Ideas about business and a request for feedback...

The world is changing, the internet is providing a level playing field that spans the world. Hacker spaces, distributed group projects, crowd sourcing, crowd funding, social media, internet based print and media publishing etc... Like minded people can group together and accomplish wondrous things.

For awhile I've been thinking that this energy could be harnessed to create a space/rocket project. I recently read that Copenhagen suborbital has a a subscription model. Kickstarter recently had its first $1M project. Armadillo aerospace started as a volunteer group. (with serious outside funding from John's video game success. ) Reality TV shows like orange coast choppers or junk yard wars show the media value of people tinkering with interesting projects..


My goal is clearly to build a NANOSAT launcher class vehicle.

• What would a successful crowd sourced effort look like?
• I'd like to do this in as open and public way as is possible with out going to jail (ITAR).
• If I publish all the information along the way do I destroy the business case even if I'm 100% successful?
• How would one get more people involved in the project?
• How many people in the San Diego area would sign up for working one or two evenings every week and two Saturdays a month for a year(s)?
• Anyone volunteer to be video guru and/or webmaster for such a project?

My personal ethics code would find it very hard to take $$ from the environment without explicitly giving something back? I could start taking deposits for future flights and try to do funding that way, alas this makes me really queasy as there have been space efforts generating press releases and taking deposits where the underlying organization has not fired a rocket motor or built a flying vehicle in more than a decade. Some of the efforts cross the line where its either outright fraud or serious delusion. I hope to never fall into this category..
For those that are new to my blog and my efforts take a look at this video starting at the 8 Minute point


If I did a kick starter project what would would be good collateral to offer for different funding levels?

• Fly your business card to space?
• A discount on future Nanosat launches?
• Guest passes to watch launches?
• Shop tours?
• Weekly two way video chats?
• Access to live shop web cams?
• Early access to blog and video posts (1,2, 4 wk delay from post to public release?)
• Bits of hardware.. IE the actual GOPRO that took video from space with the origional SD card and unedited video.
• Access to data?

Any thoughts on a subscription supporter model?

• If I did this what value could I provide in return?
• Is information/ blog entertainment enough to give back?
• Any possibilities of doing some kind of reality TV program either web based or not?

I'd really like honest feedback from everyone on this. The most realistic response might be the observation that I'm completely certifiably nuts... My favorite recent joke is the one about the guy that goes to the hardware store and asks for "slightly neurotic glue" as he doesn't need full strength "crazy". For what I want to try to do I'll need full strength crazy and then some....

Quick Update...

I had someone ask me to update my blog....
Its been awhile, I have not been idle and this post is probably going to be 95% unsatisfying as I have no cool rocket pictures, videos, or time for the kind of detail I've normally done.

First one must sharpen the saw.
If one cuts wood for a living one must take time off from time to time to sharpen the wood saw otherwise everything goes badly. My saw is my ability to think and work hard. Over the three years since the LLC I've felt generally yucky. I've talked about my battle with motivation depression and project decisions etc...here on the blog. I felt tired old and run down. so for the last 7 months I've taken a real active approach to fixing that.

I've gotten my physical self in order, I feel more energetic, sharper and generally I feel ten years younger than I did a year ago. I'm sleeping well, I'm beiing creative and getting projects done. This has not been an easy thing to do , I've lost 52 lbs and done a 100% change in my diet and exercise behaviors. This takes a lot of time I'm currently exercising about 7 to 10 hours a week.

After doing this for awhile I'm finally getting to the point where my body is getting used to this and I have the energy to start working on interesting things. Its only been in the last 60 days that I've had the physical energy to start working on projects and things beyond the day job.
Here is before:

Here is now:


NetBurner
All the cool rocketry projects and other things on this blog are made possible by my success with my primary business NetBurner. This is the source of all funds and its success enables the freedom needed to work on Rockets. In 2011 Netburner had a record year, out best ever.
However my 3 year lethargy and funk has left a bit of a product hole that needs to be filled. I'm in the middle of releasing several new and cool NetBurner projects and fixing some missing product line pieces. This has to take precedence over the rocket stuff.

On To rockets:
Recovery:
Out at FAR I've watched countless cool rocket projects crash and burn due to recovery failure.
Recovery has to be learned, so toward that end I'm working to learn recovery in the traditional HPR sense. Last Saturday I flew my very first electronically triggered dual deployment HPR and it was a 100% success. Next Month I'll fly my slightly bigger L3 project. This L3 project is about the size and weight of the next liquid rocket I'm going to build so it will be a good training ground.

