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Neil_W's half-baked design thread
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lr64
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It's too bad Kubrick didn't decide to do 2001 on site the way he did with the moon landing hoax. We'd have had some excellent advanced spacecraft for decades. Imagine having the Orion III instead of the disastrous Space Shuttle.
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If built light enough, maybe a model of it could have glide recovery instead of a parachute.
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We need to do a lot more "basic research", particularly in the field of materials, before we can build something like that. We need to stop messing around with ceramic tiles, Silicon glass or whatever. You'll get the Orion when we can building from a ceramic/steel hybrid compound, something that has the bend-able formable shape of a metal, but the heat-resistance of a ceramic. Let's call this material "Duranium"; you could build not just spaceships that can survive re-entry and fly again with a few hours of refurbishment, but also create 90% efficient Internal Combustion Engines that run at 2000c. Your car would get 100 miles to the gallon.
People have been talking about this since to 1950's, but most basic research isn't being done anymore, federal budgets have been cut, and corporations shed their research divisions in the name of greater profits and shareholder value.
Kubrick and Clarke were right on the money with one fatal flaw. They assumed that technological progress would continue at the same pace that it did during the 1960's, when we were spending 1/3 of GDP to get to the moon. Obviously, that didn't happen. Instead, we got the rise of Japan in the 80's and then the rise of China in the 2000's, both of which stagnated development in the US in the name of cheaper consumer goods.
I don’t suppose you’ve heard of clay? Very easy to work with and has excellent heat properties. It’s very prone to non elastic deformation though.
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Nope, never heard of clay, except that, this is what ceramics are made from. By baking them. After one re-entry, what you've got is a china cup with rocket engines.
Yup, that’s why it’s usually broken up into tiles so if one breaks you can quickly swap it.
lr64
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It was a joke. Obviously the state of technology wasn't up to the job.
Maybe the magic material, should we learn how to make it inexpensively, would be carbon-carbon composite. You'd still need some insulation unless you could make the entire airframe, payload, and crew very heat resistant.
I'm pretty sure that it would take more than cheap unobtainium to make a 90 percent efficient engine. If you could have magic materials, then very high performance batteries would be easier. At least for road vehicles.
Apollo wasn't anywhere near 1/3 of the GDP. At the time, the TOTAL cost was about $85 billion. The GDP in 1966 was $815 billion. We would, of course, benefit if more resources were devoted to basic research, though that's not what most of the Apollo program was, IMHO. NASA's entire budget got up to about 4.5 percent of the federal budget for a couple of years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NASA_budget_linegraph_BH.PNG
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I got my wife a 300 piece china set for first anniversary.
It was supposed to be 20 pieces, but I had a mishap on way home from store.
Ah yes, an oldie but an oldie.
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While CCC is very heat resistant, we've already seen that it's brittle and fragile. I'm far from a materials expert, but I assume that carbon nanotubes could be used to form the kinds of structures we're talking about, make then resilient enough to survive the hazards of spaceflight and hopefully survive re-entry. A 3-D printer that spits out carbon nanotube might be an interesting device towards manufacture of test articles.
As for ICE, remember that a gas engine is something like 34% efficient, because it has to run at a low temp. Gasoline engines are either made of steel and/or aluminum, both of which have relatively low melting temps. If the engine were ceramic, or made from a considerably tougher metal (inconel-x for example); the gas engine could run much hotter and therefore, have much greater efficiency.
Everybody loves titanium, but the only advantages to that material is that it weighs like aluminum, but is tough as steel, which is a great combo for anything that flies. For space however, we'd really need something like that, but double tough. As we've run out of elements to discover, this new material needs to be some form of composite, and that's where Materials Science comes into play. It's not unobtainium if it can be synthesized in a lab and then produced in quantity. Remember that once Aluminum was expensive to refine, so expensive that AU and Platinum were once considered on-par expensive. But they found a way, and aluminum is now cheap as heck, while Platinum... well, not so much.
lr64
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I don't dispute that higher temperatures would allow ICE to be more efficient, just that you could get to 90 percent without a whole lot of other changes.
I didn't know that CCC is brittle. It can't be all THAT brittle, considering that it's used for brake rotors in Formula 1 racers and in some airplanes. Maybe there's a way to tweak it to make it tougher.
BTW, when I wrote "unobtainium" I did NOT mean titanium. I actually own some titanium metal, so it doesn't qualify.
I didn't know that CCC is brittle. It can't be all THAT brittle, considering that it's used for brake rotors in Formula 1 racers and in some airplanes. Maybe there's a way to tweak it to make it tougher.
BTW, when I wrote "unobtainium" I did NOT mean titanium. I actually own some titanium metal, so it doesn't qualify.
It's about twice as dense as aluminum, but of course that's still way less than steel, and yes, that gives it a much better strength to weight ratio (and I assume toughness to weight as well). Of course, in case anyone was thinking of titanium for heat tiles (which I hope no one is) they should look up how sparky motors are made.
lr64
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An additional advantage of titanium is that it makes amazing sparks when you cut it with a grinder. ;-)
Strength to weight ratio is a tricky thing. In tension, the right kind and temper of steel is hard to beat with other metals. However, light materials like aluminum and titanium allow you to use thicker sections at the same weight, making them stiffer in bending, and less prone to buckling.
Strength to weight ratio is a tricky thing. In tension, the right kind and temper of steel is hard to beat with other metals. However, light materials like aluminum and titanium allow you to use thicker sections at the same weight, making them stiffer in bending, and less prone to buckling.
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I feel like we've hijacked this thread. All that said, yes, we need to have more developed materials science, basic research, so that we can create an "exotic" material, which, like carbon-fiber, will be quickly adopted and produced in great quantity, and lead us to spacecraft which don't require a ceramic heat shield, and then we can have nice things like the Orion Shuttle from 2001. But, on that same boat, Reaction Motors is trying to develop the "Skylon" as an SSTO spaceplane. I don't suppose anyone knows what they are planning to make the plane from??
