LOHAN packs bags for SPACEPORT AMERICA! The traditional portentous drumroll and fanfare of trumpets has added timpani and a throbbing bass synth crescendo today as we announce that the planned launch of our our Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) mission has been relocated to New Mexico's Spaceport America. This shock news comes at the end of an epic …
with just enough of 'la cinta roja' to scupper the best laid plans of mice, men and playmonauts!
At least the land of the free look likely to let you blow some stuff up in their bit of the upper atmosphere, and you can try some of the lovely craft beers whilst you're there, for research purposes of course!
Bring on the Merch and let's get this thing done. One credit card standing by.
... seems an opportunity lost for Spain to share in the sheer joy (not to mention scientific research) of the LOHAN effort...??? Oh well, New Mexico tends to be lovely this time of year, or at least in a few months from now... and then there is the craft beer aspect...
Yep, my credit card is ready... and yes I am a U.S. citizen FYSA!
Well being an island didn't do us (UK) any harm, then we had to dig the bloody chunnel and the rest is history (or the rewriting of it). Pah!
At lest in the US they will be allowed a decent powered vacuum cleaner to collect the pieces if Lohan has the miss fortune to do a Beagle. Soon we won't be able to buy anything with more suck than an old smoker (mea culpa) after 10 cough 5 flights of stairs by Brussels diktat. Pah again!
No, you can have as many pointless obstructive little local laws as you like, that's called subsidiarity. It's only the big, important, laws that are made by Brusselbourg, because obviously the provincials can't be trusted with them. Divide and Conquer, it's a very old principle.
Governments worldwide are daft with regulation. Even in Australia if I wanted to make rcandy propellant (Potassium nitrate + Sugar) I too would need a commercial licence to manufacture explosives, which is odd given that mix just burns vigorously and doesn't actually explode.
I know him. Our planning application for a house in a poxy village in the middle of nowhere is still on hold after a year. Another resident knows him even better, he's been asked to provide an environmental impact study for his desire to build a garage onto his house. To get an idea of how ridiculous this is my brother-in-law keeps his cows inside the village boundary and the milking shed is built onto his house, everyday he marches the cows from the cowshed to be milked. Also chickens, geese, turkeys and a variety of other un-identifiable presumably cross bred fowl wander the streets.
Oh, and it's no good naming and shaming these bastards nor the townhall they work in because they take great pride in what they do. I suspect they have awards for the one who creates most frustration.
Nothing to do with LOHAN but I've been wanting to get that off my chest for a long time.
I've been in Spain for nine years. Sadly I still cling to the British notion that government official should do their jobs without "incentives".
By that I do indeed mean the odd bottle of Carlos Primero, rather than a gun to the head, which is an attractive notion sometimes.
An admirable desire to stick to your Anglo-Saxon guns, Lester, but do you ever succeed in getting anything done through the local bureaucrats (particularly out in the wilds of Gredos)? To be fair to our Spanish friends, the pay for a lot of their government jobs isn't great and kind of assumes that earnings will be topped up with 'tips' - rather like waiters in the UK.
>The problem is they have too many "job for life" funcionarios.
Oi, that's my wife and sister-in-law you're talking about and both of them already get a damn sight more than a living wage, more than me as well. I'd suggest getting rid of the bone idle ones and cutting the salaries of the remainder. Actually for at least one year they did get their extra pay suspended. A few of our clients are state concerns and the work ethic has to be seen, they wander in late, disappear for breakfast, return for lunch, spend all afternoon chatting and drinking coffee then leave as if they'd arrived early. Incredibly as they have taken the oposiciones these are supposedly the best of the bunch.
I agree, Lester, but (let's face it) it ain't going to happen any time soon - think what it would do to (already sky-high) unemployment. A lot of Spain is quite close to the old Soviet system of "we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us". Shame, when the country and people are so lovely.
