One stupid less in the world.

[redpoint5]

Yep, I appreciate his sense of adventure. If you don't have a responsibility to care for someone else, taking a risk seems at least as good a deal as withering away on a deathbed like most people, and probably better. I got annoyed at obituaries in the paper because they rarely list cause of death. Would be proud of mine saying "rocketry accident".

Everyone else tries to carefully meet their death, usually while neglecting their health in the process. People are on their own rockets, just they have a longer fuse and the thud at the end is protracted over a much longer period of time.

[cowmeat]

It's a sad yet foreseeable end to the story of anyone who'd try to reach space in a rocket that looks like it would have a fuse his ground crew'd light with a Bic lighter. He would have been better off just using a lawn chair and some helium balloons tied to it, that's a proven method for getting some serious altitude

Every kid dreams of doing stuff like this but eventually we grow up and say "you know, that would probably kill me" . . . . unless your childhood hero was Wile E Coyote like this guy's obviously was. RIP!

[JSH]

I'm curious if he really believed the earth is flat or if he was just taking advantage of the current popularity of that conspiracy theory to fund his projects. If he really just wanted to get high enough to see the curvature of the earth he would have sent up a camera on a balloon like school kids do all the time.

If you want the crazies to fund your rocket hobby...

[redpoint5]

As mentioned above, I'm starting to think it was a ruse to fund his rocketry hobby. It would clearly be safer and cheaper and easier to use weather balloons. You couldn't get 70 miles up though. That's 370,000 feet. Gonna need a rocket for that one.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

As mentioned above, I'm starting to think it was a ruse to fund his rocketry hobby. It would clearly be safer and cheaper and easier to use weather balloons. You couldn't get 70 miles up though. That's 370,000 feet. Gonna need a rocket for that one.

Balloon + model rocket + camera.

[redpoint5]

I've always wondered if orbital launches could be substantially reduced in cost by releasing from a high altitude, high velocity plane? Some purpose-built craft designed to lift a heavy rocket as high and fast as possible. You could either fit more payload on the rocket, or downsize it.

[freebeard]

I've always wondered if....

You're thinking of the largest airplane in the world, perhaps?


hackaday.com:
The Largest Aircraft Ever Built Will Soon Launch Rockets To Space

In other news: spacenews.com: DARPA Scraps Plan To Launch Small Sats from F-15 Fighter Jet


That one is not happening.

[freebeard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj-I...ature=emb_logo

This guy wasn't trying to prove that Earth is flat. Bill Whittle approves.

The other way is to book a flight with Space Adventures and SpaceX

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by freebeard

You're thinking of the largest airplane in the world, perhaps?

More like the SR-71 equipped to carry a massive payload.



The plane above sounds like it's meant only to avoid unpredictable weather since there was no mention of fuel savings or cost savings at all. At 35k feet, it's barely off the ground.

My thought was more along the lines of mach 3 and 100,000 feet. Perhaps that's not technically feasible with an enormous payload.

[freebeard]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LauncherOne

LauncherOne is a two stage orbital launch vehicle under development by Virgin Orbit since 2007. It is an air launch to orbit rocket, designed to launch "smallsat" payloads of 300 kilograms (660 lb) into Sun-synchronous orbit,[3] following air launch from a carrier aircraft at high altitude. Launches are projected to begin in 2020.
......
LauncherOne will be launched from its Cosmic Girl Boeing 747 carrier, attached to a pylon on the aircraft's left wing, and released over the ocean at a location depending on the desired orbital inclination. This process avoids typical delays for ground launches due to weather and upper-level winds.[3]