if it will even happen. That is however, where I'm at right now. I should know by Wednesday if I can register it or not. I will update.

Thanx again to everyone who posted, and please feel free to keep hitting me with doses of reality, something tells me I'm going to need a lot of it!!


Robb