Home made spacecraft

[David Ashby - Moderator]

This is good, have a look.....

 

Edited By David Ashby - RCME Administrator on 06/10/2010 20:44:26

[Chris Bott - Moderator]

That is excellent David. Great find.

 

Is RCM&E to become RCM&E&Space now ? 

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Well it just goes to show that seemingly anything is possible these days with a bit of ingenuity Chris.

[Andy Harris]

Now thats interesting.

 

I wonder if any CAA rules were broken....  the url goes to a godaddy holding page.

  

[Stephen Grigg]

Very impressive result

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Wow! Fantastic. Just shows you - if NASA had half that guys innovative ability I reckon they would have a manned mission to Mars by now and it would have cost £1,445.19p and some sticky back plastic!

 

BEB 

[John Privett]

Last time I checked, the CAA had rather limited powers of jurisdiction in New York State.

 

I'm sure the FAA would have some interest in this though.

Didn't channel 5's Gadget Show do something similar in the UK a year or two ago?

[John Privett]

OK, so it was Bang Goes the Theory - not the Gadget Show...

 

[TonyS]

The biggest part of me thinks - amazing! There's just a small part of me that thinks it's a bit naughty sending 15 foot wide balloons into civil airspace....

(Wish I'd thought of it)

What a shame the batteries died 2 mins before touch down.

Do you think I could put enough power in it to transmit to an FPV cam.....

Now that would be something - cheap flights into space..... 

[Boots]

so, are they going to do it again with bigger batteries ???

joking aside, a great acheivement for amateur space flight

[Tim Mackey]

Excellent

[John Privett]

It was the temperature that was the problem for the batteries - not simply their size.  Better insulation or heating for them would be better than just installing larger batteries.

 

Some years ago I used my camcorder in December in Northern Finland, within the Arctic Circle.  We were driven round to various places in a coach.  On leaving the coach each time,  I had about 10 minutes before the cold temperature (about -25C) cooled the video battery so much that the camcorder low-voltage cut-out operated.  Back on the coach going to the next stop the battery warmed up again and was fine until we'd been outside at the next stop for 10 minutes or so.

[David perry 1]

Fantastic.  I want one!!

 

David 

[Chris Card]

Brilliant!  Thanks for posting this.

[iawnski]

wow that was something

[Stephen Jones]

That has put a great big cheesy smile on my face .

Cheers

[Chris Card]

Posted by Andy Harris on 06/10/2010 21:55:57:

Now thats interesting.

 

I wonder if any CAA rules were broken....  the url goes to a godaddy holding page.

  

 If you read down to the bottom of the comments on the Vimeo webpage, you'll see the originator of the video did apply for and receive FAA clearance for his flight, and observed the FAA design guidelines for his vehicle.  This includes such considerations as the density of the foam and max breaking strength of the cable ties.  

[Spice Cat]

Fascinating stuff. (Good job the parachute worked.)

This reminds me of a programme I saw some time ago, based in America (where else) of people building rockets in their garages. I cannot recall if any made it to the magic 62 mile altitude (apparently this is where space officially begins) but many made impressive launches and many more made impressive failures.

Good post though.

[GONZO]

From the distant past, if I remember correctly, when I was an active PPL. Everywhere over 24000ft is 'controlled' airspace, with all the regulations/restrictions that brings (many) and legal/financial penalties (v.large) for infringment.

[nasa_steve]

I'm pretty sure the BBC would have thought about FAA and indeed any CAA regulation long before they even filled the balloon with Helium, it always amazes me how some people rather than congratulating someone for such a task are quick to remind them of the implications of their actions " the fun police strike again eh!!!" the mind boggles do these people have nothing better to do than berate someones achievement ??

[Steve G]

WOT CAN I SAY BUT AWESOME THATS GOT T BE THE CHEAPIST SPACE FLIGHT EVER, MAN THAT MADE ME GRIN, AWESOME

 

[Swissflyer]

This is a great project so many congratulations.

It crossed my mind that instead of leaving the end to chance and a parachute, they could have asked the RCM&E community to design them something that would have flown the camera back to where it started. They did have 100’000ft altitude to play with!

What would you have designed to fly the camera & GPS back to the starting point?

Why not a competition to see who could step into Bodo’s shoes and design a recovery model?

Maybe there is even a market as a lot of met instrument packages go up everyday, I wonder where they come down?

Mark

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Wow - 100,000ft - that's some simulated dead stick landing. I bet you'd have got your A for that.

 

I think I'll try that next time I'm showing someone the proceedure for a simulated dead stick - now where did I put those binoculars?

 

BEB

[Myron Beaumont]

All you would need to get it back to where it started from would be a group of trees about 50 ft from launch area . They're magnetic don't you know !

[Swissflyer]

I love the thought of magnetic trees! I used to suffer from them before living in the Swiss mountains. Now we have magnetic rocks

 

I was thinking that the GPS could give course inputs to a heading system, I was more worried about the thin atmosphere dive at God knows what speed from 100’000ft!

How would I stop the wings coming off. No trees up there (but an RC modeller would certainly sniff out a few)

Mark