John Carmack's X-Prize Entry Falls Short

[SirBruce]

This was just a test flight, but the failure was rather spectacular:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2004_08_08/48InchCrash.mpg

For the full story:
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=272

Bruce

[personman]

"It's a good thing Doom3 is selling well."

Heh.  Well not like he bought Russian space junk on the dark side of the moon.

[geldonyetich]

Proof that while you don't have to be a rocket scientist to design cutting edge new 3D engines, it doesn't hurt.

[TripleDES]

Uh, X-Prize? As in manned tourist space flights?

The last thing I'd do would be setting foot in a rocket propelled egg. White Knight = Impressive. Carmack's "Egg" = Bullshit.

[Alluvian]

I got the site to load once for me to read the linked story, but after that I have not gotten anything out of it.  So I really have little idea about any of this other than the fact that carmack has apparently made a rocketshipthingy that crashed because it had no fuel guage.  It would be interesting to read more about it if the site would load again.

The fuel decisions were interesting for sure.

[SirBruce]

Works for me now... maybe they had some web site trouble?

Bruce

[Arcadian Del Sol]

for those that couldn't load the site, I found the following diagram of the test:




except the landing was more like dropping a plastic cup with a lacrosse ball in it.

[schild]

This was just a test flight, but the failure was rather spectacular:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2004_08_08/48InchCrash.mpg

That is a thing of beauty.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

"I got it I got it I got it!"