Rocketforge

the NFPA meeting of the Technical Committee on Pyrotechnics is open to the general public, and guests can request permission to address the committee

the NFPA Technical Committee on Pyrotechnics has (among other areas) primary responsibility for model and high power rocketry, and the construction, launching, and other operations that involve model and high power rocket motors

Code responsibility include Model Rocketry (NFPA 1122); Manufacture of Model Rocket and High Power Rocket Motors (NFPA 1125); and High Power Rocketry (NFPA 1127)

additional details follow

—

from NFPA Technical Committee Meetings :

the Pyrotechnics committee will meet next on January 14-16, 2004 at

Renaissance Fort Lauderdale
1230 South Pine Island Road
(off the Pine Island Road exit on I-595 West)
Plantation, FL 33324

Phone: 1 954-472-2252
Fax: 1 954-472-2295

—

the meeting is open to the general public, NFPA membership is not required

from Regulations Governing Committee Projects :

3-3.2.3 Types of Meetings (excerpt)
Any cost burden for attendance and participation by a guest are the responsibility of the guest.

3-3.3.3 Participation
(a) Participation shall be limited to Members and the Staff Liaison, except that the request of a guest to address the TC or TCC on a subject relevant to a specific item under consideration shall be honored. Guests wishing to address the TC or TCC shall notify the Chair or Staff Liaison in writing at least 7 days before the meeting. The 7-day notice may be waived by the Chair. When a guest addresses the committee, equal opportunity shall be afforded those with opposing views. The Chair shall designate the time allotted for any such addresses.

—
from Technical Committee Members :

the Chair and Staff Liason can be reached at

James K. Lathrop, Chair, Pyrotechnics
Koffel Associates, Inc.
81 Pennsylvania Avenue Niantic, CT 06357

Guy R. Colonna, Staff Liason, Pyrotechnics

National Fire Protection Association
1 Batterymarch Park Quincy, MA 02169-7471

—

from Committees Soliciting Proposals :

(at present, the Pyrotechnics Committee is NOT soliciting proposals on any rocketry codes)

see also NFPA Proposals & Comments

—

from TIA and Errata :

Tentative Interim Amendments (TIAs) are amendments to an NFPA document processed in accordance with Section 5 of the Regulations Governing Committee Projects. They have not gone through the entire codes and standards-making process of being published in a ROP and ROC for review and comment. TIAs are effective only between editions of the Document. A TIA automatically becomes a proposal of the proponent for the next edition of the Document, as such it then is subject to all of the procedures of the codes and standards making process. Published in NFPA News and any further distribution of the document, and sent to NFCSS, after being issued by the Standards Council.

Errata are corrections issued to an NFPA document, published in NFPA News, the National Fire Codes Subscription Service (NFCSS), and included in any further distribution of the document.

(at present there are NO TIAs or ERRATA on any rocketry codes)

from Proposed Tentative Interim Amendments :

(at present there are NO proposed TIAs on any rocketry codes)

—

from Technical Document Interpretations :

Only NFPA members may request a Technical Document Interpretation

Responses to requests for interpretation are provided by NFPA staff on an informal basis. This allows a timely response that in almost all cases adequately addresses the need for information. A request for an interpretation may, however, be processed on a more formal basis if so desired. This involves balloting the responsible NFPA technical committee, and requires an extended processing time and may not result in an answer if consensus cannot be established. This is referred to as a “Formal Interpretation”, and it is used in only limited cases. Refer to Section 6 of the NFPA Regulations Governing Committee Projects.

from Join NFPA :

NFPA membership costs $135 a year

—

rocketry codes and relevant dates are as follows

from NFPA 1122 – Code for Model Rocketry :

Proposal Closing Date: (none scheduled)
Report on Proposals Mailing Date:
Comment Closing Date: 10/5/2001
Report on Comments Mailing Date:
Revised Edition Date: 2007

from NFPA 1125 – Code for the Manufacture of Model Rocket and High Power Rocket Motors :

Proposal Closing Date: (none scheduled)
Report on Proposals Mailing Date: 7/29/2005
Comment Closing Date: 10/7/2005
Report on Comments Mailing Date: 3/31/2006
Revised Edition Date: 2006

from NFPA 1127 – Code for High Power Rocketry :

Proposal Closing Date: (none scheduled)
Report on Proposals Mailing Date: 7/23/2004
Comment Closing Date: 10/1/2004
Report on Comments Mailing Date: 4/1/2005
Revised Edition Date: 2007

—

also see Codes and Standards for a Safer World
and Regulations Governing Committee Projects

—

Comments are off for this post

Thanks to a post on Slashdot, I came across Alan’s Mojave WebLog which has lots of very nice pictures of the airport. From there I found the mojaveairport Yahoo Group (although its member only).
 

