Epic Indiegogo Amateur Space Shot Project! (epic fail, that is)

[Exactimator]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/welcome-into-space-rocketeers#/

I got a kick out of this one. It showed up on the Tripoli Facebook Group. The person who posted (Varick Addler) has a different name but same profile photo as Martin Roesch, the project owner. Both are in Nuremberg, Germany. Roesch’s profile says he’s many things including a Tripoli Prefect. Varick Addler’s profile says he’s an actor and there’s a letter from ABC casting saying he’s the next Bruce Willis (I think they're going on the fact Varick is bald).

While scrolling through, I’d select a section of text and search google for it. I also right clicked on the pics and did a google image search for their source. Almost everything (if not everything) in this campaign is copied and pasted from someplace else.

The campaign page includes:

• TITAN ROCKETRY LABS is working "to put an amateur unmanned space capability into space"
• The project video is simply a YouTube video of the Apollo 8 launch.
• The introduction to the mission includes a link to the “how hard can it be” hybrid rocket video that’s been around for a few years.
• There’s a large amount of info on the actual Saturn V copied and pasted (that’s no big deal)
• “Experiences building various Saturn V models” that’s copied and pasted from Apogee’s website describing their 1/70th scale model
• Text and a video of Steve Eves’s 1/10 Saturn V launch
• Announcing the new TITAN SPACE GROUP T4 Hybrid motor developed with the help of Jerry Irvine.
• Videos of various hybrid propulsion by others, including Virgin Galactic’s motor test.
• A photo of carbon fiberglass tubes that appear to be large cardboard drums.
• A list of experts they’ve called in to assist who I’m sure have never heard of them, including Michael at Madcow, Tom Sanders Jr of Contrail hybrid motors, and Jerry Irvine.
• Rocket concept design images copied and pasted from US Rocket’s website (per Google Image Search).
• Text and images referencing the SLS (not sure what that has to do with an amateur shot to space).
• Photos of their prototypes that are actually many scale models, copied from a guest blogger post on NASA’s blog pages.
• Prototype photos, one is a Madcow 2.6” DX3 and one is an 8” Madcow DX3, pics and specs/parts lists copied directly from Madcow’s website. They changed the name from “Madcow” to “Titan”
• A graph for a Contrail Hybrid Motor O3600 from Thrustcurve.org
• A CAD model of a 3 stage rocket that looks nothing like the Madcow or scale model prototypes.
• A pic of the built 3rd stage in a shop that looks nothing like the CAD model.
• Motor tables, performance charts and pics copied from US Rocket’s website (some say Jerry Irvine somewhere in them) that have nothing to do with anything.
• More pics of rockets in a shop that don’t match anything described above.

At the end of all this pile of horse sh*t, they stick their hand out for $430,000. Except someone already kicked in $5 so they only have $429,995 to go. It’s a flexible Indiegogo campaign so they’ll get any money pledged whether they make their goal or not.

Gee whiz, I wonder if Germany’s next Bruce Willis will get his rocket into space…

 

[MattJL]

This is so bizarre that I want to call it bad satire. It's like it's trying to sell potential donors by just telling them about what other organizations have done in great detail, and loosely tying everything together with a really flaky narrative, but it's so on the nose about it that I'm just not sure. The contents of the post are, obviously, fluff, but the images of the rockets in the shop don't turn up via reverse image search, so they're either legit or lifted from somewhere really obscure. Weird.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/welcome-into-space-rocketeers#/
At the end of all this pile of horse sh*t, they stick their hand out for $430,000.

Man, and I felt bad suggesting we get $4 to $5k from crowdfunding at my uni's HPR team...