I think I see your problem:
> Ministry of Obstruction declined to authorise the Intercommunity transfer of explosives, citing local law
There are two points to appreciate. The first is that Spain's version of democracy makes everything illegal unless explicitly permitted. The second is that if you don't like the local laws, just go down the road - they'll be different there (repeat until you either find laws that you like, or run out of road - in which case, prepare the ever-effective and still extremely popular plain brown envelope)
A friend decided to import his venerable old Land Rover. This involved taking it down to the local MoT (in Spain: ITV - run by the government, not a local garage) testing station and starting the process of having it registered. The individual there had never seen a Landy before and duly pronounced it to be a Lorry (pretty obvious really: since it had 4 wheels and seats inside) and therefore would cost €12,000 to "process" and would have to be re-tested every 6 months - it being a "commercial" vehicle 'n' all.
Rather than do the typical brit thing of stumping up and grumbliing a bit, he took to to a different ITV station, in a place just a leeeetle more wordly (where the donkeys have straw hats) and duly got it declared a car and subject to the usual domestic arrangements for transferring to a spanish registration - which only required the payment of several hundred €€€s and was brown-envelope free.
The caveat being, that while local laws are both arbitrary and geographically inconstant (and interpreted by individuals with neither the qualifications nor the motivation to make an informed choice) they can - and frequently are - revised without any warning or notification. Worse than that: they appear to be capable of retrospective revision, with fines payable for transgressions that come about due to changes - even if things were done legally under the "old" law.
P.S. There isn't one single Ministry of Obstruction, all the Ministries serve that purpose.
No, no no! You've got this wrong. Only an idiot would program their autopilot to avoid trees. If you tell the aircraft that their are trees, it will find them! This is a cast-iron law of aviation. You simply whistle quietly to yourself, muttering, "Trees? Trees? No, none of those round here." Then hope it doesn't notice.
I know it is a *little* premature, but I've been pondering post-LOHAN life, and wondering "What next?".
Then I remembered a little bit of model rocketry folklore. There was one fellow who claims to have put a model (high-power) rocket into orbit, with the aid of a balloon. This was never confirmed, although the physics checked out - just.
My biggest problem at the moment is coming up with a suitable backronym,
So, howabout it?
The problem is not that getting stuff to orbit means lifting it very high. The problem is an orbit means moving sideways. REALLY fast. You cant get that sideways movement with a balloon. You do cut the atmospheric drag portion (mostly), but its still a LOT of deltaV to achieve orbit
NASA (actually JPL's) Deep Space Network has an operation there and they had a nice tax advantaged status. Spain decided to change the rules (that the rest of the EU was more than happy to accept. They are now thinking of moving to South Africa (previously banned by Apartheid, but not any more) for the nice new dishes. Nobody remembers that these guys DO spread a bunch of loot around in the local economy.
So, welcome to the USA. Relax and have a few. Of course, if you really want good rocket engines, ask the Imperial War Museum for that Werner Von Braun model they have standing in the middle of the main exhibit hall. It would work quite well (take a bunch of Helium to get to altitude, but you wouldn't need much.
Yes, I want the mug as well!
Holland: 50% water, rest is either 'leccy tower, highway, dense urban jungle, all sided, fronted, and accompanied by trees. Plus it's rather densely populated in the skies, and the Officials *really* don't like anything to do with potential explosives. LOHAN's combined package would not get permission to lift off, and one test package has already met a probably watery end in one of North Hollands' semipermanently flooded meadows or the IJsselmeer.
Oh, and the weather over here is ..welll... good luck picking a launch window...
Germany: too. many. damned. trees. Often in places with a distinct lack of roads, or near-vertical geography. Or if you're unlucky, and the jetstream has a "good day", you'll be picking up the plane far into eastern Europe..
France: "Ze english, zey vant to do vat?!!!!!" Also trees, vinyards, and the not-so-slight chance of LOHAN ending up somewhere in the Pyrenees or the Alps (trees optional)
As much as I would have loved a Euro lanch, New Mexico is in a pure technical sense a better option.
Have you obtained a list of watering holes near the launch site yet?
Welcome to the land of Robert Goddard, boys!
(well, actually, Goddard did his stuff right down the road from me in Worcester...apparently there's a monument to him in the middle of a golf course)
Edit: You're in luck! There's another monument to him in Roswell, New Mexico!
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/21938
Totally in for a patch.
