Princeton University attempt at a suborbital space shot?

LOL. Ask NORAD if any new objects appeared into space. Certainly they would know.

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pendrin2020 said:

No kidding. It’s nigh impossible to get them to realize that as well. On Facebook they’ve practically decided it was a success, “but we can’t prove it”.

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I've seen no official team communications suggesting that it was a success. It looks to be relatives of team members who probably don't know that something clearly went wrong.

Forgive me. Second comment wasn’t clear enough. Officially they’re saying nothing. But the comment sections are filled with friends and family members and the occasional team member suspecting/assuming success without proof.

pendrin2020 said:

They can’t find the wreckage. Some of them are assuming it made it to space because they didn’t see it shred.

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If you are going to dream, dream wet.

If it streamlined in it will be below grade and never found.

M

pendrin2020 said:

USC made their attempt yesterday. Motor ignited vertical but before any of the avionics were turned on. ...<snip>...
Some of them are assuming it made it to space because they didn’t see it shred.

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If none of the avionics were turned on, then how could it have ignited the sustainer to make it to space?

VernK said:

If none of the avionics were turned on, then how could it have ignited the sustainer to make it to space?

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I found a too short video:



The first thing I noticed is that there are way too many people around the (single stage?) rocket. There are hazards here and only those people that are required to perform the particular operation should be present. The rest should be a long way away.

For smaller rockets this isn't so big a deal. But this thing is large and with all of that stored chemical energy available, really bad things can happen. I know you are proud of it, but try to think about safety. Hey, was there anyone on the team in charge of safety?

Millennials running with scissors.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that many university engineering teams need more oversight than they are getting from their mentors.

Our launches are frequented by three such teams. The ceaseless stream of bizarre failures has gone from amusing to disturbing.

UhClem said:

The first thing I noticed is that there are way too many people around the (single stage?) rocket.

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But some of them had safety glasses on, so they should be ok!

What launch site did USC make their attempt at? Was it a normal TRA research launch?

On Waytheyak's observation, you're probably right. My follow on question is do they even have access to a mentor that can properly oversee and guide efforts of such a scale?
The students aren't trying to do your average L3 flights, they're trying to innovate and push the boundary of what has been done. The issue I observe is that semesters and schedules get them into a rush. Everyone wants to be on the team that Flew The Rocket, not the team that buckled down and worked hard on testing systems so that it could fly next year (after they graduated).

The boundary can't be pushed without mastering the basics. Personally I'd consider arming your electronics rocketry 101 and they should have as well.

grouch said:

Millennials running with scissors.

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I'll never understand why people rip on Millenials. Watch one movie geared towards teens in the 80's and tell me Gen X didn't look worse. Lol. The boomers thought you guys were an endless stream of Spicolli's and John Cusack Wannabes. Look at Hair metal and Twisted Sister. The boomers probably thought you guys were gonna be a bunch of tranny's and drug addicts.

These kids are just barely Millenials. The official cutoff for statistics is anyone born in 1996 or earlier. I assume the oldest seniors on this team are between 23 and 24. Most of the spectators are probably freshman to juniors.

Let's just agree that anyone between the age of 13 and 25ish is severely lacking in common sense. lol

grouch said:

Personally I'd consider arming your electronics rocketry 101 and they should have as well.

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Speculations aside without witnessing the issue personally, I agree. Highly likely something in their process brokedown.

pendrin2020 said:

Let's just agree that anyone between the age of 13 and 25ish is severely lacking in common sense. lol

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We'll it's a good thing I turned 26 last week

25-ish.... XD.

JK. Happy Birthday!

In a few days they will post the launch was a success.

Nytrunner said:

We'll it's a good thing I turned 26 last week

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I’m still an idiot for another month or so, I guess.

MClark said:

In a few days they will post the launch was a success.

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Wut?..

This doesn't smell right.

They've scrubbed their social media of anything that looks damning, they've made no announcement of finding wreckage/recovering parts, several people close to the situation have said that the launch was premature, and according to them no communications were being received from the vehicle after launch. I watched it go live... the radios were stone silent.

I know they're young, but do they realize that their integrity as an organization is going to suffer severely if they don't have the goods when they announce that? This is rocketry. You can't assume anything. You can't just claim, "It went up so we're going to say it performed perfectly".

