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Leader Name:
Richard Speck
Team Members:
Bruce Bahnmiller, RSO, Nancy M. Speck, Co-ordinator
Team Website:
micro-space.com |
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Vehicle Names:
Crusader LL #1 and #2, both Level One
Approximate empty and gross weights
of vehicle:
150 pounds empty, 300 pounds full
Height and diameter
of vehicle:
8-feet high; 2-feet core diameter, 6-feet landing leg span
Propellant choices:
Hydrogen Peroxide and Methyl Alcohol |
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Micro-Space is a small team with a long history of success with innovative rocket systems. We flew successful vectored thrust, guided rockets more than twelve years ago. We have made hundreds of flight with telemetry and high resolution radio tracking systems. We have flown seventeen bipropellant, liquid fueled rockets. We have operational life support hardware for deep space missions, innovative rendezvous systems, and ultralight packages for atmospheric and space research.
Out strategy has been to develop propulsion modules capable of being used as research vehicles, or clustered for manned flight, with the lowest possible weight. Our Crusader LL uses a small cluster of propulsion modules (tanks, plumbing, and motors), along with previously developed control systems. With storable Hydrogen Peroxide fuel and a minimum weight, it is ready of lunar use!
A modestly large cluster can serve for human use, on the Moon or on Mars.
These minimum weight systems lash components together with a wire-braced framework. Just strong enough for their purpose, they slash the cost of deep space missions. Out reconfigurable designs and ultralight modules will open the door to unique and affordable research projects and human adventures in space.
Crew
Chief Bio:
Team Leader, Richard Speck, grew up with the space age, listening to Sputnik 1 and 2 on his Ham radio. He was a charter member of the National Association of Rocketry (NAR #74) and much later became TRA #1474. He served on the “Future Directions Committee” of Tripoli Rocketry Association and is certified at level 3. Watching American space efforts, from Vanguard to Apollo 17, on TV he thought, like others, that he was seeing the beginning of the space age. Much later he realized that he had been watching the end of a “Publicity Stunt”, for all of its technical excellence, and that the real space age would require a different sort of development.
Mr. Speck collected a BS degree in Physics, with math and chemistry minors, and much graduate credit in physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, orbital dynamics and space systems engineering. Concurrently he spearheaded the development of electro-optic instruments including customized units sold to Kodak, Polaroid, Leitz, Corning Glass, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and others. He led the development and licensing of Fast (optical) Spectral Scanner technology to Photo Research (now a subsidiary of Excel Technology). Early research work in pulmonary physiology involved diagnostic gas sensors and computer modeling and Mr. Speck coauthored several papers on this work. Later work is also covered by several issued patents and published research papers.
The bulk of this work was done within Spectron Instrument Corp, Spectron Engineering, Inc. and Micro-Space, all of which Mr. Speck incorporated. In addition to applied physics and optics, these efforts depended heavily on embedded microprocessors to produce automated and semi automated test equipment. In 1991 Mr. Speck, while an active consultant on military and industrial products, turned his personal focus back to his old love of rocketry. This soon led to hundreds of flights with active telemetry and three flights of a low acceleration, vectored thrust guided rocket. Development of bipropellant liquid fuel motors was added to this, of which 17 units have been flown.
Foreseeing that clusters of these rockets could power manned flight, Micro-Space was a registered contender for the X PRIZE, and currently the Lunar Lander competition.
Interesting Team Fact:
Team leader, Richard Speck, is working with the first announced “Mars Expedition Team” (Tom and Tina Sjogren, http://www.explorersweb.com/index.html). Mr. Speck continues to draw on research experience in pulmonary physiology as Micro-Space life support systems are upgraded to handle the long duration necessary for a Mars expedition. Many of the necessary subsystems are already running as engineering prototypes. It is well known that Mars is easier to reach than either Earth’s Moon or Geosynchronous orbit, so that no new launch vehicles are necessary. Two things are needed: first the integration of yesterday’s best lightweight space systems (like the GE MOOSE) with today’s even lighter technology, and the efficient life support systems which are nearing completion.
Team Micro-Space on the NG-LLC:
"The road to space is open: when today's adventurous souls realize they are no longer bound to this planet's surface, but can venture into the final frontier, entrepreneurial spaceflight will explode! Nothing compares to the X PRIZE events in demonstrating this reality." - Richard P. Speck.
What is our next big milestone?
Tethered flight of the integrated vehicle.
What will we do if we win the prize?
We intend to use this opportunity to showcase our capabilities for affordable, utlralight space systems. They have great potential for unique research-once potential users believe they actually work! Entrepreneurial spaceflight is poised for explosive growth. Some efforts will tap the entertainment market with speed events which eclipse today's burning rubber and squealing tires. Others will take adventurers far above Mt. Everest to taste space personally. Micro-Space will focus on unique efforts, at the edge of the frontier. Out ultralight, reconfigurable systems will make space diving or personal interplanetary flight affordable decades before these can be labeled "tourist activities."
Why do we have an advantage over the competition?
We have developed excellence manufacturing lightweight composite fuel tanks, which permit high performance, low empty mass space vehicles for manned and unmanned use. |
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