The Spaceport is in an interesting place in New Mexico - it's heavy desert, with much more forested areas all around it (though I don't think the magnetic tree flux will be a problem). Take the time to sightsee when you're there - New Mexico is a really underappreciated state.
Launch a seperate kickstarter for it if funds would be an issue - I'd chuck a few quid at that too. An actual, honest-to-goodness El Reg SPB Explosives Factory!
Plus once LOHAN has soared skywards, I have no doubt you'll be doing some other shenannigans involving rocketry. Would be a handy certification to have.
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"How about a second Kickstarter to fund a ticket for Ariadne and family?"
Errm, that's touching, thanks, but I am sure there are a ton of people who have done more for the Vulture 2 than hand some crayons to a toddler. So I'll pass (and miss out on the cavity search on arrival).
can't pick up anything bigger than a C (about the size of the battery of the same designation) at a store without proper documentation and license. IIRC even the bog standard D size is now considered powerful enough to be under that restriction.
The reloadables El Reg is using are well within "high powered rocketry" and require a lot of hoop jumping.
Yes, all Europe's ridicule of American freedoms is coming home to roost. We're becoming as No-Fun as the the UK and EU! :(
The reloadables El Reg is using are well within "high powered rocketry" and require a lot of hoop jumping.
...or the addition to the team of a local already in posession of the necessary certifications. Yet another problem easily solved by the application of a sufficient amount of high quality (none o' yer Budweiser crap, then) liquid refreshment.
Thankfully, after a protracted legal battle a few years back high power rockets in the US are no longer classed as explosives, making their use much easier for the hobbyist. You still can't get them at Walmart, but all you need to do is prove you are competent to one of the two US hobbyist rocketry associations (or the foreign equivalent.)
As for FAA certifications, yes they are required, but they are routinely issued. The main reason for them is so the FAA can warn pilots that rockets (and balloons) may be in an area.
ISTR when Richard "the Hamster" Hammond (he's not a real hamster) did a prog about "could the gunpowder plot have succeeded"[1], they couldn't - for whatever reason - buy enough gunpowder in the UK. Ironically[2] it had to come from Spain. *Very* secretly.
[1]Oh yes, and then some !!!!
[2] Because Guy Fawkes learned his gunpowder skills in Spain.
As a long time Reg reader and fan of the SPB, I am happy that our Great Nation (tm) will have a role in this, mankind's greatest endeavor. It is also refreshing to see that other governments are as screwed up as ours. (Note: our governor was just indicted on criminal charges.)
Perhaps we should organize a local support team/fan club to take part in these festivities. It's only 620 miles from Austin to White Sands, NM so we're in the neighborhood.
We have plenty of good beer here in the good ol' U S of A. It's just that they don't have the advertising budget of InBev N. A. (brewers of such "fine" brands as Budweiser) Just how much of the good stuff will be available in the watering holes of New Mexico, I can't help you with. Need some local guidance there, I'm afraid.
Sadly there are about 400-500 miles between White Sands and Area 51. Basically Arizona plus good-sized chunks of Nevada and New Mexico are in the way.
But maybe the nice people at White Sands will let the SPB team launch from the Trinity atomic test site! There's an obelisk or something there that marks the spot of the test, if you can find it amongst the radiation-mutated ants, spiders and jackrabbits!!
> But maybe the nice people at White Sands will let the SPB team launch from the Trinity atomic test site!
I drove past there a few years back on my way from Albuquerque to Alamagordo. Basically, there's a gate with a lock on it which is only opened for 1 day a year. That is the only route down to the test site - and it's a long way from the road. There are a few roadside stalls selling "atomic" rocks (i.e. rocks) but that's about your lot. The test site was chosen because it's very difficult to get to.
Otherwise, there might be a town within 50 miles (I stopped to gas-up) but that's about your lot.
Whatever you do, do not follow GPS directions in this area if they take you off the main roads. People have died in the desert because their GPS's mapbase had dirt roads impassible with anything short of a deuce-and-a-half in it.
Also, depending on the time of year, do not be surprised if it goes below freezing, randomly drops 3 inches of rain in an hour on your head, or blizzards (which will flash to steam 5 minutes after the sun comes up). New Mexico deserts are seriously weird.
