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Armadillo drops peroxide... forever?



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 29th 05, 10:47 PM
Tom Cuddihy
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Default 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  
Old March 30th 05, 01:15 AM
Earl Colby Pottinger
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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

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SerialTransfer 3.0, RAMDISK, BoatBuilding, DIY TabletPC. What happened to
the time? http://webhome.idirect.com/~earlcp
  #3  
Old March 30th 05, 02:03 AM
Craig Fink
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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  
Old March 30th 05, 02:12 AM
Craig Fink
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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  
Old March 30th 05, 06:50 AM
richard schumacher
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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  
Old March 30th 05, 03:10 PM
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They're switching to LOX/Methanol, I think.

  #7  
Old March 30th 05, 04:07 PM
richard schumacher
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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.
  #9  
Old March 30th 05, 05:05 PM
David Summers
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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  
Old March 30th 05, 06:15 PM
Sander Vesik
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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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