Rocketry Planet
| Where Does the Astronaut Sit? |
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The story of the biggest scale model rocket ever built
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| Launch Report by Mark B. Canepa | |||||||
| Monday, April 13, 2009 | |||||||
Page 4 of 4 Where Does the Astronaut Sit? The original Saturn V was made up of multiple stages—each stage containing additional motors and fuel—that propelled the massive space vehicle to the speeds necessary to escape the Earth's gravity and ultimately reach the moon. Eves Saturn V will not be powered by multiple stages—all of the motors are in the aft end of the booster section and will be ignited at the same time—but the rocket will separate at apogee into three distinct parts.  From the top down, the rocket starts with a small escape capsule—built out of fiberglass and wood—that will separate from the rocket at apogee and return to the ground on a ten-foot-diameter parachute. The escape capsule rests atop the upper airframe. This portion of the rocket will contain all of the electronics for Eves' Saturn V, and after the rocket separates, this section will return under a single, thirty-five-foot-diameter, military-surplus parachute. Eves believes that the final weight of the upper airframe will exceed three hundred pounds. The massive booster—the four-finned bottom of the rocket—stands more than twenty feet long and may weigh up to thirteen hundred pounds, loaded. It will be supported by four twenty-eight-foot-diameter parachutes on its return. The rocket was assembled and was stood up to its full height of thirty six feet for display at the big Cleveland Air Show over Labor Day weekend. One spectator asked where the astronaut would sit. Eves estimates that since beginning the Saturn V in 2007, he has invested up to 1,500 hours in the project. This is in addition to his full-time job as an auto-body repairman, where he works eight hours a day, five days a week. "I really don't mind Steve working so much on the rocket," said his wife Waneda. "He works hard at his regular job and this is his way of unwinding, and I know that he is safe out there in the garage—and happy. If I feel that I need more time with him I go out and help him or just clean up around him so he can keep going." Has he ever been discouraged, or thought about quitting? "It was hard last winter," said Eves, who spent countless hours preparing the outside of the rocket to keep the appearance of the project in line with the real thing. "The detailing was daunting," he said. "There were over a thousand wooden ribs that had to be attached to the outside of the upper and lower airframes. The ribs, which run vertically one next to another down the outside of the airframe, are only one-quarter-inch-wide, and they had to be glued and nailed in place—each and every one of them." To make matters worse, the wood is so thin that Eves could not just nail the ribs in place; he had to pre-drill them to avoid cracking the wood. "It got very monotonous," he said. "The ribs had to be cut in several different styles and lengths and then each one had to be sanded, pre-drilled, and installed with nails and epoxy." It took Eves a full two months to attach them. "I would run into bumps and get frustrated," said Eves, "but I never thought about quitting. I might go out into the garage at night after work and spend three hours on it and only end up attaching twenty-five ribs. I would look at it and then say to myself—laughing—"Hey, only eight hundred more to go!"" Planning for Disaster With so much time invested, and the scrutiny of the entire rocketry community focused on his work, does the possibility of failure keep Steve Eves awake at night? "Everything I have done with this rocket involved me looking for points of failure," said Eves. "How can this bracket fail? How can this joint fail? How will the parachutes work? Will the rocket be stable? I have tried to play out every scenario in my mind." Eves said that, among the non-cosmetic challenges he has faced in building the Saturn V, two come to mind immediately as being critical to the overall success of the flight. The first was being careful not to build the rocket so heavy that it would not be able to fly. With the decision to use the nine-motor configuration, Eves believes he has found the proper power plant for the flight. The next challenge was recovery—the place where the overwhelming majority of high-power rocket failures takes place. Here, Eves faced perhaps his greatest challenge—one that required not only all of his rocketry and design skills, but also his experience as a heavy collision, auto-body repair specialist for more than thirty years. In the average high-power rocket the upper and lower airframes are connected by little more than a slip fit. For example, one end of the upper airframe usually has a coupler that is slightly smaller in diameter than the lower section of the rocket. That coupler simply slides into the booster section, allowing the upper portion to mate with the lower section when the two body parts meet. This form of attachment is popular in high-power rockets weighing hundreds of pounds. But for Steve Eves, this traditional method of attachment seemed insufficient for the Saturn V—and maybe even dangerous. If the two main sections of the rocket fail to separate cleanly, the huge rocket would return to the ground without deploying its parachutes—the results would be disastrous. "The upper section of the rocket when loaded will weigh more than three-hundred pounds, and I was concerned that the conventional slip fit between the upper and lower sections might fail," said Eves. "The forces that are involved in a rocket this big might cause the two sections to bind on the coupler—resulting in no deployment." Eves decided he needed something that would positively lock the upper and lower airframes together during flight, but that could then be positively unlocked during deployment for a clean separation. To solve this problem, Eves fabricated a flat, cylindrical metal plate or wheel—fourteen inches in diameter—that attaches to the lower end of the upper airframe. The wheel can rotate slightly, and it has eight slots into which fit eight metal rods, or pins, that protrude from the outer perimeter of the booster section of the rocket. If the metal wheel is rotated in one direction, the pins are locked in. Rotate the wheel just slightly in the opposite direction, and the pins unlock. This eight-pin interlock system secures the upper and lower airframes together. To separate, or unlock the pins from the metal wheel during the flight of the Saturn V—allowing for deployment of the main parachutes—Eves relies on modern automotive technology. "The eight-pin interlock will be released by a pyro device that is used in airbag and