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Armadillo drops peroxide... forever?
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n....ws?news_id=296
Alas, it appears the dream of a simple liquid monoprop powered RLV (even suborbital) is dead for now. Armadillo is now switching to LOX /Methane. They're still building everything themselves, which should be even more fascinating to follow than their previous efforts if John Carmack keeps up his prior openness about development. I can't wait to see how they manage gimbaling. Tom Cuddihy |
#2
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"Tom Cuddihy" :
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n....ws?news_id=296 Alas, it appears the dream of a simple liquid monoprop powered RLV (even suborbital) is dead for now. Armadillo is now switching to LOX /Methane. They're still building everything themselves, which should be even more fascinating to follow than their previous efforts if John Carmack keeps up his prior openness about development. I can't wait to see how they manage gimbaling. Personally I think he would have gotten better results with peroxide if his designs regenatively heated the peroxide first. But even then there are real problems with supply. Note his last purchases of peroxide were on the contract basis that he not concentrate the peroxide to a higher percentage for rocket use. This does limit possible design improvements. Here in Canada I have to buy my experimental peroxide from a plumbing supplier, he clearly states that I can't buy more than 35% peroxide from him and I will have problems buying more than 25 liters at a time. I have tried calling diffirent producers/suppliers here in Ontario, most have told me flatly no and others require a lot of paperwork before they will sell me even one drum of 50% peroxide. For some reason I can't find any sort of supplier who sells 70% peroxide by the drum. Another problem I do have that explains some of my problems is I don't have a registered business address. I can understand why they will not accept residential addresses for something like 70% peroxide. But I have two large lots up north to work on that are 18 arces and 7.5 acres that makes it possible to work on stuff without endangering others. Again a lot id is not considered a valid address. LOX on the other hand is easy to buy and if you have upfront money like John the equipment needed to make it yourself is not that hard to get either. Earl Colby Pottinger -- I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos, SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp |
#3
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On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:15:13 -0600, Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
"Tom Cuddihy" : http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n....ws?news_id=296 Alas, it appears the dream of a simple liquid monoprop powered RLV (even suborbital) is dead for now. Armadillo is now switching to LOX /Methane. They're still building everything themselves, which should be even more fascinating to follow than their previous efforts if John Carmack keeps up his prior openness about development. I can't wait to see how they manage gimbaling. Personally I think he would have gotten better results with peroxide if his designs regenatively heated the peroxide first. But even then there are real problems with supply. Note his last purchases of peroxide were on the contract basis that he not concentrate the peroxide to a higher percentage for rocket use. They have an interesting video on their web site that shows some safety experiments they did with peroxide. They poured peroxide on various materials, one being someones old tennis shoes. After a minute or so, the tennis shoes caught fire. The fire wasn't as easy to put out as you would have thought. -- Craig Fink Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @ |
#4
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 01:03:18 +0000, Craig Fink wrote:
They have an interesting video on their web site that shows some safety experiments they did with peroxide. They poured peroxide on various materials, one being someones old tennis shoes. After a minute or so, the tennis shoes caught fire. The fire wasn't as easy to put out as you would have thought. Sorry, forgot to include the link: http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/...terialTest.mpg -- Craig Fink Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @ |
#5
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I wish t'heck they'd just buy engines from Xcor etc. and spend their efforts on something more useful, like vehicle integration and testing. |
#6
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They're switching to LOX/Methanol, I think.
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#8
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:07:09 -0600, richard schumacher wrote:
In article .com, wrote: They're switching to LOX/Methanol, I think. Right, but if they try to develop their own it'll just be another resource sink for them. lol, if you go look at their web site, these guys are truly have fun doing what they're doing. Not much business right now, but lots of enjoyment doing the development. Why skip the one of the major "fun" learning experiance parts? Plus, doing it all themselves means they'll understand what they're doing just that much more. http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n....o/Home/Gallery -- Craig Fink Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @ |
#9
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How much would they charge, though? The problem I see with this
approach is a general problem in this nascent industry - in order for Xcor to show a profit (keep paying employees, etc.) they need to charge enough to cover their R&D costs - as I understand it, this is primarily salaries. Since the market is so small, a large portion of the R&D costs would need to be recovered on each sale. So if Xcor wants to stay in business, they must charge say 1/5 the development cost of the engine to Armadillo. But if Armadillo develops it themselves, they probably pay only 1/10 the actual development cost, because the rest is "donated volunteer work." I don't really know if they all volunteer their time, but at the very least they don't charge market rates. This is the problem I see - the only way around it would be for Xcor to sell their engines below (including engineering) cost, just to get the market started. But that takes deep pockets, and is higher risk... and of course since (at least I assume) Armadillo is more a fun (and important) project than a business, they may be even more strongly in favor of in house development. |
#10
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richard schumacher wrote:
I wish t'heck they'd just buy engines from Xcor etc. and spend their efforts on something more useful, like vehicle integration and testing. That assumes said companies make engines with even approximately usable specs in even approximately suitable price range... -- Sander +++ Out of cheese error +++ |
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