A Level 3 Casing. Can Anyone Guess What This Means?

I am in possession of a level 3 casing. Can anyone guess what this means for 2013? This means that I am going to go for my level 3 certification! Finally! This is going to be my main project for 2013, and it will enable me to fly rockets on M-O impulse. Now, I know what you're thinking... You're a poor college student. How are you going to afford to be a level 3 flier? The answer to that is quite simple. First of all, this is a borrowed casing from the Iowa State Space Society (Thanks guys, even though you didn't even know you had this casing in the first place!). So all I need to buy are the rocket parts and the reloads. Still kind of pricey. But future projects are going to be primarily funded by my university, including Rockoon. The goals for next year are to build a two-stage rocket using this casing for the first stage and a baby-N load, and the 75mm Cesaroni casing in the second stage with a baby-M load. Initial Rocksim predictions say that if we launch from a balloon at 80,000 feet we would hit the very edge of space.

Space.

But I'm not going to do it without help. I'll need a team. Just a few members with strong and diverse skills. Nimble and adaptable to any situation. We'll need resolve, because space is hard. That is why we do space. WE EAT SPACE FOR BREAKFAST!

NASA is Lame

NASA has so much potential, but for whatever reasons, they dink around in LEO. For the price of the Space Station (~$100B) I have to imagine we could have made at least 5 manned missions to Mars by now.

It's all a matter of will and priority. At our current technological and economical level, there is nothing stopping us from sending a manned mission to Mars by next year. But nope. We've got this extremely long and vague calender that alludes to somethin' or other starting around 2020... And no, NASA, don't go to an asteroid. Go to Mars. Seriously.

What we need is another space race. With nothing driving us forward we'll never go anywhere. Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites has mentioned the coming Private Space Race, a race driven by capitalism and competition in the private sector. But the private space industry is only going to take over the maintenance of LEO, leaving deep space exploration to NASA.

NASA: Do your job. Seriously.

New Launch Vehicle?

Tomorrow at 3:30 pm Eastern Time, NASA will have a press conference in which it will discuss a new decision that will affect the future of deep space manned exploration.

THIS SHOULD BE GOOD NEWS.

So you should watch it live tomorrow on NASA TV.

EDIT: It won't be on NASA TV. It is a teleconference, so it will be audio only: NASA News Audio

Falcon 9 Demonstration Flight

Today SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 vehicle, to demonstrate its reliability as a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services vehicle (COTS) for NASA. The launch was successful.

Random Tidbit(s)

If only Earth could be orbiting a start in this cluster:

Then we might actually have the means to visit other worlds. It this star cluster, called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules, M13, hundreds of thousands of stars fit into an area about 150 light years across. Of course, the more you pack into an area of space, the greater the probability of catastrophic events, but I still like to imagine zipping around the galaxy exploring strange new worlds, like in Star Trek. In fact, that is pretty much the only thing I enjoyed about the recent feature film Avatar; the plot structure stunk and the storyline was disgusting, but I liked how the movie-makers were able to create a realistic feeling of space travel.

It is a very boring morning, hence the very random post. But in general I am excited to be graduating soon, and I look forward to this summer in preparation for college!

Upcoming Titan Missions

I wouldn't exactly say that Titan is an "Earth-like" place. It's extremely toxic. Everything about it is extreme. And extremely awesome.

Another Great Launch for Discovery

STS-128 is on its way, with no major anomalies to report!

Did you know?

NASA plans to retire the Shuttle program in 2010. More on that later.

Diagram of Lowness

Here's a post from last September (I never got around to posting it):

"The other day I was thinking about outer space, how intriguing it is and such. I started to wonder how close I had ever come with one of my rockets to the edge of outer space. The results weren't the most exciting ever.


I figured that the highest flying rocket I have ever built and flown was my supersonic rocket, which supposedly reached an altitude of a little over 4,000 feet. That's about one tenth the ceiling of the troposphere, which is where the commercial jets fly, at about 5-7 miles high. The sad story is that the edge of space is 10 times that altitude, and satellites orbit yet 40-50 miles higher than that! So my altitude versus space's is a depressing ratio of about 1/150 (if I did my math right!).

That's gonna change."

1/23/09
My current project's full potential (High-5) should dash this record by at least 3,000 feet! Every year I'm getting closer and closer to the edge of outer space!"

Why I Don't Like NASA

As I mentioned in my last post, I am not all that impressed with NASA. I know that it's hard to think about the atmosphere and outer space without thinking about NASA, but that's not what I want to be doing when I grow up: working for NASA.

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One of the main things NASA is doing is building the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS doesn't serve much function and is a waste of time and money (a single Space Shuttle mission to the ISS costs well over a billion dollars). In the back of NASA's mind I think they hope to unite the world by joining the nations together in space. Well, it's not going to happen. The world is never going to be on perfect terms with itself, and the only way to keep the peace is to arm yourself to the teeth and hope that everyone's too afraid to attack you. Forming friendships with other nations might, or might not, be a good idea. The current Space Shuttle mission to the ISS is delivering a Japanese module. Why are we spending all our time and money and effort for some other country?

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Anyway, other than the organization, I really like the hardware! The Space Shuttle is probably the most complex machine ever built, and the design will most likely improve in the future, too.

A Ladder to Space

A whatta to wha? What do I mean by a ladder to space? Am I going to try to build the World’s Largest Structure Ever Conceived by Man?

DTH Rocket Endeavors’ Ladder to Space – noun: A metaphorical ladder consisting of certain steps I must take in different seasons of life to get to the point where I have the ability to build spacecraft and other Vehicles of Wonder.

As far as I can see, this ladder has 5 rungs:
1) Model rocketry
2) High-power rocketry
3) College
4) Either get a job or start a privately funded aerospace research company, eventually augmenting the resources for step 5
5) Build a spaceship

Step One: Model Rocketry

Model rocketry is currently where I'm at in my ladder. Model rockets are small, lightweight rockets propelled by commercially-manufactured, NAR-certified motors under 160 Newton-seconds (35 pound-seconds) of total impulse (that probably doesn't mean anything to you, but it equates to a type "G" motor). On the low end of the spectrum, model rockets are typically made from a paper tube, balsa wood fins, a plastic nosecone, and are propelled by black powder propellants. On the large end of the spectrum they are usually powered by ammonium perchlorate composite propellants, which is what NASA uses to power the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters!

Step Two: High-Power Rocketry

This step will probably be the longest process, because it ranges from rockets slightly larger than the ones I'm building now to behemoth monsters that are almost as tall as some baby model rockets can fly! (That might be a slight exaggeration!) There are three levels of high-power rocketry, but I like to think of it as four, because beyond level three you have to build your own motors. Each level is defined by the power of the motors.

Level 1: H - I motors

Level 2: J - L motors

Level 3: M - O motors

Level 4: Research rocketry - Scratch built rocket motors up to size "T." That's 131,072 times larger than any rocket I've built and flown!

Above is a rocket powered by an experimental "S" motor.

Step Three: College

I can't possibly expect to get to space without learning a few things, can I? Next year I will be a Junior in high school (homeschool) so I still have some time to think about it.

Step Four: Undefined

There are zillions of things I could do in this step. I could either get a job with a pre-existing aerospace company, or I could start one. I could build experimental research rockets, join the air force as and aerospace engineer, or anything else that would bequeath to me valuable experience and consolidate my resources.

Step Five: Outer Space

Uh... Why again would I devote my entire life to this? The answer is surprisingly simple: I am fascinated by it. I want to go there. And it's not just outer space that fascinates me, it's the vehicle to get there!