As students everywhere return to school, the luckiest are heading for caves and rocket firing ranges instead of lecture halls
Posted 09.09.2009 at 11:08 am
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Hot Rocket: UAH’s student-built Blue Thunder rocket won “Best Vehicle Design” at a NASA competition. John B. Carnett
So You Want to...Fire Big Rockets?
Where: Propulsion Research Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville
What You’ll Learn: What will make up the future of rocket-propulsion systems
Job Prospects: Aeronautical engineer, mechanical engineer
Typical Assignment: Test burn rates of new propellants
Each year, 20 aeronautical- and mechanical-engineering students get eight months to design, construct, and fly a rocket to a height of exactly 5,280 feet. These aren’t hobby rockets, which typically fly to less than 1,000 feet (any higher requires an FAA permit). “Consider that an A engine is half as strong as a B engine, and so on,” says engineering professor Marlow Moser. “The rockets you shoot off in the park: A and B engines. Our rockets: L engines.”
Last year’s class built a 37-pound, 8.5-foot-long carbon-fiber projectile with advanced data-collection systems onboard. The nosecone carried a video camera and avionics to record the rocket’s flight path and other information; the aft end, temperature and strain sensors.
Students enter their rocket in a NASA-sponsored student rocket-launching competition and present a report to the space agency’s scientists and engineers as if they were a company vying for a contract. Although the presentation is just an academic exercise, several rocket-crew alums go on to work for NASA, which has its Marshall Space Flight Center just down the road from UAH.
“Here, students are playing with fire and explosives all day,” Moser says. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”
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I love your desisn.
ALIEN NATION
Re: So You Want to...Fire Big Rockets?
Regulation of hobby rockets is NOT dependent on the altitude they fly to.
A model rocket weighs 1.5kg or less and is made of light weight material like balsa wood, paper, and plastic.
A model rocket motor contains 62.5g of propellant or less and a total impulse of 160 newton/seconds or less.
There is no maximum altitude or maximum speed except those imposed by the laws of physics. Super-sonic flights are possible and altitude records for F and G class rockets exceed 2 kilometers.
For the straigt scoop on model rocketry see the National Associatio of Rocketry web site at http://www.nar.org
Rick
At my school you get to go caving in grade 7. the only thing different are the caves are really tight and you practically have to crawl through.
At my school you get to go caving in grade 7. the only thing different are the caves are really tight and you practically have to crawl through.
abier: It is clearly stated that the rockets produced by UAH are NOT hobby rockets, making most of your points mute regardless.
Whenever an object of the scale of these rockets is launched, a permit is required. Otherwise we wouldn't pay for one. A model rocket has a MASS (not weight) of 1.5kg or less, perhaps this is why no permit is required for you.
Total impulse is measured by newton*seconds and is the integration of force over a given time. Units of newton/second correspond to a dimension of power*(1/distance) which has no name assigned to it that I can recall. Not saying it doesn't have a name, I just can't recall one.
And btw if you want your rockets to go supersonic without dissintegrating then you will have to get rid of those goofy wings featured in the rocket in your photo, unless your rocket is made of some VERY nice material. Check out this years USLI competition, as they plan to go supersonic for a short duration.
Please refrain on attempting to take away from our success. Or at least get your units right during your attempts.