What in the world is going on?

pendrin2020 said:

I'll never understand why people rip on Millenials. Watch one movie geared towards teens in the 80's and tell me Gen X didn't look worse. Lol. The boomers thought you guys were an endless stream of Spicolli's and John Cusack Wannabes. Look at Hair metal and Twisted Sister. The boomers probably thought you guys were gonna be a bunch of tranny's and drug addicts.

These kids are just barely Millenials. The official cutoff for statistics is anyone born in 1996 or earlier. I assume the oldest seniors on this team are between 23 and 24. Most of the spectators are probably freshman to juniors.

Let's just agree that anyone between the age of 13 and 25ish is severely lacking in common sense. lol

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I watched what I could stomach of that goat rodeo of a FB live stream. I tell you this much without a hint of doubt, I'd rather live in a world of Ferris Bueller than with the kids at that launch.

I could go on and on why it's easy and fun to pick on this generation but I'll just leave it at the doorstep of not getting the results they were looking for then declaring it a success because they couldn't find proof of their failure. When you are raised without knowledge of consequences, you get to create a world without penalties. It actually scares me of what this means for the future.

MClark said:

In a few days they will post the launch was a success.

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If it's a success in a few days then it's a success now. If it's not a success now then it won't be in a few days without a huge dose of creative license and millennial pixie dust.

grouch said:

If it's a success in a few days then it's a success now. If it's not a success now then it won't be in a few days without a huge dose of creative license and millennial pixie dust.

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Rub whatever prejudice you want on it. You'll ignore anything that doesn't confirm what you already believe anyway.

UhClem said:

I found a too short video:



The first thing I noticed is that there are way too many people around the (single stage?) rocket. There are hazards here and only those people that are required to perform the particular operation should be present. The rest should be a long way away.

For smaller rockets this isn't so big a deal. But this thing is large and with all of that stored chemical energy available, really bad things can happen. I know you are proud of it, but try to think about safety. Hey, was there anyone on the team in charge of safety?

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In a nutshell!!

You have no idea what I believe, only what I say. Like everything else in life, there is more to the story. You may not have experienced enough to understand that. Prejudice is a funny thing, to ignore that everything we are or every thought we have comes from bias is, well inexperienced.

watheyak said:

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that many university engineering teams need more oversight than they are getting from their mentors.

Our launches are frequented by three such teams. The ceaseless stream of bizarre failures has gone from amusing to disturbing.

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Who is mentoring these teams? It seems that they do need better mentors.

Also, why are they trying to fly to space when they really have not taken some of the needed intermediary steps?

pendrin2020 said:

Wut?..

This doesn't smell right.

They've scrubbed their social media of anything that looks damning, they've made no announcement of finding wreckage/recovering parts, several people close to the situation have said that the launch was premature, and according to them no communications were being received from the vehicle after launch. I watched it go live... the radios were stone silent.

I know they're young, but do they realize that their integrity as an organization is going to suffer severely if they don't have the goods when they announce that? This is rocketry. You can't assume anything. You can't just claim, "It went up so we're going to say it performed perfectly".

What in the world is going on?

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Mark is referring to another project launch where a team had a launch vehicle fail to accomplish its stated goal, yet they claimed success because of all they learned in the process. There’s more than one way to spin a rocket. [emoji846]

grouch said:

You have no idea what I believe, only what I say. Like everything else in life, there is more to the story. You may not have experienced enough to understand that. Prejudice is a funny thing, to ignore that everything we are or every thought we have comes from bias is, well inexperienced.

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By your own words, there is more to the story. Each of those kids was raised differently. Each of them values different things, and none of them have identical pasts. Each is the sum of where they have been. To ignore that and simply assume that their actions and thoughts are the result of a past you imagined in your head is, well inexperienced. Or biased... Or both. Take your pick, Mr. Philosopher.

Goat Rodeo was a fantastic way to describe that video. It was a gaggle of idiot kids who haven't had a bunch of friends die from stupid stuff, like you (probably) and I have. It's practically a rite of passage.

You get some time under your belt, you see a bunch of bad stuff happen to people, and suddenly all those warnings you got when you were a kid actually mean something. These kids are still lacking an incredible amount of experience. Are they sheltered? Well, yeah they go to a really expensive college. Are they arrogant? Yeah, it's part of being young. How do you not remember that? Or have you never made a mistake? If that's the case, you've either never taken a hard look at yourself to realize those mistakes, or you're lacking the most valuable experience of all, failure.

Success gives us questions, failure gives us Wisdom.

I'm a 30 year old college senior... I have no delusions... I know my mistakes. My failures are my most valuable assets.

