General N-Prize feasability discussion

[SANEAlex]

[LSAteam]

[SANEAlex]

[Jay]

[LSAteam]

It would be fantastic to see Paul post again sometime and confirm his thoughts regarding the rules of launch sites and outer space act. Though given I am not exactly expecting to win the prize and doing this mostly for fun

Glad to see some quick replies - It doesn't look like much posting has been happening here in recent times. Are there still people researching this problem?

I'm hoping to start having the first engine prototype together this summer/autumn, main issue being the laws of physics doing their best to smite my designs the more I look into them each time I thought I'd be making it a year ago till I realised the thermal design I had at the time was not up to scratch

[Jay]

[Jay]

I just noticed I attributed the work of Alchemy Team to LSAteam. How blog-hopping careless of me. Good thing this discussion doesn't involve any thing dangerous like rocket fuel or something. Oh, wait... fooom!

Jay

[LSAteam]

[rick m]

[Jay]

LSAteam,

I happened to reread what I had written and became a bit confused myself! Friends don't let friends blog-hop and post!

Sorry to hear about British restrictions on solid fuels. In 2009 American rocket enthusiasts led by the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) and Tripoli Rocket Association (TRA) scored a rare victory against excessive regulation when a federal court sided with hobbyists by ruling that ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP) must no longer be regulated as an explosive. The regulators chose not to appeal the ruling.

With respect to liquid-fuel rockets, I'm convinced a simple system can be built within the budget and win the prize. I'm inspired by the principles of Minimum Cost Design (MCD) promoted by Arthur Schnitt and Lt. Col. John R. London III (U.S. Air Force) as well as many others.

The concept of MCD is often erroneously reduced to "Big Dumb Rocket" or "Big Dumb Booster," but these were phrases circulated by vested interests to disparage the idea. They opposed MCD because the status quo was so much more profitable to them. Schnitt and London demonstrated that by making cost rather than performance the governing design criterion and reducing the cost of every element of a launch system, not just the engine, to the minimum the total cost of placing satellites in orbit could be reduced to a fraction of conventional spaceflight budgets.

The central question at every stage of design for every element of the system must be, "How might it be done for less?"

As for the N-Prize competition, remember that only the cost per flight counts. For development you're allowed to spend as much as you can persuade supporters to donate!

Jay