Guidance Electronics:
There are a number of cool things going on in MEMS solid state sensors. From high precision stuff from analog devices to really low cost stuff from ST micro. I've build a new tiny 50gm autopilot that uses some of these sensors. The first version had some issues and the 2nd version is sitting om my desk as a pile of parts awaiting assembly. I hope to fly both a rocket and the helicopter with this new autopilot in the next month.


Aerodynamic guidance:
A while ago I posted some pictures of some canard control fins I was going to build for an HPR. I got some feed back and did some studying and learned that for super sonic flight this is just plain not going to work as the shock waves will interact badly. Toward that end I've been looking at putting some tiny trailing edge fins on my L3 project and doing guidance that way.
The flometrics (girls and guys thanks Judy) have been helping with some detailed transonic CFD to help with placement and fin shape to make sure the shock interference does not negate control.

Here is an animation of the pressure...
We have done several rounds of simulation and will continue with this effort. The L3 rocket does not get guidance and stub fins until after I fly it for my L3.

I am going to finish the canard fins project and fly it with the following rules: If we are subsonic active control... otherwise center the fins. I hope to fly this with just roll control operational a week from this Saturday. I'll try to get some pictures up of this vehicle.

Tanks
The project to build composite flight weight chemically compatible propellant takes is ongoing. We have had real inconsistent results, some tanks work and some turn out very brittle. Our resin vendor has basically burried their head in the sand and stopped responding. I'm 90% sure that they have a production QA problem with their resin as the difference between the 1gal sample and the 55gal drum of the same stuff is night and day. I'm also 98% sure that the 55gal drum does not meet the specs on their data sheet. A most frustrating effort. Toward that end I've been working on several liner approaches that will allow us to build tanks with resins that we are structurally comfortable with. I hope to have results on several of these efforts "Real soon now"


Rocket Motors:
I have a very light weight innovative design idea for a new Regen rocket motor. I'm building the first version as a 500lb thrust version and I home to have the prototype for show and Tell at Space Access in April.

Business
As I've said several times here and else where building a sat launcher is all about weight. In basic complexity it can be less complex than a full reusable VTVL rocket that the other LLC competitors are working on. If my ideas for low cost light weight structures, innovative pressurization and light weight motors all work then I think I have a pretty solid business case for a profitable launcher business.(Starting with a proof of concept nanoat launcher) The real question is do I want to go get funding and accelerate that project or do I want to just keep using discretionary $$ to slowly work up to that level.... I hope to have a lot more info about this mid year or so.

Bird Saga...

The Saga of the humming birds, too tired to get pictures and video I have of the before conditions together.
Will do so later.

A Humming bird builds a nest in our front entry way on fragile shrub right in path of traffic.
So we put a step ladder in front of the nest with a sign that says go around watch out for nest.
All is well for a while, the mom and dad bird tend the nest and the eggs hatch.

Last night when we came home around 8pm the fragile branch failed turning the nest upside down. Dumping one baby out on the ground, Mom bird was frantically buzzing around in the dark bumping into things. We righted the nest and taped it to the ladder to keep it upright

Mom did not return to nest so we tried putting here back on the nest she did not stay, she flew away.
After 1/2 hour with temp in low 50F we brought the nest and one baby bird inside and placed them in a large Christmas cookie tin. Put tin floating in pot of warm water (bird stayed dry, tin floated on the water.)
Put a small thermocouple on the nest and regulated temperature manually to keep it around 90F all night.
Not much sleep for wife and I, after getting this set up we decided to go back outside a look for second bird not in nest, found bird on sidewalk, very cold and barely moving. Brought it in warmed up and put in nest.

Fed some sugar water to both babies. (I know they need protein too, its all we had)
Stayed up all night, at first light Put Christmas Tin with nest in it on top of ladder under bush where nest was.

Mom came by, got in nest fed fed baby. Then pecked side of Christmas tin flew around wildly and flew off.
(All this activity was observed 10 or 15 feet away from inside through window)

Replaced tin box with a piece of wood with a hole the right size for nest to sit in.

Dad bird came by and fed both babies off an on all day. Never saw mom again, but did not keep a close watch.
This afternoon we went by the backyard bird store and got some humming bird food with insect protein in it.

Tonight after dark we check the nest, no one is sitting on the nest, no mom, no dad, getting cold again down to 55F not sure what to do brought nest back inside. Went and got small heat lamp and have the heat lamp shining on the nest with thermocouple in air next to nest under heat lamp. Will stay up long enough to insure that temp has sabilized then go to bed.

Current plan is to return the ladder and nest to its correct spot just before daybreak in the morning.
Hopefully dad bird will keep feeding them.

The babies have their pin feathers and some more substantial feathers on wings. but don't seem to have their eyes open yet. Not sure when they hatched. Not sure if this is the best course of action....