You can get an engraver attachment for this...
http://wiki.evilmadscientist.com/The_Original_Egg-Bot_Kit
You'd have to bodge the mount a bit to make it work for a glass, but if I remember right, instructions for it are in the docs.
I have a bad feeling about a group of "furiners" coming in through US Customs, etc. lugging a spaceplane in their baggage. That group of idiots guarding the borders will probably assume you're a bunch of terrorists. Ship the plane first and see if it gets through Customs. Worst case.... find someone at Boeing or SpaceX to ship it to.
By the way, I'll be trying to get both a Europe-view and North America-view patch. Will you have your Kickstarter rewards set up to handle this?
I only ask because this sort of thing often gets asked on KS itself, at which point the project owner starts to realize they need to do special tricks. I thought I'd maybe save you some effort.
Good choice, gents (and ladies)!
For the uninitiated, it may take some..er...practice, but you really must avail yourselves of the local delicacies; to wit: green chile enchiladas, New Mexican style (which means, served flat, with an egg on top), and sopapillas which make for effective fire extinguishers (ask a local, s/he will tell you how to use them). Practice by getting a green chile cheeseburger!
One request: The LOHAN vehicle should have a Zia symbol emblazoned on it somewhere.
Don't know about "kokopelli" (It's Hopi, which is an Arizona tribe/nation), but the state flag of New Mexico is a yellow field with a red Zia symbol on it. When I first got there, it didn't take long to realize that the thing was everywhere!. Pet Peeve is right about it being the sacred sun symbol of the Zia Pueblo people, and there certainly is an unwritten law that is must appear everywhere....
At least I'll be able to follow the action at a sensible hour this time around...
I'll be in the same time zone as Lester! I'm all giddy!
And yes, beware of US Customs.
Make no jokes, don't wear a belt, and use loafers. Putting yourself back together after being searched never does much for the ego.
Sigh. The unfinished Dirk Gently novel ended just as he arrived in New Mexico.
By the way, if you see one of these signs:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LU4EFva4kuI/S6hPCbWaEqI/AAAAAAAAAFU/5muopfTVqkE/s400/gusty+winds.jpg
It's not nearly as philosophical as it appears. Winds across the highway are quite able to push your car 3 lanes over on a bad day.
I really do think you ought to ship the hardware on ahead, split up into several small, innocuous boxes labeled "electronics parts" or similar, perhaps to a gun shop with the appropriate FFL licensing. It isn't a firearm, but your Spanish Inquisitor's moron brother who came here in 1938 and now works at TSA ("Too Stupid for Arby's" - a low rent sandwich shop chain here) might decide it is a "destructive device" of some sort. Alternatively, make some kind of a "co-research" deal with some local junior college and let them deal with the paperwork.
You may also have to pay import duty on some of this stuff even if you declare it as "personal use only". Anything made in the USA is duty exempt as you are simply "bringing it home".
Do NOT "just show up" at the airport with big grins and a suitcase with all the wires and cylinders and dangling electric gizzies and expect to clear customs . . . nowadays that just ain't gonna happen. Having dealt with US customs on more than a few strange shipments, be aware that you just might need some help here. There's nothing cheap or cheerful about them.
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At last, El Reg comes to my part of the world. Perhaps I can help! To wit:
1. I've got a Cesaroni J engine (might be 3G) that's yours for the asking, and the usual adapters for fitting different dia. vehicles. Only hitch is that I'm up in Seattle. Can't get these at Walmart, but the courier delivery guy did drop it off at my house, only after I promised over the phone to lie to his boss and say I was physically present when he dropped off (this hazardous material). So yes it's relatively easy to ship these in US of A.
2. My folks live in New Mexico, unfortunately, way up in Santa Fe. But they have lots of friends and might find you a place to stay down in Las Cruces. How many of you will there be?
3. Why bother with the Caribbean after the flight? You've got one of the most interesting places in the USA to explore. For starters, White Sands missile range is close by, as is Alamogordo. Both have missile or space museums... Then there's El Paso TX, go to the ('murican) Taco Bell there, it's surreal... If you time your visit right you might even get to visit the Trinity Site.
Cheers-
Tom
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