I haven’t kept up with all the details of your (laudable!) efforts, so this may have been explained previously.
The move from the minimalist Tycho Brahe spacecraft to the Apollo style Tyco Deep Space capsules seems like it dramatically increases the necessary booster size, and hence decreases the likelihood of it every seeing suborbital space.
The Tycho Brahe spacecraft looks like it could be launched on something only two to three times the size of Armadillo’s Stig rockets, while the Tyco Deep Space capsule looks like it needs something about the size of a Redstone rocket. You have enough experience now to know that it will probably take at least a half dozen shots with attending losses of vehicle to get something that is fully successful, so say nothing of reliable enough to want to ride in.
Cost scaling isn’t linear, but making it nine times larger seems likely to make it cost at least five times as much and take at least twice as long, which looks harmful to getting to the goal.
What pushed you away from the man-crammed-in-a-tube design? It looks frightening and unconventional to people, but I still think that it is potentially within actual reach.
id_aa_carmack78 karma
I haven’t kept up with all the details of your (laudable!) efforts, so this may have been explained previously.
The move from the minimalist Tycho Brahe spacecraft to the Apollo style Tyco Deep Space capsules seems like it dramatically increases the necessary booster size, and hence decreases the likelihood of it every seeing suborbital space.
The Tycho Brahe spacecraft looks like it could be launched on something only two to three times the size of Armadillo’s Stig rockets, while the Tyco Deep Space capsule looks like it needs something about the size of a Redstone rocket. You have enough experience now to know that it will probably take at least a half dozen shots with attending losses of vehicle to get something that is fully successful, so say nothing of reliable enough to want to ride in.
Cost scaling isn’t linear, but making it nine times larger seems likely to make it cost at least five times as much and take at least twice as long, which looks harmful to getting to the goal.
What pushed you away from the man-crammed-in-a-tube design? It looks frightening and unconventional to people, but I still think that it is potentially within actual reach.
John Carmack
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