Washington DC
AMATEUR rocket scientists have joined the space race. Last Sunday, the L5 Society of Huntsville, Alabama, part of the National Space Society, fired a 2-metre rocket to an altitude to 70 kilometres. 鈥淭his is the edge of space,鈥� says Gregory Allison, the project leader.
The rocket, called High Altitude Lift Off (HALO), was launched from a balloon to take advantage of the low air resistance at high altitude. It was a 鈥渉ybrid鈥� design, in which the solid fuel and oxidiser are mixed only at the moment of combustion. Hybrid rockets are safer than those in which the fuel and oxidiser are stored together.
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Balloon-launched rockets, otherwise known as 鈥渞ockoons鈥� can reach greater heights than would be possible with the same rocket launched from the ground. HALO鈥檚 organisers had intended the balloon to rise to about 32 kilometres before the rocket was released. Unfortunately, at about 18 kilometres, a camera on the rocket revealed that one of the balloon鈥檚 seams had ruptured.
Ground controllers immediately fired the rocket, which reached around 70 kilometres above the Earth before plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. If the balloon had not come apart, the rocket should have reached an altitude of 119 kilometres鈥攗nequivocally in space.
Rockoons were once the cutting edge of space technology. But by the mid-1950s the US and the Soviet Union had developed intercontinental missiles that could double as space rockets. Allison says the HALO project may revive rockoons as a cost-effective way for researchers to study space. NASA seems interested, and has contracted the HALO team to conduct two rockoon launches from the Gulf of Mexico.