back to article Oz dad-and-son team rattle tin for homemade reusable spaceplane

Australian father and son team Robert and Jason Brand have taken to Kickstarter in search of funds for their ThunderStruck project, which they hope will eventually lead to a reusable spaceplane capable of carrying a 50kg payload into low Earth orbit. Robert and Jason Brand Before conquering space, the high-altitude …

  1. Matthew Taylor

    Father and Son

    Excellent! I LOVE to see Fathers and Sons doing projects together. You couldn't pay for the education the kid will get during the course of that project. May they blast through their kickstarter goals in record time!

    1. Rampant Spaniel

      Re: Father and Son

      Well said, its great to see kids getting the opportunity to try things like this. Well worth donating! I hope local schools will get involved as well, get the kids seeing science in action.

    2. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: Father and Son

      And today, we're at the age where software is trivially available to model the conditions the craft will experience, as well as the flight of the craft from altitude to ground.

      1. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: Father and Son

        Yes, that's why F1 teams all use a free CFD package on laptop and never get surprised on track...

        Or maybe them use CFD, then wind tunnels and *still* get surprised on track.

        Modelling supersonic flow is non trivial, trying it is often the easiest way.

  2. Mark 85

    I hope it works for them and wish them well. An ambitious project with large rewards in father-son bonding.

    Low earth orbit though.... I shudder to think at all the bureaucratic BS one would have to go through for launch, orbit, and landing approval.

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Just pick a poor/corrupt country where bureaucratic BS can be replaced with a simple "donation".

  3. Bleu

    They look great in the photo

    but how are we to know the dad isn't a buy-to-let or investment property type when he's not doing an interesting balloon project?

    Not to say he is.

    If I was considering throwing them some cash (am not unless ...), I would want to know.

    1. Rampant Spaniel

      Re: They look great in the photo

      You could have read his bio on kickstarter.

  4. DropBear
    Trollface

    How could I even notice such a mundane endeavour when on the very same site the first fuel-less engine and the first time machine are being kickstarted at this very moment...! Oh, you think I'm kidding...? Yeah, I wish I were...

    1. Ole Juul

      Oh, you think I'm kidding...?

      Well the guy with the fuel-less engine says he is "knowledgeable about any topics mainly in technology" so I'm sure he's well qualified. The fellow with the time machine also seems to have the right stuff - he wears glasses and he's German. I notice he's also got the basics of the design already worked out as shown by the drawing he has there. ;)

      The crowd sourced time machine has merits because of the humour. However, I'm afraid that the other guy is actually serious.

      1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

        Re: Oh, you think I'm kidding...?

        I've been toying with the notion of a "fuel-less" engine, well for in-atmosphere usage. Ionization and acceleration of the ionized air would work, although the energy required would be significant.

        There would also be an issue of nitrous and nitric oxides and ozone production as exhaust byproduct.

        The entire bit would be using existing experimental ion thruster design.*

        I doubt I'd get it off the ground, the environmental folks would be up in arms about the byproducts.

        Not to mention trying to figure out how to loft a >10 megawatt power plant is a bit problematic.

        *Yes, I'm laughingly serious. I did do some numbers crunching. Laughing the entire time. While it is theoretically possible, it is currently and thankfully, impractical at the current level of our technology.

        Thankfully impractical, just because the exhaust of any decent flight would exceed the NOx and O3 products of any five industrialized nations.

        1. DropBear

          Re: Oh, you think I'm kidding...?

          @Wzrd1: you are aware of the lifters, I presume...? At some point in the past they became somewhat notorious through Naudin's site....

  5. Rick Brasche

    so it's LOHAN-Lite?

    Without the boost phase, it's pretty much PARIS.

    Not big on Kickstarter to redo what's already been done.

    1. Martin Budden Silver badge

      Re: so it's LOHAN-Lite?

      This test flight is slightly similar PARIS but with an important added extra: it will test how to disrupt hypersonic laminar airflow. The really exciting part is that this is just one test along the path to a re-useable 50kg-payload-to-LEO vehicle. PARIS it ain't.

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