Comments on: Never mind Nascar--let's race rockets!

The new Rocket Racing League is looking for a few good pilots--and a good swath of airspace.

[ebrandel]

Ok... one small problem

NASCAR is exciting in large part due to the crashes, which are mostly non-lethal and the drivers usually walk away fine.

Crash one rocket into another, or into the ground, and you're SOL

RE: One Small Problem...

Yeah, I tend to agree with you there. I have been attending the Reno National Championship Air Races http://www.airrace.org) for 26 years. It's bad enough when we lose pilots here. At these races, pilots are flying a few hundred feet off the group at most, and the unlimited class has broken the 500MPH mark in the recent years. When a crash DOES happen, it's usually confined to a small crash site. If these are going to be held at altitude (5000 FT AGL?) the crash pattern from an "event" can be quite widespread. Now that there are racing jets at reno, I just hope someone doesn't get a hairbrained idea to race rockets next.

[zaznet]

I disagree...

I think crashes of rockets will be far more spectacular than those seen in Nascar :)

How many times as a kid did I get to see the space shuttle explode? Countless times, and it was just as exciting every time!

[Joe Blow]

Rockets' Red Glare ...

"Crash one rocket into another, or into the ground, and you're SOL"

And your point is ... ? :D

The biggest thrill of living is cheating death, or at least feeling like you could, or someone else could while you're living through them vicariously. Otherwise, the second roller coaster ever built would never have seen the light of day, much less alpine skis, skateboards, auto or aircraft racing, etc. Different people have varying levels of need/tolerance for this, of course ("different strokes and folks", and all that). People with the biggest cajones need to live at the extremes - but, we'd just rather not be in the same insurance pool with them (much less the same car pool).

As for safety in general, let's try to eliminate the 30,000-plus deaths a year in the U.S. alone due to traffic accidents (about half of which are due to alcohol), the hundreds of thousands of needless deaths associated with smoking and/or drinking, and the millions of deaths due to obesity before we go trying to outlaw a very small number of pioneers trying to get their jollies in front of millions of interested spectators.

I do have to wonder how long a "rocket race" would last, though, with burns that allowed for turns on a circuit less than 5 ~ 10 miles long (even with vertical climbs and dives). Drag racing is about right for today's attention deficit disorder crowd, I guess, and this might last even less time. They wouldn't be able to use Burt Rutan's light-'em-'n'-go tire rubber and laughing gas engines, that's for sure, unless the course were two miles wide - and 62+ miles high!

All the Best,
Joe Blow

[ebrandel]

Ok... one small problem

NASCAR is exciting in large part due to the crashes, which are mostly non-lethal and the drivers usually walk away fine.

Crash one rocket into another, or into the ground, and you're SOL

RE: One Small Problem...

Yeah, I tend to agree with you there. I have been attending the Reno National Championship Air Races http://www.airrace.org) for 26 years. It's bad enough when we lose pilots here. At these races, pilots are flying a few hundred feet off the group at most, and the unlimited class has broken the 500MPH mark in the recent years. When a crash DOES happen, it's usually confined to a small crash site. If these are going to be held at altitude (5000 FT AGL?) the crash pattern from an "event" can be quite widespread. Now that there are racing jets at reno, I just hope someone doesn't get a hairbrained idea to race rockets next.

[zaznet]

I disagree...

I think crashes of rockets will be far more spectacular than those seen in Nascar :)

How many times as a kid did I get to see the space shuttle explode? Countless times, and it was just as exciting every time!

[Joe Blow]

Rockets' Red Glare ...

"Crash one rocket into another, or into the ground, and you're SOL"

And your point is ... ? :D

The biggest thrill of living is cheating death, or at least feeling like you could, or someone else could while you're living through them vicariously. Otherwise, the second roller coaster ever built would never have seen the light of day, much less alpine skis, skateboards, auto or aircraft racing, etc. Different people have varying levels of need/tolerance for this, of course ("different strokes and folks", and all that). People with the biggest cajones need to live at the extremes - but, we'd just rather not be in the same insurance pool with them (much less the same car pool).

As for safety in general, let's try to eliminate the 30,000-plus deaths a year in the U.S. alone due to traffic accidents (about half of which are due to alcohol), the hundreds of thousands of needless deaths associated with smoking and/or drinking, and the millions of deaths due to obesity before we go trying to outlaw a very small number of pioneers trying to get their jollies in front of millions of interested spectators.

I do have to wonder how long a "rocket race" would last, though, with burns that allowed for turns on a circuit less than 5 ~ 10 miles long (even with vertical climbs and dives). Drag racing is about right for today's attention deficit disorder crowd, I guess, and this might last even less time. They wouldn't be able to use Burt Rutan's light-'em-'n'-go tire rubber and laughing gas engines, that's for sure, unless the course were two miles wide - and 62+ miles high!

All the Best,
Joe Blow

[zaznet]

Bigger Problem... Sponsors!

Where are you going to put a logo on the rocket big enough to tell what it is?

Sponsorship is going to be a big problem for the racing pilots who do try to participate. This will likely limit the participation to very few pilots who can fund their own rocket.

sponsor cameras

when they're talking about putting all those logos on the aircraft, undoubtedly you would be able to see them from the cameras. Plus, the pilots become associated with their sponsors more often

[zaznet]

Bigger Problem... Sponsors!

Where are you going to put a logo on the rocket big enough to tell what it is?

Sponsorship is going to be a big problem for the racing pilots who do try to participate. This will likely limit the participation to very few pilots who can fund their own rocket.

sponsor cameras

when they're talking about putting all those logos on the aircraft, undoubtedly you would be able to see them from the cameras. Plus, the pilots become associated with their sponsors more often

vertical take off

Alright so we're working with rockets here, why not at the start just have a vertical take off? Seeing the shuttle launch is cool enough, how about...ten? 3-2-1-

vertical take off

Alright so we're working with rockets here, why not at the start just have a vertical take off? Seeing the shuttle launch is cool enough, how about...ten? 3-2-1-