Via Hobbyspace: Alan has pictures of SpaceShipOne’s flight and landing

Comments are off for this post

It seems the rumors were true. Investor Paul G. Allen today confirmed international speculation that he is the long-rumored sponsor behind the innovative SpaceShipOne project…

Comments are off for this post

http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/RLV/2003/RLVNews2003-12.html#Dec.17.03

Today, a significant milestone was achieved by Scaled Composites: The first manned supersonic flight by an aircraft developed by a small company’s private, non-government effort.

 

Space.com:
Privately Funded SpaceShipOne Breaks Sound Barrier
BusinessWire: SpaceDev Powers SpaceShipOne to Break Sound Barrier Flight on Historic 100th Anniversary of Wright Bros.
NBC4 TV, CA: Private Rocket Plane Goes Supersonic In Test
Slashdot: SpaceShipOne Rockets To 68,000 Feet
Associated Press: Private Rocket Plane Breaks Sound Barrier
KOMO 1000 News: Rocket Financed By Paul Allen Soars
Sydney Morning Herald: Spacecraft built on the quiet goes supersonic on its first solo flight

Comments are off for this post

Remember the news that the ATFE had purchased some J350s and were going to try and shoot down airborne targets? Well, here’s a funny rumor:

ATF, through the USAF, hired an independent contractor to conduct some tests. ATF purchased a number of J350, G80s and other motors for these tests. They also purchased some kits from at least 2 manufacturers. The tests, being conducted here in Utah (off I80, north of mile marker 60) have been taking place most of November through last week.

 
Supposedly, they affixed a launcher in the back of a van and were launching from the van. As to why, we can only speculate. They also had numerous reloads in the same van while launching. One of the J350s catoed and ignited the rest, burning the van to the ground. (It did not blow up, it just burned up.) So much for hired experts who supposedly should know better.

Supposedly courtesy Bruce Kelly, former TRA president.

1 comment

AeroTech’s lawsuit against the Clark County Fire Department has been dismissed with prejudice apparently because AeroTech couldn’t afford a lawyer for some time. As a result, AeroTech has file a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. For those that don’t fly solids, AeroTech is the leading supplier of mid to high power AP based motors. The combination of this and the ATF’s new regulations probably means a large number of people will be leaving the hobby. While I’m sure some will think this is good news for other motor suppliers like Animal Motor Works, this hobby just doesn’t work that way. What sucks for one, sucks for all of us.

Comments are off for this post

This is a long one so click through to read the entire thing

In Disintermediation and Politics I momentarily touch on how disintermediation works and why its a good thing,
especially if we could “disintermediate NASA”. But the question that leaves
open is exactly how to do that.

In nearly all cases disintermediation happens by radically changing cost
structures associated with a given industry. I’ll use the Internet as the
currently extant example. The two ‘laws’ that are currently driving this
market are

• Moore’s Law: every 18 months, processing power doubles while cost holds constant
• Metcalfe’s Law: the usefulness, or utility, of a network equals the square of the number of users

The combination of these two creates a ratio where the costs of computing
power are dropping and value of the network they are connected to is growing.
This ratio is creating value at ever lower costs, making the total transaction
costs associated with many normally high cost tasks drop drammatically.
And when transaction costs drop, disintermediation happens:

Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law have made many types of transactions cheaper. This has resulted in outsourcing and the disintermediation, or cutting out, of many transaction middlemen. This trend is sure to accelerate because digitization has cut transaction costs all the way to zero in some cases. Once a product or service is in place to be sold on the Internet, for example, there is zero cost for each additional transaction.

