From: vince@offshore.ai (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.space.tech Subject: Re: Unguided orbital insertion (cheap upper stages) References: <20031112211145.16326.00000079@mb-m23.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.88.68.230 mattwriter@aol.com (MattWriter) wrote in message news:<20031112211145.16326.00000079@mb-m23.aol.com>... > << Vincent Cate wrote: > >One trick (from Henry Cate) is that you could have your apogee > >kick motor in front of the payload aimed the opposite way so > >that when your spin stabilized vehicle got to the other side of > >the Earth it would be aimed the right way. > > This is exactly what the Navy guys from China Lake tried in the NOTSNIK > launches of 1958. This is very interesting. A good URL (search for NOTSNIK) is: http://ftp.seds.org/pub/info/newsletters/spaceviews/text/spaceviews.9807.txt It seems they had 4 months and $300,000 to get something to orbit. This has got to be one of the shortest times and the lowest budget for any orbital launch vehicle development. It was also the first air launch to orbit (or at least attempted). From URL: > This rocket had a total length of 4.38 meters (14.4 feet), a > fin span of 1.65 meters (5.42 feet) and weighed only 950 kilograms > (2,100 pounds). Even with the mass of the Skyray included, > NOTSNIK is the smallest known system ever built to launch satellites. Some more info and pictures at: http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/vault/NOTSNik/ This seems like a general method that a few guys with an X-prize vehicle would want to think about trying. :-) -- Vince