

Rocket science – how hard can it be? [video] - Audiophilip
http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2014/31c3_-_6180_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201412271830_-_rocket_science_how_hard_can_it_be_-_david_madlener.html

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TeMPOraL
Not hard at all. Here are few key points to remember:

    
    
      - parachutes go at the top, engines goes at the bottom
      - engines point down
      - don't mess up your staging
      - if you didn't go high enough, put more boosters
      - if you fell apart in flight, put more struts
    

Sincerely, Jebediah Kerman.

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gizmo686
Jebediah is an accomplished pilot, but does not know much about _building_
rockets. I am sure that Bill Kerman would have a few choice words to say on
the subject.

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TrainedMonkey
Given amount of rockets of all types of quality that Jeb had been in, I think
he developed quite a intuition for how a good rocket should be built. In
particular this is not it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JUMFXlOsU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0JUMFXlOsU)
(No wonder Jeb did not pilot this one).

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delibes
This guy is very entertaining in the video, and what they're doing is very
practical.

Rocket engines sometimes get described as extreme plumbing. Big rockets that
are more powerful than the simple solid rockets the video describes tend to
use cryogenics like liquid oxygen (-185C/-300F) in one part of the rocket, and
then at the other extreme have a combustion chamber over 1500C/2750F that will
melt most metals.

Rocket science _is_ hard.

For some more good reading, there's a great usenet archive of sci.space at
[http://yarchive.net/space/index.html](http://yarchive.net/space/index.html)

