Rocket Mavericks to roll out new Rocketpedia knowledgebase

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2008 Archived News by Planet News

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

EL DORADO HILLS, California USA — The Rocket Mavericks have recently completed the installation of an in-house knowledgebase called Rocketpedia. The new member-only benefit will contain contributions for everything you need to build a launch vehicle and fly it into space.

"It is in its infancy right now," said Thomas M. Atchison, founding member of the Rocket Mavericks. "We all will be contributing content over time, and yes, you have to be a member to access it. We do have to pay to operate all this stuff. Its not free for us, but we hope people will support us, as we try to raise the bar on the capabilities of all of our flying capacity."

Atchison went on to say that the Rocket Mavericks are particularly looking for universities' aeronautical and space departments to volunteer to have students contribute and moderate content for Rocketpedia. "This is all peer reviewed, so if you post something, you need to defend the discussion posts," Atchison stated. "It's like any Wiki out there. The knowledge of the masses will prevail through consensus."

Atchison has on hand a lot of NASA, United States Army, Air Force and other government publication materials that he will be 'repurposing' and posting in Rocketpedia. "One of my biggest complaints in getting started in high power [rocketry], and now civilian space exploration is learning the engineering and technology sources to build and fly into space," Atchison said.

"It was a huge struggle just finding good sources of information. There is just so much 'voodoo' out there in the hobby community on everything from igniter design, to propellant formulation, to aerodynamics and nose cone geometries," Atchison added. "The United States defense industry and the United States government paid for the research and published the results of almost everything we all seek to know. Its out there, but in pieces. There is no single repository that you can turn to to get what you need, when you need it. Rocketpedia is intended to be that resource."

It's no secret that many prefectures, sections, clubs and other rocketry-oriented mailing lists and list servers echo a lot of repetitive, often useless, information daily on a worldwide basis. If you are lucky, someone will post something useful, and while you may get a copy, the ability to search, critique and come to consensus as a group just doesn't exist in those formats. Rocketpedia can help bring all of that information together to everyone's benefit.

Atchison said one area they will need help with is moderators. "We need domain experts with proven experience in a particular knowledge to moderate each subject category, and approve postings, and modifications." If you have the expertise and would like to help build an asset such as Rocketpedia, the Rocket Mavericks may be the group for you.

Website: http://www.rocketmavericks.com/

Reader comments:

#1 Re: Rocket Mavericks to roll out new Rocketpedia knowledgebase

A very ambitious and much needed project. Kudos to the mavericks for making this a priority.

In no way am I suggesting this is derivative, but if you look at say,
The Rocket Company, this is exactly where the engineering began--piecing together the staggering amount of info already out there into a coherent database.

For more info about the book, see:

http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=360&id=1280

denverdoc on 02-13-2008 06:45 PM

#2 Re: Rocket Mavericks to roll out new Rocketpedia knowledgebase

Hi,

Cool! The Civilian Space Community needs more info!

We need to cut back on Government Space, Military Space.

Commercial Space will continue to grow.

This would be a great thing for Personal Rocketry to lead children to Civilian Space Exploration!

If we are going to have the info now, then we need a lobbying organization like the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) to organize and protect the rights of Civilian Space Access! It is our space, we need to protect our GOD given right to explore it!

Great start, but keep it free like space! No Nukes! NO NUKES!

SpaceCowboy on 02-13-2008 08:49 PM

#3 Re: Rocket Mavericks to roll out new Rocketpedia knowledgebase

There must be some really incredible information in that knowledge base to charge 79 bucks a year for access.

Andrew

agrippo on 02-17-2008 09:41 AM

#4 Re: Rocket Mavericks to roll out new Rocketpedia knowledgebase

Andrew,

I think that depends on your perspective. Presumably the audience for whom this is intended may spend thousands to tens of thousands or more on a single project. Time is money. Mistakes cost even more money. For the price of a few electronic reprints, this seems like a potential bargain. All depends on how robust the data base becomes.

denverdoc on 02-18-2008 06:41 AM

#5 Re: Rocket Mavericks to roll out new Rocketpedia knowledgebase

Hi denverdoc,

I seriously doubt the knowledge base is really going to have enough information in it to enable you or I to build and launch a rocket into space which is what the second sentence of the article said we would be able to do if we sign up.

If someone is actually going to be spending tens (more like hundreds) of thousands of dollars on a flight into space then they probably aren't going to be looking on the internet for a whole lot of their information.

People spending that type of money don't go into an endeavor like that without real prior knowledge of what they are doing unless they have more money then sense.

Even the Astronaut Farmer was a former NASA guy

In the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter and I hope the Rocket Mavericks attempt to bring the hobby up another rung of the ladder is successful. That would be awesome and as always I wish them the best.

Andrew Grippo

Quote:

agrippo on 02-19-2008 08:09 AM

#6 Re: Rocket Mavericks to roll out new Rocketpedia knowledgebase

I guess we'll haVE to agree to disagree--someone spending that kind of money would be a fool not to look on the internet. A great deal of the experience and info gleaned from the early days and sounding rockets is out there in the form of NACA reports and other journal articles. Good lord, a fine place to start would be to look at Go Fast. If you're talking about putting something in orbit, I agree--you likely need a team of experienced fulltime aerospace engineers. OTOH launching a small sounding rocket without guidance to an altitude of x miles I believe is within the grasp of advanced hobbyists, who would be shooting themselves in the foot not to look.

PS: I have no plans soon.