Making a rocket to beat all other rockets

[alpha tech]

Its scattered every where and I have no idea how much we have but its a lot

[Spaceception]

2 minutes ago, alpha tech said:

Its scattered every where and I have no idea how much we have but its a lot

Okay, well, when possible, try to see exactly how much you have, create an inventory, and figure out what metals you need for each component.

[alpha tech]

the first will be a universal testing for thrust vectoring and etc.

the next will be guided testing

[Steel]

Just now, alpha tech said:

the first will be a universal testing for thrust vectoring and etc.

the next will be guided testing

You'll have to think quite carefully about how to do thrust vectoring, trying to make movable fins that don't melt is a challenge to say the least.

[shynung]

1 hour ago, Spaceception said:

Like using liquid O2 in the nozzle, I believe the Space shuttle did that, I may be wrong.

LH2 for nozzle and chamber cooling. Hot LO2/GO2 in small cooling channels sounds like a disaster to me - it'd corrode everything frighteningly fast.

[munlander1]

I don't think working with cryo stuff is the way to go. You will have much larger batteries and the rocket will be much more heavy then it has too. 

[Steel]

5 minutes ago, munlander1 said:

I don't think working with cryo stuff is the way to go. You will have much larger batteries and the rocket will be much more heavy then it has too. 

Not to mention being a massive pain to work with, a major health risk, expensive and difficult to get hold of.

[munlander1]

With testing homemade motors, I suggest doing a static test.

[kunok]

Bro, what machine tools you have? You won't be able to do this with manual machine tools, and high temp alloys are a pain to machine even with very expensive tools.
And seriously you wont get high temp aloys from old trailers, and scrap, unless you have aircraft engines scrap, and that even being scrap is very expensive and valuable.

And for safety, just put a mirror at 45º so you can see behind a corner, far from the test engine and in no direct line of the possible shrapnel

[munlander1]

If you REALLY wanna get into this, I would look into building a pill box. Obviously with no large, open holes in the side.

[StrandedonEarth]

My three cents:

Many rocket engine nozzles are ablatively cooled, perhaps using cork to line the nozzles would work. I don't know if that would work in the chamber, as it may cause combustion instabilities. Getting stable combustion will be tricky regardless.

The German A4/V2 was steered by vanes in the exhaust stream connected to a gyroscope. Maybe cork protection would work there too.

Remember the KISS principle: Keep It Simple Stupid! Turbopumps are anything but; pressure-fed is much easier. If you really want to try turbopumps, maybe (big maybe) you can make a car turbocharger work. Building a turbopump from scratch would require an extensive machine shop, and would likely involve several RUDs sending hi-speed shrapnel flying everywhere.

Good Luck! I would guesstimate the chances of a small team of amateurs with limited prior knowledge making it to space to be somewhere between slim and none, let alone orbit. I would also think that the odds of someone being seriously injured rise dramatically as the size of the test article increases. I suggest a wall of sand-filled oil drums, and a steel-plate roof against falling debris.  And I don't think your house insurance will cover any damages from this activity.

Orbital rockets walk a very fine line between strong enough and light enough. I don't think scrapyard metal will have the tensile strength to make orbit. Anything you make out of it that is strong enough to not explode will be pretty heavy.

[munlander1]

I would not go for a water landing. I would design your craft to be able to survive one. How large is your lake? I honestly think it is too small. Unless you can measure it in miles, then getting a water landing is unlikely.

[TheKosanianMethod]

I have no rocket smarts to add that hasn't already been said, so I'll give you an organization tip that's known as "S.M.A.R.T. goals." 

I don't want to clutter this thread with non-rocket stuff, so if you are interested,  I can PM you the details. 

[YNM]

I guess before you can get to thrust vectoring, electronics, guidance etc. you need to establish the basic :

- Engineering constraints, ie. thrust, burn time, weight (mass), dimensions, trajectory, final trajectory

- Proven thrust level (you don't want an unstable one)

- Proven hardware, and techniques (lookup SpaceX's pad testing failure, using a non-proven technique can have a very detrimental effect).

You can then proceed on trying making a basic engineering model (size-scaled and performance-scaled, both will not be in the same scale, and probably incomplete). Extrapolate after each test. If things goes well, add things (complexity) to look how they fare - for example, your engine could start with no cooling, then add one, then add vectoring etc. If it fails, consider removing them and see why it failed. Increase the scale as well. Continue making scaled examples until you have a perfect working replica and you're confident enough.

Once you're ready to make the real deal, consider the legal terms. And I hope you still have a lot of bucks to bang.

Also, always remember you're playing with explosives. Always.

[munlander1]

Let's get a small rocket that works before we do anything. @alpha tech, I would suggest getting some Estes rockets. The rockets range from rtf(ready to fly(I don't know if that is the rocket term though.)) To painting the whole thing after building anything.

