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This Canadian inventor from Antigravity Research who holds the world record in bottle rocket launches wants to launch a rocket into orbit! Is it possible? After watching some videos and poking around the inventors site I am thinking that if it is possible that Antigravity Research will be the company to do it. Watch the videos for an example of this powerful technology.
"They’re made by attaching plastic or cardboard fins to an empty bottle, punching a hole in the bottle top to act as a nozzle and pressurizing the bottle with air from a bicycle pump.Add some water before pumping in the air and the bottle will go higher. Add a squirt of dish soap to the water and it goes even higher. Schellenberg’s two-stage model is easily capable of reaching altitudes of well over 200 metres.Several years ago, one of his "toy" rockets - actually a Kevlar-reinforced, experimental, single-stage missile pressurized with compressed nitrogen and packing high-tech instruments - flew to just under 379 metres. Based on that research, Schellenberg is now convinced that it will be possible to put a bottle rocket into orbit. In preparation, he’s working on sending a modified two-stage rocket - reinforced with ultra-strong carbon-fibre and fuelled by liquid CO2 - up about five kilometres."
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February 19th, 2008
Hmm, 200m pretty impressive - only another 99,800 metres to get to space.
It would be interesting to calculate how much water, at what pressure would be required to reach orbit (at 11,200 m/s )
February 19th, 2008
He really needs on of these: http://www.hypercompeng.com/hydrogen.php
February 19th, 2008
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Here’s a (very) rough estimate of the numbers he’s dealing with:
For the sake of a rough estimate, let’s say that the bottle, while it still can exert force (while it is still pressurized), exerts constant force. This means that the force it exerts at the beginning of its flight and the force it exerts right before its internal pressure reaches that of the atmosphere are the same. I know this will most definitely not be the case, but bear with me - I don’t think that will affect the outcome too much. Anyway, the total energy required to put the bottle into orbit will be:
mGM/(R+r)
…where m = mass of bottle, M = mass of earth, R = radius of earth, and r = height above the ground where the bottle will run out of pressure.
Now, this is an extremely rough estimate, but it does put things into scale. If the rocket weighs a tiny 10 kg, it’ll still take over 500 megajoules (500 million joules) to put it into orbit.
Even if these estimates are two orders of magnitude off, it’s still a massive amount of energy. It may be possible, but when he develops a bottle rocket that can generate many megajoules of energy, I’ll be very impressed.
February 19th, 2008
>Several years ago, one of his “toy” rockets - actually a
>Kevlar-reinforced, experimental, single-stage missile
>pressurized with compressed nitrogen and packing high-tech
>instruments - flew to just under 379 metres.
Let’s see, if my math is correct, 379 meters is just 0.235499682 miles. Since “Space” is approximately 22 miles straight up, he is only about 0.01% of the way there. It looks like great fun (I’ve blown up two-liter soda bottles, and done semi-high powered rocketry), but get real; you ain’t never going to get a water rocket to reach space!
Stop dreaming and get back to the real world!
My Almost_There project (see http://www.GeoCities.com/Almost_There_Weather_Balloon/ ) got to about 42,000 feet, that’s almost 8 miles (it probably went to about 75,000 feet, but I can only prove it got to 42K since it got out of radio range) and I made it as light as I could; gee if I could only get the weight down to minus 1 pound…
Almost_There
February 19th, 2008
Schellenberg is now convinced that it will be possible to put a bottle rocket into orbit, and I am now convinced that it is possible to make a fool of yourself!
February 20th, 2008
I for one encourage the notion all morons should be launched into space.
February 28th, 2008
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February 28th, 2008
AntiGravity Research Corporation is not a research facility, it is a STORE! (Over priced, in my opinion.) I guess they don’t have any “truth in advertising” laws up there or he’d brought up on charges for making false claims.
Besides, reaching space is one thing, and achieving orbit is quite another (much, much, much more difficult.)
April 27th, 2008
Looks more like a cheap deadly weapon than a sort of hobby to me.