Homemade rocket to space, practical or not?

[lowerlowerhk]

Sorry in advance if you find the post very noob, because i do have zero knowledge about rocket other than playing Orbiter for a few years.

purpose I want to send a less than 0.5 kg payload into low earth orbit (say 100km above surface). Using homemade fuel mixture and shell material, how large the rocket will be? I worry that the rocket would be in the size of Saturn V due to low exhaust velocity of homemade fuel.

So, any thoughts?

 

[Loru]

Here is the topic about this.

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=20647

 

[Silence]

A little Googling could have helped you here.

I've read it's been done before once, so I'm pretty sure it's possible. Also take a look at this -

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_new...ed-in-denmark-part-of-human-spaceflight-plans
http://propulsiontech.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/homemade-rocket-launch-semi-successful-in-denmark/

 

[redneck]

These guys have been to space
http://www.ddeville.com/derek/CSXT.htm

 

[Grawp]

These guys have been to space
http://www.ddeville.com/derek/CSXT.htm

hmm. I somehow don't like calling these suborbital flights 'going to space'. They are not much practical.
If you want to do some low-pressure, high-radiation and other experiments or just want to see spherical Earth than go for high-altitude ballon. Some company in UK (if I remember it correctly) even sells hobby ballons and stuff for this purpose.

I see little hope for amateur orbital flights in LENR (and don't dare it call cold fusion, because its not !) ..maybe after ten years, maybe not. hmm

Or you can try rotating some heavy feromagnetic superfluid in a ring container at relativistic speeds. You know.. to create frame-dragging effect and than gravitational equivalent of Meissner effect. And when you are designing the outer sheel, please forget all that scifi tv crap, just remember how a wing looks like from profile and make it round around the ring container. Sounds familiar? And please, don't use metamaterials. Just mount it with ordinary ATC beacon.
(Forgive me this little joke.)

 

[GigaG]

If somebody made a rocket large enough with "rocket candy" fuel that could reach 100 km and orbital velocity, the challenging part would be programming it just right to enter orbit.

 

[guitarist473]

Less we forget...

(Lift off at 8:10mins in...)

 

[N_Molson]

Well, if you get the ISP of the "rocket candy fuel", it is possible to guess the propellant mass needed.

Without taking into account little unimportant things like structural integrity & resistance to vibrations, aerodynamics, stages ignition, guidance... :hmm:

 

[Grawp]

Well, if you get the ISP of the "rocket candy fuel", it is possible to guess the propellant mass needed.

Without taking into account little unimportant things like structural integrity & resistance to vibrations, aerodynamics, stages ignition, guidance... :hmm:

Regarding to guidance: I heard one professor at my university saying something about some student building FOG gyroscope at home. Not easy task, I know, but obviously it can be done.

 

[N_Molson]

The main problem is that, given the poor ISP of the fuel (I guess), I think you'll have to build a Saturn V or bigger to achieve Earth orbit...

 

[Columbia42]

Copenhagen Suborbitals (http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/) is working toward a manned suborbital flight.

 

[Sky Captain]

How hard it would be to make ammonium perchlorate solid fuel at home? with ISP of 240 - 280 s range it should be possible to reach orbit with 3 stage rocket.

 

[ijuin]

Given the low ISP of homemade solid propellants, you are probably better off going with something like kerosene or alcohol for fuel and hydrogen peroxide or nitrous oxide for oxidizer--these are relatively cheap, non-explosive, non-cryogenic propellants that can get you an ISP of 200-300 seconds and could probably allow you to have a first stage and boosters based on a V-2 type design (and size) for your Cubesat sized payload.