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RTV Team Projects
If you're like us, you have marveled at some of the truly amazing team rocket projects that have graced the skies and various rocketry publications. The team environment stimulates a high level of creativity, innovation, and excellence that can be attained in few other settings. Or, put another way, get a bunch of scratching, belching, and farting neanderthals together in one place; soon their bravado and machismo will completely subdue any remaining vestage of common sense. That's how NASCAR was born. That's what makes it fun.
Rocket Team Vatsaas (more cro-magnon than neanderthal) faces the additional challenge of logistical complexity. With team members spread all over the map, our sessions of itchy, bloated flatulence are primarily virtual. Since we fabricate components in separate locations they must be manufactured to exacting standards if we expect the pieces to fit together in the end. We develop detailed project plans with manditory deadlines that are largely ignored with impugnity. And we have so much fun doing it that it would be impossible to describe it in words.
Before SpaceShipOne there was RTV3!
The Vatsaas Brothers go for the X Prize!
The X PRIZE is a $10,000,000 prize to jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition between the most talented entrepreneurs and rocket experts in the world. The $10 Million cash prize will be awarded to the first team that:
- Privately finances, builds & launches a spaceship, able to carry three people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles)
- Returns safely to Earth
- Repeats the launch with the same ship within 2 weeks
We were a little put off by the phrases 'most talented' and 'rocket experts' -- but then we thought, "Hey! There are three of us!". How could we resist?
Click [HERE!] to go to the RTV-3 X-Prize Team Project!
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RTV-3
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SS1
This project has been a long, long time in the making, but after an extended period of inactivity (it was orginally identified as our team project for GHS 2005) it is finally a real live rocket-powered glider in 2008. And it is beautiful.
Click [HERE!] to go to the SS1 RTV Team Project!
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SM2 Standard ARM
The Standard Missile was our first collaberative team project. It was first flown at GHS 2001, again at GHS 2002, at the December 2001 AHPRA launch and again at GHS 2004, .
Click [HERE!] to go to the 40% scale Standard Missile RTV Team Project!
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http://www.vatsaas.org/RTV/Support/relay/launcher_schematic.gif
Relay Launch Controller
Yes, I think I do realize that this is not a rocket. We never said that our team projects needed to fly. This particular creation is as much a product of cooperation and teamwork as any other that we have built, so it deserves to be added to this collection.
Click [HERE!] to go to the RTV Relay Launch Controller Team Project!
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Saturn V
Brad proudly participated with a team of fine rocket enthusiasts from Arozona on this massive project - a 23-foot tall replica of the Saturn V rocket! It was built to fly in three stages with the same number of rocket motors as the original - five in the first stage, three in the second, one in the third.
Click [HERE!] to go to the 1/16 Scale Saturn V project!
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SA-5 Gammon
We're extremely excited about the team project we have selected to work on together between now and October 2004 (to be flown at the annual G. Harry Stine Memorial Launch). We literally have people all over the country working on various components of this highly complex launch vehicle - a 20% scale of a Soviet surface-to-air missle, the SA-5 Gammon.
Click [HERE!] to go to the 20% scale SA-5 Gammon RTV Team Project!
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At right is an early drawing of the SA-5 next to a 5-foot 10-inch (1.777 meter) tall male. A large (L or M) hybrid motor will power the sustainer. The four boosters will each contain an air-started high-power ammonium perchlorate compsite motor, and will be jettsoned via servo control after the booster motors have burned out. The sustainer will continue under power after booster jettison. The sustainer is estimated to reach apogee at approximately 10,000 feet AGL with an M motor.
Click [HERE!] to go to the 20% scale SA-5 Gammon RTV Team Project!
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The Dual N-Motor Giant Bert Rocket
Not only pretty to look at, but a true engineering marvel. The torso is fashioned from a Rubbermaid 100 gallon trash bin and each leg is made from a length of 10-inch corrugated drainage pipe. The head and hands were carved from foam using a Stihl 25 horsepower weed whip, then covered with fiberglass and dried toothpaste. Each shoe is reinforced with Kevlar and carbon fiber and weighs thirteen pounds. The electronics are activated by tweaking the left nipple and giving a violent twist counter-clockwise.
Click [HERE!] to go to The Dual N-Motor Giant Bert Rocket RTV Team Project!
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The Teeny Weenie Drag Race
Click [HERE!] to go to the Teenie Weenie Drag race page (rockets made from Halloween pumpkins)!
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The Evil Bert Drag Race
Click [HERE!] to go to the Evil Bert Drag race page (actual Bert Muppet rockets)!
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Click [HERE!] to return to the Home Page!
No, this isn't a real project. It's a spoof. As if you really needed to be told this is a bogus photo....
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