seatbelt systems on modern cars," said Eves. "In most cars, in the event of an accident the computer in your car senses an impact and activates a pre-tensioning mechanism that jerks tight your seat belt to keep you pinned in your seat while the airbag deploys. This keeps you in the proper position for the airbag and keeps you from getting too close, which could cause injury." Eves said that the reliability factor associated with this seat belt mechanism is incredibly high—even under the absolute worst of conditions—because people's lives depend on it. These seat belt pre-tensioners are not toys, he said, and he cautioned that that they should never be used by the untrained or unwary. But for him, it was the perfect choice for separating the Saturn V in flight. So Eves attached four of these independent mechanisms to the rotating wheel on the upper airframe. "I need only one of the four seat belt mechanisms to work, and that will release the rocket halves," said Eves, who installed four devices for redundancy purposes only. The pyro device on each mechanism will be connected, electrically, to on-board altimeters, and to one remote-control radio unit that will fire the devices at apogee. When any one of them fires, the mechanism will cause the wheel to rotate slightly, moving all eight of the pins on the wheel to the "free" position, allowing the rocket to separate. A Little Help from His Friends The final cost of the Saturn V? Eves thinks the project will eventually come in at around $25,000, including the $13,000 for the motor cases and fuel. Sponsors have now lined up to cover the total cost of the motors and fuel, and others are contributing time, money, and expertise to help Steve reach the final leg of his journey. Eves's younger brother, Bryan, who is in the graphics business, contributed the scale graphics, lettering, and flags for the Saturn V. PPG Industries donated the black-and-white automotive paint used for the rocket. Recently, a member of the Maryland Delaware Rocketry Association has volunteered to provide a huge, five-story-tall, gantry-like launch tower-built from parts of an outside elevator used at a construction site—to assist the Saturn V as it gets off the ground. Other rocket enthusiasts from around the country are getting involved to help ensure that the launch is a success. And although the rocket is nearly complete, there is still plenty of work to do: descent-rate calculations for the multiple parachutes, steel cabling for the internal deployment system, electronics installation and wiring, and the continued testing of each and every aspect of the massive rocket prior to flight. "The original Saturn V program took an incredible number of people—like 400,000 of them—to reach the moon," said Eves. "I may have built this rocket myself, but now there are many people stepping up to help me finish the project and get the rocket off the ground." Currently, the rocket is scheduled to take to the air Saturday, April 25, 2009 in Maryland. Andy Warhol once said that, eventually, we would all have our fifteen minutes of fame in this world, and for one brief moment each one of us would bask in that fame—or infamy for some—before receding back into the masses of men. In late April, Steve Eves may get a taste of that fame, which will come and then go quickly on the big stage—like so many of our news stories do—before being passed up for some other celebrity in another corner of our small world. But in high-power rocketry lore, the name Steve Eves might just live forever. This article originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of ROCKETS Magazine and was reprinted with their permission. |
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We just may come up from Alabama if they'll let us.
We just may come up from Alabama if they'll let us.
Its a single launch. Red Glare VI is being held the weekend before. And yes, you are welcome to come and witness this behemoth of a rocket
I think it should be noted though that this is certainly not by any means the largest model rocket to have been flown so won't be breaking any records.
If I recall correctly, Chuck Sacket's Project 463 was about 42ft tall and over 1/3rd of a ton gross launch mass. If people aren't counting that because it flew on amateur motors... then StarChaser's 'Nova' was somewhere over 35ft tall, half a ton in weight and powered by 19 AeroTech 'M's. There was a 50ft tall (7.5" dia) rocket launched in the US at a Tripoli launch about five years or so ago... and the 1/4(ish) scale Space Shuttle (with a car as the shuttle) launched in the UK for the Top Gear TV show was almost 40ft tall, 4ft+ diameter and heading for a ton and a half launch weight, powered by six commercially made 'P' hybrids.
I dunno where the 'world record' thing came from but... folks need to check some history before claiming any world records
All that said... as the shuttle wsn't technically scale... this could count as the largest scale model rocket ever launched?
Either way... I genuinely hope this thing flies!!!!
Ben
I think it should be noted though that this is certainly not by any means the largest model rocket to have been flown so won't be breaking any records.
If I recall correctly, Chuck Sacket's Project 463 was about 42ft tall and over 1/3rd of a ton gross launch mass. If people aren't counting that because it flew on amateur motors... then StarChaser's 'Nova' was somewhere over 35ft tall, half a ton in weight and powered by 19 AeroTech 'M's. There was a 50ft tall (7.5" dia) rocket launched in the US at a Tripoli launch about five years or so ago... and the 1/4(ish) scale Space Shuttle (with a car as the shuttle) launched in the UK for the Top Gear TV show was almost 40ft tall, 4ft+ diameter and heading for a ton and a half launch weight, powered by six commercially made 'P' hybrids.
I dunno where the 'world record' thing came from but... folks need to check some history before claiming any world records
All that said... as the shuttle wsn't technically scale... this could count as the largest scale model rocket ever launched?
Either way... I genuinely hope this thing flies!!!!
Ben
Its not just about the thrust all the combined motors are producing, but the overall size. read the description, it does say the largest scale model rocket in history.
Your a very luck and blessed man Steve, to have a loving wife like this.
One question....any thought as to how they will recover these several hundred pound sections of airframe after the fight? I don't know the launch sight, but there are sure to be a few places that are hard to access with vehicles. Just wondering. I suppose I'll find out come Saturday, as............. I"LL BE THERE!!!
Scott
Steve Eves is Awesome!
Congratulations to him and the entire team that contributed to putting this project together.
Andrew Grippo