From a philosophical stand point, it's just a few grams of almost inconsequential bird feathers,
In the scheme of things would I be doing a more significant service to nature/GAIA if I let the little ones die and did not burn resources driving around gathering things to try and save them? I've spend $ and time that might remotely make sense if I were a vegan (I'm not). How can I in good conscience eat an animal that is smarter and closer to me in the scheme of things (Beef) and at the same time spend a sleepless night and a good part of this evening helping a tiny bird that may or may not survive and in any case will not understand my efforts?

A tired brain can barely ponder such things.


Morning Update.
I've been told by a Humming Bird expert that Mom does not sit on the nest after 5 days or so.
So Not having mom on the nest at night is normal.
I put the nest back out this morning and have seen Mom feeding them at least twice.
I captured some poor video of her feeding them here

I changed the camera angle and its recording, sometime tonight I'll go through the hours of video and try to post better pictures.

I've also been told that "Dad" is a threat not a helper.
Here is a picture Mariellen captured of "Dad" on the nest the day before it fell down.

Something new more in line with a HPR than orbital launcher.

The OD of the can is 4.0" The Red things are DS3717HV servos.

The Tasks for a good simulator.

The LLC hovering vehicles were fairly simple to model. Fixed local frame of reference, constant air pressure, fixed magnetic dip and declination all in all slow enough that one could basically ignore air drag. One could model the vehicle dynamics using a simple unchanging world in Cartesian coordinates.

I've spent the last 2 years thinking about what it takes to build an orbital vehicle. A very rough first pass can be done with a simple how much delta V do you need. A more refined tradeoff needs a more refined model. Ultimately I'd like a full up hardware in the loop simulator that I can run full missions on. Writing such a simulator is a bit of a daunting task.

Just modeling the complexity of the "World" as you fly around it is non trivial. Starting with what reference frame do you use: Lat Lon altitude? , North East Down? Earth centered fixed. Earth centered Inertial? (Probably ECI what epoch J2000?)

A whole bunch of things that used to be fixed for the LLC simulator now change...

• Gravity,
• Atmospheric pressure.
• Magnetic field strength, direction.
• GPS constellation geometry.
• Earth is not round.
  

One could refine the vehicle model with a simple 2D model of a spherical earth and launched from the equator, Yet there are questions that can't be answered without these details. Just one simple example, I plan to use a MEMS IMU, GPS and Magnetic sensor to keep track of the vehicle position and orientation. MEMS IMU's drift really bad (0.1deg per sec is typical for a mems gyro) A better Laser gyro is much much heavier.

This is correctable if you have a couple of outside references to keep things aligned. In aircraft its common to use gravity and magnetic field to "erect" the gyros keeping then aligned. On a spacecraft under thrust you can do it with GPS velocity an accelerometer and a 3D magnetic filed sensor. The accelerometer measureing thrust direction in a body frame is compared against the GPS measured acceleration in an absolute frame (Say ECF), In reality these two vectors measure the smae thing so these two vectors gives you one absolute orientation vector. The magnetic field gives you another. This will fully define the corrections you need to apply. If some where during your launch the magnetic field vector and the desired thrust vector align too closely then you really only have one reference vector and your orientation is ambiguous in roll around that one vector. You might say that orientation on that axis does not matter, and that would almost be true, but if the orientation changes from the desired trajectory and you want to correct back or close the loop, you must have a full orientation solution to steer the rocket.

So do they ever align? I have absolutely no idea. Does this mean I'm limited to picking only certain orbits? Maybe? When the rocket stops thrusting and coasts I loose my orientation again, can I start thrusting for a circulization burn and learn my orientation quickly or is it more efficent to steer into a direct injection orbit with no circularzation burn.

Doing a direct injection burn has a delta V penalty, is this penalty larger or smaller than the hardware weight cost to have the 3rd stage motor restart? Is the find my orientaion with quick thrusting penalty in delta V greater or less than the mass penalty for a simple sun sensor, or tine CMOS start tracker? Inquiring minds want to know. The whole conceptual rocket has way too many knobs.

Beyond modeling the world you have to model the vehicle and its systems. Tanks, valves, actuators, pressurization systems, rocket motors, thrust vector control, atmosphere drag, aerodynamic moments, areo and solar heating etc.. etc...

Trying to organize this monster project into a modular individually testable coding campaign is quite daunting.

Paralyzed by options

For the last two months I've been working on improving my physical self. Next year I turn 50 and its clear that some attention to self maintenance is no longer optional. I've been running, carefully controlling what I eat looking at things like nutrient levels unrealized food allergies etc... So far I've lost 25 lbs, I am sleeping better, fixed some weird digestive issues etc... I'm starting to feel a whole lot better. For the next few months this is going to remain my primary focus, but I'm starting to have some spare brain cycles to devote to interesting projects. The only problem is I have not yet picked one. Its almost an embarrassment of riches as I have far more things I'd like to work on than I could ever possibly do.

