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<style> BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }</style>You space nerds should rlly talk to these people. Illutron is a Danish art collective which does a lot of technically challenging projects. For example, one of them is working on launching himself into orbit.<br>
<br>
they were next to ddi at a festival and so a few of that crew knows a few of them. I am just in contact with Bent , he says they're coming to the US in summer to build something for burningman (prob not a rocket)<br>
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</div><div><a href="http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/" target="_blank">http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/</a></div><div><a href="http://www.illutron.dk/posts/225" target="_blank">
<a href="http://www.illutron.dk/posts/225">http://www.illutron.dk/posts/225</a></a><br>
--D<br>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">On Wed 16/12/09 9:45 PM , "Brian Molnar" brian.molnar@gmail.com sent:<br>
</span><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(245, 245, 245); margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 0px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 0px;">I have been *VERY* interested in doing this for some time now, so if you want some help, I'm definitely down. Plus I'm very willing to contribute financially.<br>
<br>
- Molnar<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 9:14 PM, Mikolaj Habryn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="javascript:top.opencompose('dichro@rcpt.to','','','')">dichro@rcpt.to</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">There's been lots of articles of late about school kids sending<br>
weather balloons with cameras up to 100,000 feet for peanuts and<br>
getting amazing pictures. These projects kinda lack ambition -<br>
although I'll confess to being grudgingly impressed nonetheless.<br>
<br>
By contrast, these guys are my heros -<br>
<a href="http://www.members.shaw.ca/sonde/" target="_blank">http://www.members.shaw.ca/sonde/</a> - they carry a glider up with a<br>
home-built autopilot that navigates back to where they're waiting for<br>
it (sometimes upside-down). Their stories are the reason that I have a<br>
2.6m r/c glider in my cube at work (that I'm too scared of to actually<br>
fly).<br>
<br>
Also, a friend pointed out on the weekend that <a href="http://jpaerospace.com/" target="_blank">http://jpaerospace.com/</a><br>
have somewhat stolen my thunder, but, dammit, I still think there's<br>
some fun to be had here.<br>
<br>
Things I'm keen to work on:<br>
<br>
Buoyancy control for high-altitude balloons - most of these guys send<br>
balloons up until they burst and then recover payload under a<br>
parachute. It shouldn't be too hard to build something that can hold<br>
altitude by moving gas between envelope and rigid container (a full<br>
day-night cycle might be hard, but you never know - at lower altitudes<br>
you could potentially condense water vapor and electrolyze to<br>
replenish hydrogen supplies). Talking to the blimpduino guys at maker<br>
faire a year or two back, they were also interested in the idea of<br>
having a buoyancy control system at the smaller scale, but didn't<br>
think it could be done in their weight budget. I think they're wrong,<br>
and I even had the parts to prove it at one stage.<br>
<br>
1kg of batteries has enough energy to accelerate a 10g weight to<br>
orbital velocity. I had a napkin once that claimed that a reasonably<br>
efficient motor could achieve that by spinning a reasonable length<br>
tether at reasonable g forces, but I think I got the numbers wrong at<br>
the time :P OTOH, yesterday I saw a tech talk by the quick launch guys<br>
(giant hydrogen cannons ftw) where they mentioned trivially<br>
g-hardening consumer electronics to 3200g, so maybe there's still a<br>
way of doing it with a reasonable length of practical tether - not<br>
that I know *what* tether, how it will behave when the outer section<br>
of it is travelling at transonic speeds, drag losses at 100k feet, and<br>
what kind of interesting payload you can fit into 10 grams, but these<br>
are implementation details.<br>
<br>
Um. I had other ideas, but can't think of them right at the moment.<br>
Anyone else have related projects or want to play? I intend to grab<br>
some weather balloons from ebay, a cylinder of hydrogen and maybe some<br>
ardupilots and carefully skirt various FAA regulations in the next<br>
couple of months.<br>
<br>
m.<br>
<br>
PS: and Black Rock City Spaceport - 'coz fuck steampunk.<br>
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