Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace Rocket Crashes and Burns

mcgrew (sm62704) writes "New Scientist is reporting that John Carmack's 'Armadillo Aerospace' has suffered a large setback in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge after one of its two main rockets crashed and burned. 'During the test, Texel lifted off and hovered without incident, then descended again and touched the ground. But it then rose again unexpectedly and began accelerating upward. "Crap, it's going to fly into the crane, I need to kill it," Carmack recalls thinking. He hit the manual shutdown switch, turning off the vehicle's engine in mid-flight. Texel was about 6 metres above the ground and fell like a stone. One of its fuel tanks broke open when it hit the ground, spewing fuel that ignited and engulfed the vehicle in flames. "It made a fireball that would make any Hollywood movie proud," Carmack says.' No one was hurt in the crash, but the vehicle was destroyed."

Coming soon...

[faloi]

Gravity will make you it's bitch!

Current feelings: Conflicted

[0racle]

On one hand what they were working on was completely destroyed, on the other the explosion was AWESOME!

Must have turned on...

[zsouthboy]

...anisotropic filtering.

Re:to boldly go....

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was Doomed from the start.

Safety Advisory

[Odin_Tiger]

Always ensure you have enough HP to survive the landing or an invulnerability artifact when performing a rocket jump.

well

[flynt]

It took me a while to get the hang of rocket jumping, too. Keep at it!

Re:Coming soon...

[MyLongNickName]

Gravity will make you it's bitch!

But grammar won't make you its bitch, will it?

So

[CaffeineAddict2001]

When can we buy parts of the wreckage on ebay?

Next time.....

[8127972]

He should fly the rocket from a first person perspective.

Re:Must have turned on...

[Dr. Eggman]

Nah, vertical sync. just was broken, better wait till Nvidia releases new drivers before trying again.

Re:to boldly go....

[QMalcolm]

M-Must've hit the Tarmack pretty hard? I guess? Did I do it right?

Re:to boldly go....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you. I'm with you 110%. This is EXACTLY why I have long opposed private spaceflight. Long story short, profit = cut corners = death. We saw it at the composites factory, and we'll see more of it. Private interests just do not have the long term perspective necessary to take the appropriate caution to prevent deaths. This is why space colonization should always be a government function.

Would NASA cut corners like this and end up killing someone? Hell no.

Re:to boldly go....

[An ominous Cow art]

Id say so.

Re:John's forum post on the subject

[Linker3000]

Executive summary:

"hotwired the battery...we don't need no stinkin' ground shutoff code...Sensors - never got around to testing them...we left some slop...ya think something rated at 4G would work up to 6G?...we know the GPS receivers are vibration sensitive so we stuck some bubble wrap round them and hoped...we checked earlier telemetry and yup - they're darn vibration sensitive...hold on lads; I've got an idea...The rocket has gotta return to the ground at some point; if only we'd done some testing on this...John's doing some fancy flying - oh, sh*t, he's not...now the tanks are scrap we're probably going to do some useful tests on them that we wouldn't have done with usable ones - heck those things cost money, baby...some of the wiring harness is wrapped in leather so we're going to alienate the vegan customer base...flammable foam catches fire."

I think I'll walk.

PS: The captcha I had to type in to submit this was "Piloting" - BWAHAHAHAHAHA

UAC

[samwh]

Shame, I was already to invest in his new company, dubbed the "Union Aerospace Corporation"

Re:to boldly go....

[Tim Browse]

I'm sure that this experience will teach them even more, helping to make the next flight even safer.

You mean even safer than a huge orange fireball?

I don't know, that's a pretty high bar.

You know what?

[eniac42]

This evolutionary path is yet to be walked down.

You know what, this is one area where I prefer intelligent design!

(I know, I know, I have sacrificed my principles for a cheap joke..)

Re:You know what?

[UnderDark]

but one thing they tend to guarantee is that only the fittest designs survive.


Then explain Microsoft and Windows!

Re:to boldly go....

[XenoPhage]

The bigger part to me is where they replaced a part without checking whether it was a suitable replacement. 10G != 4G.

Seems to be a simple mistake.. He purchased the newer IMU which, one would expect, built upon the previous one. Instead, it reduced some of the specs, causing a problem. A pretty easy thing to understand.

For instance, one expects that an upgraded OS would include all of the features in the current OS, plus some additional ones. Instead, one winds up with Vista. :)

Re:Bad comparison

['nother poster]

Shhh. You talk logic. He talk BS. Logic not allowed. ;)

FYP

[zero1101]

"Crap, it's going to fly into the crane, I need to kill it," Carmack recalls thinking. He fired his railgun into the vehicle several times before grabbing a nearby quad damage and finishing it off with a rocket. "It made a fireball that would make any Hollywood movie proud," Carmack says.

YES!