Here is the list of what I've spent some time on in the last three months:

• Exploring the possibility of starting a Nanosat/Microsat launcher business.
• Exploring the NASA NanoSat challenge.
• Working on developing peroxide compatible high performance tank age.
• Training my self to run, I'm up to running 5K, long term goal is to finish a 1/2 Ironman, the swim and bike are much easier for me that the run part.
• Learning to be a better RC helicopter pilot.
• Updating the Helicopter autopilot to clean up code and use more modern lower cost sensors.
  
• Helping my Son move to Seattle and getting adjusted to the "Empty Nest"
• Testing GPS units under high acceleration.
• Cleaning organizing my Shop in anticipation of getting back to a rocket project.
• Repairing my little catamaran and doing some delayed maintenance on the boat.
• Going to the shooting range and relearning to shoot well. This was the primary Father son activity with my Dad from age 8 to 16. Sad to say that I took my Dad to the range and he is too far gone down the dementia path to enjoy that, it was loud and confusing and he realized he was not shooting well, but could not put the cognitive skills together to figure out what he was doing wrong, one of the Sadest things I've done in a long long time.
  

Here is the short stream of consciousness list of projects I'd like to do, and that I've spent some time sketching or thinking about.

• Develop a tiny low cost guidance and control package for HPR class rockets.
• Develop a truly low cost (<5K) hovering controlled rocket vehicle for use by students, schools, serious amateurs etc...
• Develop an autonomous aerobatic RC helicopter.
  
• *Develop a integrated RC transmitter and Telemetry receiver display for UAV and controlled rocket use.
• *Develop a gas and go 100Kft reusable liquid rocket. (Glide back, guided parachute, or VTVL TBD)
  
• *Develop a high G integrated GPS and IMU system.
• *Break the VTVL hovering duration record.
• Build something like the Martin Jetpack.
• Build a Solar powered aircraft. (My last attempt is here:http://www.rasdoc.com/splinter/solar2004.htm)
• Build a manned solar powered aircraft.
  
• Get my FAA medical back and start flying again. (13 months ago I started using CPAP, so without a lot of paperwork and hassle that pretty much kills my medical.)
• *Develop a peroxide rocket that uses thermal decomposition rather than catalysts, allowing 95% peroxide and removing cat pack black magic issues.
• *Develop the full range of motors necessary to build a nano-sat vehicle.
• *Build a electric "turbopump" driven rocket motor.
• *Do more development on 3d printed rocket motors. (This is really a $$ issue)
  
• *Build and fly a two stage liquid rocket.
• *Build out and test the paper concept I have for a very simple to construct Rocket Motor.
• *Develop a set of compact brushless valves and actuators and Sell to NewSpace co's.
  
• Build, test and sail a trans pacific autonomous sailboat.
• Build a large envelope 3D printer IE a Makerbot on steroids.
• Start something like Techshop in the San Diego area.
• *Start something like the original Armadillo aerospace setup. IE get a building and have a group of volunteers working on some serious rocket projects with meetings/work parties twice a week or so.
• *Start a properly funded venture funded rocket business.
• Do some more public speaking. (I've really enjoyed the speaking I've done)
• Build and market an RC helicopter "Oh Shit" Autopilot, IE a small box on an RC helicopter that will recover from dumb thumbs and put the vehicle in level hover if you screw up and hit the Oh shit button)
• Do some more traveling and see parts of the world I have not seen.(South America, Asia)
  
• Buy a big sailboat and take a long cruise.

Everything with a * is applicable to the NanoSat challenge.

So many choices so little time.....

Tank V2.

The original tank shown in the last blog post did not pass hydro it failed at about 180PSI where the integral liner failed. This tank was desiged for 500PSI burst.

So the second attempt used a slightly different process for the liner. The liner actually turned out lighter, but it was so light that is started to buckle during the overwind process. We were targeting a 1000 PSI tank this time and the logitudinal windings for 1000 PSI were done, but the tank started to buckle after only about half the circumference windings. When this happend the tank was removed from the winding machine, slightly presurized and put in the curing oven.

Based on the partial winding the tank theoretical burst value was just over 500 PSI.
Today the tank burst at 500 PSI. There appears to be general stress all over the tank, but the failure was fairly catastrophic showing that the fiber matrix was distributing the load correctly and the failure was not a point failure. All in I'm very happy about this result.

With 85% peroxide the tank that just failed at 500PSI (Even with double the needed longitudinal windings) has a mass ratio of 36!!!!

We are about to make tank V3 and will modify the fixture so we can slightly pressurize the liner while winding.

Here is a picture of the tank.