Casing continued...

The new casing for the DDS boilerplate motor is nearly complete, just a little more sanding on the bulkhead end (on the right in the photo), and it's ready to go.

Shuttle Launch

The Shuttle Launch Like You Have Never HEARD It Before Thanks to Skywalker Sound.  Great video, and accompanying sounds, of a shuttle launch.   I suggest that you play it loud.

 http://gizmodo.com/5893612/the-shuttle-launch-like-you-never-heard-it-before

SStS casing part three

Unfortunately the existing casing for the latest motor, a single-burn boiler plate motor, was accidentally damaged prior to testing, so I'm fabricating a new one.  Nothing new; cut to length, true ends, drill, drill, drill...
Hoping to make it to the firing and take lots of pics.

Goddard Prototype?

I saw this on ebay this morning.  The seller suggests that this is an early regen engine prototype that came out of  Robert Goddard's workshop.  That would be cool!  The seller makes no claims of having any proof to go with it and with a price tag of $325,000 and a short 3 day inspection period before considering the sale final, it seems unlikely that a buyer will come forward.  It does seem that with enough time, that some research and material testing it would be possible to determine if it were at least plausable...

SStS motor casing

This new casing is a bit longer than the previous casing that I made and it really dwarfs my lathe.  It's coming along nicely though.  In the top photo you can just make out the Dremel attached to the tool post, it holds a #1 center drill that I use to mark the hole locations in the casing.  The Dremel isn't the ideal tool for this; not enough power and the #1 bit is so small I'm always concerned that it'll break.  It is enough to mark the locations though.  The next step, seen in the 2nd photo, it to use my little drill press and a larger #3 center bit to drill through the casing.  Then it's just a matter of enlarging the holes to the final diameter.  I like to do this in two steps, drilling to nearly the final diameter, then finishing off to the required diameter as the final step.  This results in clean, accurate holes.

SStS Motor Casing

I have purchased a piece of tube to fabricate a new motor casing for the Sugar Shot to Space DSS effort.   The DSS motor and test setup were among the finest I've ever seen, it's a shame that the motor failed but the team has a good idea of the failure mode and how to avoid it.  Here is the tube before being cut to length and drilled for the nozzle and bulkhead.

Just when I thought I was working on a large motor, I saw this truck on the freeway hauling a large number of Titan strap-on booster motors.  OK, fine!  Maybe this is just a sprinkler system for a new industrial building.  It's all in how you  use them...

JATO

I just recieved an old rocket motor off of eBay. Sometimes refered to as JATO motors (jet assisted takeoff motor) or by the more accuarate acronym RATO (rocket assisted takeoff motors) these small motors have always caught my interest. Mostly because they were among the first, if not the first, rocket motors that were mass produced. The urban ledgend about the guy that attached several of these to his car doesn't hurt the appeal either. I can't find much information about this particular motor, so if anyone knows anything about them I'd love to hear from you. The markings on the case read Rocket Motor M3, Lot PA-79-9.