Steve Shannon said:

Mark is referring to another project launch where a team had a launch vehicle fail to accomplish its stated goal, yet they claimed success because of all they learned in the process. There’s more than one way to spin a rocket. [emoji846]

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Gotcha, that makes A LOT more sense.

They are not a collection of individuals. They are a team, a whole. If they present themselves individually then one can judge them on their individual merits but when they identify as a team their individual past matter little. They made mistakes as a team, a team of millennials. I can tell you several things about learning from mistakes. I never once tried o whitewash or spin anything. If I didn't learn something the first time, I made the same mistake again, sometimes yet again. I looked for people with the experience I was attempting to gain and listened to them, not argue with them that I learned it differently in school. Read back through this thread. You'll see evidence of what I'm referring too. This forum sprouts a new young buck all the time who attempt to tell people with real world experience how things should be done, ask for help then belittle the help they receive. My generation did not do this, if not for any other reason then the lack of forums such as this. Knowledge of something is not knowledge about it. You obviously do not fit the mold I'm describing yet you keep putting yourself in with the mix. Not a sure why, I know you are fully aware of the well founded reputation your generation has earned.

As to my generation?? We have our own issues, we are the morons who created this.

Only the flyer/professor was out at the pad for sustainer stage arming then booster arming when we did UTC SEDS for an L-1 multistage. It was our first rocketry program. We wrote our own checklists. We tried our best to treat it with respect and we still had errs in the learning curve of rocketry from a complete lack of experience without mentors. None of our errs as bad as these two teams. Granted the scope of their project is so complex. They probably don’t even finish it in a semester and the oversight falls like a rock from the people who designed it originally have already left.

Major mistake on their part is letting them all out on the flight line. Because whoever is flying that rocket will be severely distracted in my humble opinion. We had some assigned students assemble a pad, slide the rocket down then leave it for the flyer to go to work, alone. Others were behind flightline doing telemetry. A buddy system. We armed our GPS units and ground tested them to work before inserting into a nosecone during prep not on flight line. Then walked with nosecone before even putting the rocket on the pad. We still lost one rocket but it wasn’t the GPS fault, it was a G load err by poor motor selection. The problem is the damn competitions state no experience required.

These universities spent a lot of money and effort. Those students are brighter than me. But man, they lost a opportunity by a simple error. Cutting the video feed isn’t going to restore trust in sponsors. That’s what blows my mind. I’ll try not to judge them. They attempted something I haven’t. It looks like they’ve made fools of their own program. If every one of those students held an L-1 they wouldn’t have all been out there. Alright I’m done spouting crap to them.

I don't disagree with your judgement on their decisions, obviously. If they try to do what we think they're trying to do, it's disgusting.

But what I'm trying to tell you, as a Millennial myself, is that %99 of Millennials will also find this disgusting.

That "Young Buck" you're referring to isn't a new phenomenon. There's literally one in every group, in every hobby since time began. I've met one in every group I've ever been a part of. This includes old farts at hot rod clubs.

When I did medieval reenactment, there was a guy twice my age who was exactly like you described. He'd show you his new armor he made, and ask your opinion on the proper way to mount it to the rest of his setup, and then he'd want to argue with you! He was a boomer for god's sake! After some years of dealing with idiots like him, I realized he didn't want the opinion at all, he wanted an excuse to show off. He wanted attention. Like a child. It's not the generation, it's whether or not that particular idiot is actually growing up. XD

Maybe you don't remember this from before Millenials because forums like these have only been around as long as WE HAVE lol. In the days before the internet, all you had to do was ignore the guy or make fun of him a little and he'd leave you alone. Now, it's almost impossible to get rid of them. lol Hell, I'm just old enough to remember those days.

The point I'm trying to make here, is that YOU ONLY NOTICE THE ONES THAT DRIVE YOU NUTS. It's why they go straight to trailer parks when there's a tornado, they wanna go where the drama is. Why in the hell would you see RATIONAL Millenials on TV or share them on Facebook? They're boring.

Most of the people I know are just like me. There's nothing wrong with this generation. We're driven, hard working, intelligent, and our contributions to the world are pushing it faster than any generation before us, just as gen X changed the game, just as the boomers changed the game, just as the silent generation did. The negative press I see against Millennials is ridiculous media pandering. It's actually so unbelievably formulaic that it's sad.

Make up a positive statistic about Millenials and I'll turn it against them. DO IT. I'll write a whole article and send it to you. Really. Try to come up with something that NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD THINK IS BAD. Make it up.