This one just requires no supplies:

Spoiler

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000QFJKNM/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487735699&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=dragonite+rocket&dpPl=1&dpID=31wBA-xYtIL&ref=plSrch

If it was not so late I would find another one that requires plastic cement and elmers glue. Might edit one in tomorrow.

Good night!

Edited February 22, 2017 by munlander1

[StrandedonEarth]

15 minutes ago, munlander1 said:

Let's get a small rocket that works before we do anything. @alpha tech, I would suggest getting some Estes rockets. The rockets range from rtf(ready to fly(I don't know if that is the rocket term though.)) To painting the whole thing after building anything.

This one just requires elmers glue if I remember correctly:

  Reveal hidden contents

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000QFJKNM/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487735699&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=dragonite+rocket&dpPl=1&dpID=31wBA-xYtIL&ref=plSrch

If it was not so late I would find another one that requires plastic cement and elmers glue. Might edit one in tomorrow.

Good night!

If you read the description on that, it says no glue required at all. But I'll excuse you since you say it's late.

For Estes rockets, may as well go to the source! Although I think they only ship to the US, I wasn't able to order anything from there to Canada. But I could just ship to a drop box just across the border...

http://www.estesrockets.com/002157-saturn-v

Anyways, back on topic: If you want to play with rockets, Estes rock(et)s!

 

[munlander1]

6 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

But I'll excuse you since you say it's late.

Thanks. Will edit that part out. It was not far off from midnight when I typed that.

@alpha tech you will also have to get recovery wadding to avoid the parachute being melted by the ejection charge. I have made some in my own but I forget the recipe.

Edited February 22, 2017 by munlander1

[alpha tech]

13 hours ago, munlander1 said:

I would not go for a water landing. I would design your craft to be able to survive one. How large is your lake? I honestly think it is too small. Unless you can measure it in miles, then getting a water landing is unlikely.

Do some geographical research lake keowee

9 hours ago, munlander1 said:

Let's get a small rocket that works before we do anything. @alpha tech, I would suggest getting some Estes rockets. The rockets range from rtf(ready to fly(I don't know if that is the rocket term though.)) To painting the whole thing after building anything.

This one just requires no supplies:

  Reveal hidden contents

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000QFJKNM/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487735699&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=dragonite+rocket&dpPl=1&dpID=31wBA-xYtIL&ref=plSrch

If it was not so late I would find another one that requires plastic cement and elmers glue. Might edit one in tomorrow.

Good night!

I want to design one I can test concepts on I have a few ways I can do thrust vectoring and I mainly want it to test guidance

[munlander1]

3 minutes ago, alpha tech said:

Do some geographical research lake keowee

I think that's a little to narrow to get a landing. Also the average space craft is off by about 38 kilometers. That's about 20 miles. 

[alpha tech]

The lake is run by Duke power. And there are more than one lake

[munlander1]

Lake keowee is about 3 miles wide. Unless you want to go into polar orbit, then that's not a good target.

[YNM]

10 hours ago, alpha tech said:

I want to design one I can test concepts on I have a few ways I can do thrust vectoring and I mainly want it to test guidance

Are you already able to make any liquid fuel engine that doesn't need external cooling and/or solid rocket stages larger than or equal to class O ?

If not, I suggest you look up those first. Then we can talk about payload, trajectories, stages, dimensions, and only after then you can safely try out electronics / guidance / vectoring. Mind you that the Saturn suffered from problems inherent to engines, despite all the designing and modelling and testing. (yes it's also probably because of size but still, you ought to be careful.)

[munlander1]

13 hours ago, alpha tech said:

I want to design one I can test concepts on I have a few ways I can do thrust vectoring and I mainly want it to test guidance

You have not built a rocket. There is no book that can teach you that without actually doing it. I would do small a8-c9 maybe even d-12(motor sizes) unguided rockets. The key thing is experience. One of the reasons why I suggested the rocket that I did was because it takes 1. No supplies 2. It is simple to construct.

I would really get into small scale before you attempt guiding.

 

Also there is no difference between thrust vectoring or gimbaling (at least none that I know of).

Edited February 23, 2017 by munlander1

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, munlander1 said:

Also there is no difference between thrust vectoring or gimbaling (at least none that I know of).

Well, AFAIK, gimbaling the engine bell is one form of thrust vectoring. Vanes in the exhaust stream would be another. There may be other (more complicated) ways of creating a vectoring effect.

I suppose one could try vectoring a model rocket engine, but that's just asking for an out of control rocket coming at you.

[munlander1]

6 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Well, AFAIK, gimbaling the engine bell is one form of thrust vectoring. Vanes in the exhaust stream would be another. There may be other (more complicated) ways of creating a vectoring effect.

Thanks for the correction