Haven't hit the latest post yet, but I love this design but it feels like the canopy/cockpit needs to be something out of a 50s sci-fi rocket/plane/something. Maybe a larger version of the pods on the rear cut in half and laid on like a teardrop canopy? Especially if you include the protruding fin tip as a small dorsal fin. Kind of feels Rockeeter-ish, so maybe 30s art deco is the vibe I'm getting?
Either way this thing is cool.
Maybe I should take a break from thinking and just build the Starblazer X20 upscale I was pondering last year. I'd *really* love to do it as a BT60 model but since I just bought a new pack of BT55 nose cones I'd probably do it that way (original was BT50). Comes out to 26.5" long, right in line with all my other rockets.
I'd love to incorporate the gold paint I bought but since the decals are approximately supposed to match the color of the nose I don't know how good it would look. Or I could try to rework the paint scheme a bit, but the stock scheme is *so good*, and then I'd be back to thinking. It's an option.
Very challenging decal job when you can't print opaque white.
I'd love to incorporate the gold paint I bought but since the decals are approximately supposed to match the color of the nose I don't know how good it would look. Or I could try to rework the paint scheme a bit, but the stock scheme is *so good*, and then I'd be back to thinking. It's an option.
Very challenging decal job when you can't print opaque white.
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I agree, it would be quite an imposing rocket as BT60. It looks like your BT55 size flies nicely on a D12, which is an advantage of that size, but I could see a BT60 version really turning heads.
Ten bucks, maybe less if I keep searching. Give me your mailing address and their yours.
And speaking of nose cones and of your difficulty making the fronts of rocket designs as interesting as the rears, have you considered using one of these, either in a design or as inspiration?
In hindsight, I should have bought more nose cones from Chris while I was at LDRS. He had them all at good prices, no shipping.
I have mixed feelings about the sci-fi pack. I like some of them but not all, and don’t like buying packs knowing I’m not going to use all of them.
I have mixed feelings about the sci-fi pack. I like some of them but not all, and don’t like buying packs knowing I’m not going to use all of them.
Fin tips as alternative to pew-pew sticks, which I tend to overuse. I also straightened out the curves on the fins. Yes, this is "borrowing" from the Starblazer X20.
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Would you make it a cluster?
Hmm, hadn't been thinking that way... 13mm mounts could fit in the pods although it would be a very "interesting" construction, for various reasons. I think I'm not inclined to do it here, gonna be too much going on in there, not worth the extra complication.
Right now I'm trying to figure out the launch lug situation.... I think I could run the launch rod through one of the pods and out the front end of the scoop. Getting the lugs mounted and aligned in there would be quite a thing.
Consider this:
- Cut a piece of angle that will fit conveniently on the tube ahead of the scoop. (I bet you already see exactly where this is going.)
- Put the lugs (or one long lug) on a piece of rod and stick them there with clay. (Now you see it, I'm sure.)
- Put the rod against the edge of the angle, and adjust the position of the angle and rod around the tube until the lugs are in the right position.
- Apply one drop of CA to each lug to hold it in position while you apply ample glue fillets.
I don't think that'll be possible, for reasons which I could explain but it'll be long and tedious and I'll lose interest before I finish typing it up. If I ever build this then all will be revealed in the build thread (what could be more exciting than reading about launch lug installation?) It will most likely involve a 3D-printed part. I was already planning (*probably*) to incorporate a bit of 3D printing in one key location, now I would just add this in. Seriously it might be the most interesting part of the whole build, as I currently envision it.
More aggressive fin tips. This is me putting off trying to come up with a paint scheme by fiddling with little design details.
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Quite simple if you put a soda straw inside the 13 mm tube pre-build.
put the straw on a segment of launch rod.
Run both internally through your BT-5.
Use a #16 rubber band or reasonable facsimile around the rod forward and aft of (and obviously external to) the 13 mm tube. Should be perfectly lined up inside the tube. Once fixed, looks like you can run it on the outboard side of the BT-5, run THROUGH the Scoupe, and still be outside the thick middle transition segment. Since the weight is near negligible compared to the rocket, the thing is hidden from site anyway, one long straw will be easier than trying to line up two smaller ones.
Ideally use a paper straw, these are coming back into fashion as they are more biodegradable. I bought like 144 of them (I know! Eww, Gross!) for $5 March 2014 on Amaxon (scary, now they want $12!). May be an excuse to get something at StarBucks. https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-to-eliminate-plastic-straws-globally-by-2020/ " In addition, Starbucks will begin offering straws made from alternative materials – including paper or compostable plastic - for Frappuccino® blended beverages, and available by request for customers who prefer or need a straw."
This design had its origins way back in 2016. I actually started it, then put it aside. Since COVID I have been reluctant to pick it back up for fear of the build thread turning into a dumpster fire. Am I worrying about nothing?
(there is one small problem in that I'm looking at my OR model and absolutely not understanding how I was planning for this thing to go together)
(there is one small problem in that I'm looking at my OR model and absolutely not understanding how I was planning for this thing to go together
)
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This design had its origins way back in 2016. I actually started it, then put it aside. Since COVID I have been reluctant to pick it back up for fear of the build thread turning into a dumpster fire. Am I worrying about nothing?
View attachment 653104
(there is one small problem in that I'm looking at my OR model and absolutely not understanding how I was planning for this thing to go together
Wasn't there someone who built an HPR version of that? I sort of recall seeing photos, but I can't remember who it was or what it was called.
Edit: Was the builder a contributor to Open Rocket?
Yes, that was @hcraigmiller.
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