BBC Focus Magazine

[Thinker]

Humour my childish wish here, and I'm not going to build it obviously:

I want to build a spaceship. I don't have a very big budget, somewhere in the region of £100 a month to put towards it. What could I use/salvage from scrap yards, general items available at minimal cost from the internet/ebay,etc to build my very own spaceship?

For now, we will do away with the spacesuit, as I'm not coming back!

[M Paul Lloyd]

Bit of a tall order I'm afraid Thinker especially on such a small budget, but to get you started here are a few figures.
To raise a 100kg payload to space (100kilmoteres altitude thats not the same as actual 'space' you understand) you are looking at a total vehicle weight of around 480kilograms including payload with a take off weight of 1280kg including fuel. Thrust at take off will have to be in the order of 2700kg with a terminal velocity of 1,700 metres per second after a 68 second engine burn (presuming you can acieve an exhaust velocity of 2,000metres per second) .....

[M Paul Lloyd]

As for hardware, you will need some sort of spacesuit, presuming you actually want to still be breathing when you reach space that is?! However it would not have to be anything very sophisticated as you could dispense with articulated joints and such.

I will have to check my books when I get home but off the top of my head I reckon a large sounding rocket might fit the bill but obviously exependable riocket parts are not often available second hand so maybe something like an unused but out of date miltary missile, say an old Corporal (or whatever a more recent equivilant is?) raised to altitude under a large helium balloon?
But on your budget you might have to save for three lifetimes to achieve even that.

Alternativley you could have your remiains cremated and fired into space on something a bit more modest?

[Thinker]

You mean I can't make it out of wood?

[M Paul Lloyd]

Well you could employ some wooden composites into the overall design, but I wouldn't choose it as the main structural material.

Actually, joking aside I think this is quite an interesting excercise. Just how little hardware would you need to reach space/orbit/Moon?

[Shadowwolf]

I think that even a bare bones effort would come to a tad more than a hundred a month on ebay or the local scrapyard.

Could save a bit by having no safety systems or system back-ups.

[M Paul Lloyd]

I recall that in the late 1940's the British Interplanetary Society (back when it still enjoyed some technical credibility) suggested using a modified German A4-V2 ballistic missile to propel a man to space in a small recoverable capsule in place of the one tonne warhead.

It had been observed that when fired directly upwards (with a dummy payload) they achieved in excess of 100km altitude, so in theory at least it could have worked and we could have had a 'man in space' ten years ahead of anyone else.

Not exactly scrapyard technology though...

[nemisis39]

so the rocket i built out of a 6 walkers crisp box's

living quarters,
engine room,
toilet shower facilities,
commander/environmental centre,
kitchen,
weapons housings (i want to rule the cosmos ),

with 24 extra large fairy liquid bottles attached round the bottom with sticky back plastic and industrial size firework rockets inserted to gain thrust.

won't work

[Shadowwolf]

Sounds a bit like that rocket-chair from Mythbusters, and that did not exactly work.

[M Paul Lloyd]

This of any interest Thinker?


More here
http://www.shareable.net/blog/to-the-st ... spacecraft

[Thinker]

That's the kiddy!

Just enough room to get...ME in it. I could fit a catheter on me, take a pot noodle or two and a very tall thin bottle of water, mobile phone and hands-free kit.

Hmm, I think I prefer the two man version though. See! You all laughed at me, but it's being taken seriously by someone (however crazy!!).

[M Paul Lloyd]

Trust me Thinker, I was not laughing.

[Thinker]

You mean, you wanted one as well?

[M Paul Lloyd]

Ever since I was eight.

[Healerman]

You mean, you wanted one as well?

Yeah, get in the queue.