Manned Amateur Homebuilt Suborbital Rockets
06/30/03 00:00:00
By Michael Mealling
I have a piece up on The Space Review on amateur manned suborbital spaceflight, arguing that within a couple of decades homebuilt spacecraft could be within reach for individuals of moderate wealth. The reasoning is by analogy with homebuilders of other vehicle types.
Some links to relevant resources:
Homebuilt manned rockets website - A little odd, but there are some good links.
Rotomotion is selling guidance systems for model helicopters, but the product gives an idea about where guidance systems might be headed in the short term. Something not too different from this could serve as the basis of a guidance system for a homebuilt spacecraft.
Crossbow makes the IMU used by Armadillo Aerospace (expensive, but good)
Jeff Greason of XCOR responded to a post I made on this subject in April on sci.space.policy, in a thread about SpaceCub.
boatbuilding.com is a good central resource for homebuilt boats of various types and sizes, as is
The Experimental Aircraft Association is the premier organization in the USA for builders and owners of homebuilt aircraft, and they've had a generally positive attitude towards vehicles like the XCOR EZ Rocket. The EAA magazine also ran a piece on homebuilt rockets written by Mark Russell of Russell Lindbergh Aerospace. There is a link to a spreadsheet for design of a simple homebuilt manned rocket on their website. Unfortunately there isn't a copy of the article available online, though EAA sells back issues. Another good resource on aircraft homebuilding is rec.aviation.homebuilt.
There are some interesting discussions on the Personal Submarines list archives. Some of the life support technologies are clearly relevant to homebuilt spacecraft.
comments powered by Disqus