So in the case of a space industry, is it possible to at least approximate
Moore’s Law when it comes to aerospace technology? I think so and here’s why:
most of what makes Moore’s Law work had to do with margin incentives and the
fact that technology still has room to advance. Much of the reason for why
companies like Intel have done the research it takes to double the computing
power of a processor is that the payout is large. Intel estimates that their
per processor margin is around 80%. But the flip side of that is that since
we are still learning about the atomic and subatomic worlds, there is still
room for significant advancement as we get ever smaller and smaller.

So what will reduce the costs in aerospace? It certainly won’t be some
brand new launch technology such as the X-33 or the OSP.
(Although, some advances such as a space
elevators could end up doing just that). Instead it will be the fact
that CNC machining is now cheap enough to be completely outsourced. Which means that one of the largest
costs associated with traditional aerospace has become disintermediated.
The combination of cheap access to fabrication and standardized plans means that the
costs associated with building aerospace hardware drops significantly.

And this is where Clayton Christensen comes into the picture. In his most
recent book The Innovator’s Solution he outlines three critical
elements of disruption:

• First, in every market there is a rate of improvement that customers
  can utilize or absorb.

• Second, in every market there is a distinctly different trajectory of
  improvement that innovating companies provide as they introduce new
  and improved products. This pace of technological progress almost always
  outstrips the ability of customers in any given tier of the market to use it.

• The third critical element of the model is the distinction between
  sustaining and disruptive innovation. A sustaining innovation targets
  demanding, high end customers with better performance than what was
  previously possible. Disruptive innovations, in contrast, don’t attempt
  to bring better products to established customers in existing markets. Rather
  they disrupt and redefine that trajectory by introducing products
  and services that are not as good as currently available products. But
  disruptive technologies offer other benefits – typically, they are
  simpler, more convenient, and less expensive products that appeal to
  new or less-demanding customers.

What all of that means is that the combination of reduced aerospace
manufacturing costs and hopefully reduced regulatory overhead,
new markets with disruptive innovations can be developed. The Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) are the most efficient engines around, but would you really need
something that efficient (and that expensive) if you had hundreds of thousands
of much smaller launch vehicles capable of carrying large numbers of much
smaller payloads for much cheaper? (in other words, the same process that
happened with the move from trains to over the road trucking).

As Henry Spencer says to Clark S. Lindsey in Clark’sSpace Review article concerning suborbital’s critics such as Bond and Pike:

I think these folks are making a fundamental mistake. They’re assuming the traditional model of rocket development, where huge amounts of money are poured into building a system with absolute maximum performance, and into making “certain” that it will operate perfectly the first time. While this approach has been standard in the past, it is horribly expensive… and worse yet, it doesn’t actually work very well.

Notice that their objections are essentially on technical grounds,
where none of the four points I make above is really technical. In the
old model—government-funded development of artillery rockets
technical problems dominate. In the harsh, cold real world that
commercial rocket projects face today, the technical problems are
not the hard ones.

Let me quote that again: the technical problems are not the hard ones. We need to start thinking disruptively. Some of us are but it needs to be an industry wide
paradigm shift.

Comments are off for this post

Again from Slashdot: An article in the Washington Post by Everett Ehrlich on the disintermediation that’s happening in politics. Specifically that Dean’s campaign has disintermediated the Democratic Party and that the only thing he’s after is the brand name and the ballot access (which are the only things left of any value). While I can’t stand Dean’s politics, the effects of disintermediation are what allows the Internet to be such a disruptive and productive force. I wonder what its effect will be on the Republican Party?

This is why I constantly mix articles about Open Source management methods and business articles. The ability to disintermediate in the aerospace industry could easily be a much more fundamentally mind blowing enhancement to mankind’s future than the Internet ever will. How different and amazing could our future be if we could somehow disintermediate NASA?

Comments are off for this post

Via Slashdot: An article listing various myths that open source developers tell themselves. Good reading since it not only talks about the myths but the kernel of truth in them and methods for avoiding the pitfalls. Good reading for folks like us.

Comments are off for this post

I now have a bot running in the #arocket IRC channel that connects directly to the ArocketIRC twiki topic. This allows conversations in the channel to be selectively logged to the wiki page. The next steps will be another utility bot that can interface directly with RocketWorkBench programs such as CPROPEP, allowing groups to work collaberatively on engine design.

Comments are off for this post