Armadillo Rising....

[docm]

Link....<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>Armadillo Aerospace: Scaling Up for Modularized Spaceships</b><br /><br />Golden, Colo.---Since 2001 Armadillo Aerospace has made more than 100 rocket-powered test flights using three different propellant combinations and some 50 engines in a dozen vehicles. The company also has used various kinds of attitude control systems and several generations of electronics boxes to control their launch vehicles.<br /><br />Officials at the Mesquite, Texas-based company believe this step-by-step approach is helping them make significant inroads into computer-controlled, vertical-takeoff and vertical-landing technology that will lead to a new type of human suborbital - and eventually orbital - vehicles in the coming years.<br /><br />"We're sort of at the cusp where we have capabilities that, all of a sudden, people actually care about," said John Carmack, a 36-year-old pioneering programmer in the computer gaming industry. "Previously, everything that we were doing could be easily dismissed as toys or little hobbies."<br /> /><br /><b><font color="yellow">"In theory, we can bolt together as many as we need, whether it's 16 or 64 of them," Carmack said. The modular approach permits Armadillo Aerospace to scale both boosters and upper stages to handle any size payload that is necessary. He sees modularized propulsion systems as the scaleable foundation that takes the company through commercial operations and, eventually, all the way to orbit.</font></b><br /><br />This modular approach is expected to lead in the near future to a human-carrying vehicle for flights up to a 100,000 kilometers, Carmack explained.<br /><br />"All the pieces are right there," Carmack said. "They are basically sitting right there in our shop. And it's close. There are any number of things that can make it take longer ... but there's no</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[larper]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>flights up to a 100,000 kilometers<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />That has to be a typo. Must mean 100 kilometers, or 100,000 meters. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Vote </font><font color="#3366ff">Libertarian</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[no_way]

obviously. but i have wondered about this a bit before, will the suborbitals go for altitude records ? I mean, going up to 200 km wouldnt be that much harder than to 100 (especially when you reduce the payload from full cabin of passengers to one filthy rich one ) .. and then to 400 and so on.<br /><br />

 

[MannyPim]

I think the problems you run into at higher altitudes are G-forces on re-entry and thermal loads. Unless you save a good amount of fuel to slow down your re-entry before you hit the atmosphere. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#0000ff"><em>The only way to know what is possible is to attempt the impossible.</em></font> </div>

 

[nimbus]

The Orbital Outfitters' suit article linked in that SDC article quotes 120,000 feet.<br /><br />It ought to attract a few jaded base jumpers <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>