

Rotary Rocket - bane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotary_Rocket

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brudgers
Perhaps surprisingly, the tip jet dates back to about 1908 and was patented at
least as early as 1911. Clearly surprisingly, the inventor and patent holder
was Ludwig Wittgenstein who was pursuing a PhD in the white hot tech field of
aeronautics at University of Manchester.

It is also when he discovered Russell and Frege and the rest is the history of
20th century Anglo philosophy.

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curtis
An interesting related fact, one tip jet helicopter actually made it into the
production, the Sud-Ouest S.O.1221 Djinn ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sud-
Ouest_Djinn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sud-Ouest_Djinn)). According to
Wikipedia 178 of them were built. In this case the tip jets were simply
powered by compressed air.

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cks
How come this vehicle doesn't self spin around the rotor axis? Like a
traditional single rotor helicopter would do without the tail rotor?

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rfreytag
The tip jets supply the rotational power so no torque exists (other than some
friction) between body and rotor to cause body rotation.

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amelius
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kp63-an2ts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kp63-an2ts)

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beamatronic
In the 2000-2001 time frame a lot of us watched in amazement? disgust? at
certain dot-com valuations, and Rotary Rocket starved due to lack of funds. It
makes one wonder about how capital is allocated. People made conscious
decisions to invest in a sock puppet versus a technology that gets humans into
space.

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lerouxb
The wikipedia article makes it look like the design was inherently flawed.
Entirely possible that venture capital was (at least subjectively) allocated
badly AND this project shouldn't have received more funding anyway.

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ansible
An SSTO is an ambitious design in general. That, plus a new engine design, was
(in retrospect) too much for a startup company to take on. Just the powered
landing system would have been ambitious enough.

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Already__Taken
If there's ever some kind of standard that emerges for rockets maybe a company
like this can make an interim payload stage to add to recover the vehicle.
Like how satellites are gaining more and more standard parts and form factors.

As presently any system like that I assume is pretty must bespoke per rocket
family.

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ansible
_As presently any system like that I assume is pretty must bespoke per rocket
family._

Yeah, but the original engine was not the standard LOX/kero turbopump affair.
The seals were breaking new ground, if nothing else.

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netman21
Gary Hudson always inspired me as an entrepreneur who would not give up. My
brother finished his last year of law school remotely so he could join Hudson
in Claifornia. I started my first consulting company while still in college to
do structural analysis on Hudson's Percheron Rocket.

