Amateur Manned Rocketry

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djs

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Just wondering if anyone has done this (other than Evel Knievel)? Successful or unsuccessful?

Note- I don't condone anyone building a rocket in their backyard and strapping themselves to it.
 
Yeah it was called Space Ship 1. Amateur with the respect it wasn't directly connected to the government or government agency. One person do it themself? I don't think so. Kurt
 
I would pay big money...

Too see a few of you...

Attempt this...
 
I have been approached twice over the years by people who were serious about riding a rocket. The first person was before the motor technology would support it, a cluster is a bad idea.mThe second person many here would know, but "left rockets" before anything got to a build point.
I ran the numbers and we did a bunch of brainstorming on design, g loads, motors, minimum desired altitude, recovery of airframe and rocketeer. Getting the proper FAA approval for a non commercial manned rocket may be problematic.

M
 
Does this count?

[video=youtube;qRjb9cr7tIU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRjb9cr7tIU[/video]
 
Want a ride? I think one of those surplus Rooskie ejection seats might cure anyone of the desire to ride a home made rocket ;)


[video=youtube;Ipb608XiWtc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ipb608XiWtc[/video]
 
From a technical standpoint, it is certainly "doable." But Nathan is correct; it is illegal. So if you did it, you wouldn't be able to tell anyone. :wink:
 
It's only illegal under FAR 101. Hang gliding is also illegal under FAR 101; it's the wrong regulation for this. You just need to find another FAA regulation to follow. FAR 91 and FAR 103 come to mind.
 
Remember this.

1024px-X-2_Skycycle.jpg


Evel Knievel was the first person I remember who rode a rocket as a stunt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evel_Knievel

He probably wasn't the first and isn't the last. Nevertheless it isn't sport rocketry.

Bob
 
I will fully admit that this is something that I don't want to try, nor would suggest to anyone to attempt. I was mostly curious if in the early days of rocketry if people tried something on their own- most likely unsuccesfully.
 
Here's a group that are actively working toward it.

https://copenhagensuborbitals.com/nexo/

The video about 2/3 down the page is long, but pretty cool.

I saw that before but unless they get their "math" and motor formulation right, the G forces can blow out the vertebra of the back in the standing position. Many a pilot in the "Caterpillar Club" has height shortening from compression fractures after
punching out with an ejection seat. Better being a little short than being dead. Modern positioning has helped but in the earlier days of ejection seats was a problem. Momentary high G's along the axial axis of the spinal column is not desirable.
Kurt
 
I saw that before but unless they get their "math" and motor formulation right, the G forces can blow out the vertebra of the back in the standing position. Many a pilot in the "Caterpillar Club" has height shortening from compression fractures after
punching out with an ejection seat. Better being a little short than being dead. Modern positioning has helped but in the earlier days of ejection seats was a problem. Momentary high G's along the axial axis of the spinal column is not desirable.
Kurt

My former co-worker who was in naval aviation said you got two uses of an ejection seat before you were forcibly retired, and that each trip made you an inch or two shorter. Maybe after two ejections you could go fly something boring without ejection seats, but I suspect it was a permanent grounding.
 

Ah, you beat me to it. Stumbled across it last year. Still hard to beleive that a stunt like that could go by with so little attention. And I have some doubts.

This guy, Mad Mike Hughes, claims to have flown aboard a rocket Jan 31st, 2014.

https://madmikehughes.com/

Video:

[video=youtube;3feaiPcv6yE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=3feaiPcv6yE[/video]

I say claims, since the VERY short video does not show any footage of him whatsoever, except after the rocket landed,d when he’s being removed from it (but that does not prove he was in it when it flew). Heck they have onboard video of the chute opening, could not spare 3 more ounces to mount a GoPro in the cabin? Not saying it’s a fake, but if I was an advisor to that group I’d have made darned sure there was far better proof than that.

Mad Mike Hughes X-2 Steam Rocket
Current King of the Daredevils

See Mad Mike...
Saturday April 2, 2016
Palo Duro Canyon Zip Lines
"The Grand Canyon of Texas"
(Outside of Amarillo, Texas)

MAD MIKE WILL BREAK HIS OWN RECORD FOR ...
"World Record for Longest Jump in Stunt History at 1,374 feet”


Well, in any case, he’s going to go for it again, publicly, in little over a week, April 2nd.

https://www.wideopencountry.com/man-plans-launch-palo-duro-canyon-rocket/

- George Gassaway

palo-duro-793x525.png
 
Yeah it was called Space Ship 1. Amateur with the respect it wasn't directly connected to the government or government agency. One person do it themself? I don't think so. Kurt

Space Ship One was a commercial venture, carried out by some of the top professionals in the aerospace industry (Scaled Composites, designed by Burt Rutan).

On April 1, 2004, Scaled Composites received the first license for suborbital rocket flights to be issued by the US Office of CommercialSpace Transportation. This license permitted the company to conduct powered test flights over the course of one year.

You may have been thinking "Private" rather than government-sponsored. But I didn't take the OP's question to mean private. SS1 was about as far from "amateur" as you can get, while Mad Mike Hughes.... he's so amateur in the rocket sense that if he really did fly in that thing, he forgot to figure out a way to make money off of it when he did it. And yet he's a "professional" stunt man.


In the early 2000's, there was "Brian Walker - Rocket Guy". He was building his own rocket to fly on, he said. He went onto a LOT of talk shows. And talked, and TALKED, and TALKED. That's all he ever really accomplished. Talk vs flying ratio of 100% to 0%. OK, so he built a prototype that was the shape of a rocket... or... something. But he wasn't exactly a Rocket Sturgeon... :)

270_1.jpg
 
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I remember they broadcast this live on ABC's Wide World of Sports. The chute came out right after launch, otherwise he might have made it across the Snake River... or hit the cliff head-on. Probably good for him that he didn't...

Remember this.

1024px-X-2_Skycycle.jpg


Evel Knievel was the first person I remember who rode a rocket as a stunt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evel_Knievel

He probably wasn't the first and isn't the last. Nevertheless it isn't sport rocketry.

Bob
 
I remember that although Knievel called his contraption a motorcycle, he had it registered as an experimental-amateur built airplane to satisfy the FAA. His "jump," from a regulatory perspective, was a part 91 flight.
 
Wow, looks like they need to add an engine block in the NC.
Good luck Kristian!
 
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