Ansari X-Prize; Rubicon 1 Rocket Failure

[Kushan_Pilot]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/08/09/bc.privaterocket.ap/index.html

According to this, another contestant in this important world-wide competition has made a test launch. Unfortunately it is, to my knowledge, the first launch or flight failure of such scale.

The rocket exploded approximately 1000 ft. into the launch, which is almost immediately after launch given the speed. Their goal had been 20,000 ft. at Supersonic speeds.

I'd like to see more success, though I'd be lieing if I said I had no bias. Burt Rutan has my attention.

[Dragon Lord]

Armadillo Aerospace(Id's John Carmack's company) also had a setback:their rocket kept boosting longer then it should have causing it to run out of fuel and falling 600 feet destroying it totally.

here is the story: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=272
It is a shame it happened but it teached carmack a few lessons. (oh and the video is pretty cool)

[Retroboy]

Smart idea to use dummies first. Considering it only cost 20K, the lessons learned on that one came pretty cheap.

This is kind of like Robot wars - the assortment of designs is quite interesting, and the imagination of the competitors is rather surprising. The Canadian entry, for example, plans on igniting their rocket from a balloon hovering at 24 km altitude, which will heftily reduce the amount of fuel required to boost to LEO.

I love stuff like this.

-- Retro

[Reignfire]

Armadillo Aerospace has the right idea, they are selling "Armadillo Droppings" (aka pieces of their destroyed rocket) for $125 each.

[Soban-sa]

I love captailism.

[Zepherian]

Talk about rags to riches, if they go on like that they will make more money from failure than from success... Strange world.

[Retroboy]

Bring me the head of an Armadillo dummy. I will mount it on my wall.

-- Retro

[Vaarok]

"I love capitalism" seconded. And let's all be happy Carmack wasn't in the rocket, since he programs really good game engines.