Jay's "Tau Zero"
 

It seems like the server for Ye Olde Rocket Forum (YORF) has been busy a *lot* lately, so late Sunday night, I actually picked up a project which had lain fallow for a year.

Last year, I sketched out the fin patterns for my original "Tau Zero" design onto graph paper, and "guesstimated" the width of the inner fins. I glued the outer fins to the ring fin, and didn't run into any problems. But gluing the the inner fins onto the main body tube, I suddenly discovered that 1/2 an inch is a *long* ways from 0.4," AND THE RING FIN *DIDN'T FIT!*

So a couple of weeks ago, I finally figured out how to cut the inner fins down (changing the front and back angle, as well as the width), so Sunday I marked, cut, and then sanded accordingly.

I'm always intrigued to see where rocketeers take pictures of their rockets, so I figured the glass-topped table on my back patio would add a new and different background texture. (In the fourth picture, my 8 year old daughter's basketball seems to approve.)


Bill E. and John Thro should also be glad to see that I'm *finally* making progress on this design. :rolleyes:


Cheers,

--Jay

Coo-ell. When do we see the flight report? :D

Very nice design Jay, and also where is that Rocksim file? :rolleyes:

James Pierson
NAR# 77907

Getting the cart before the horse?
 

(chuckling) After it's glued and painted, silly! :rolleyes: :p

Actually, I just dryfit the parts together for the pics. Then I shot them with the first coat of primer. :eek: (I know, I started on this one way back in March of last year, *before* I settled on the "'Fill N' Finish' first, then sand, *then* apply primer" method I've been using lately.)

So at least I'm actually *building* something, Bill. ;) :D :cool:


Cheers,

--Jay

About those secret plans...
 

It's um, er, (clears throat) ...Classified. :eek: :confused:

In other words, I could *tell* you... ;) :eek:


--Jay

Yeah, that's a step in the right direction. :rolleyes:

Which is more than I've been doing lately...

All I've done in the last few months is a 175% upscale of the Quest Totally Tubular that I put together from 35 mm body tubes from 2 or 3 Quest kits like the Big Rage and ... um, the Icarus, I think. No finishing required, since the tubes are already blue, black, and... white?

Way cool design, Jay. Was the name and design inspired by the Poul Anderson novel? Always liked that book (although current cosmological theory says, "No way the universe will contract and be reborn"). :)

"The Naming of the Names"
 

The design came out of my twisted little noggin, but yes, the name is indeed from that very book. (My original working name for this rocket was "Biff Pau" -- most likely a reference to the 1960's "Batman" TV show starring Adam West. :eek: )

I even consulted a friend of mine who's an astrophysicist at the nearby college, and he said, "Yes, the closer you get to lightspeed, the value for 'Tau' in the equations gets closer to zero." IIRC, he also said that when Tau equals zero, you've reached the speed of light. And then he muttered something to the effect of "then all the rules change," or somesuch astrophysical mysticism. :rolleyes: ;) :D


Don't worry. Wait a few years, and another (clarifying? opposing?) theory will come along. They always do. :p


Cheers,

--Jay

If that ain't the truth. As a layman, I could barely grasp string theory...then along came superstring theory...and now the rage is "M" theory (really fascinating, but even the layman explanations are getting so technical they're hard to follow!). What's cool about "M" theory is that (finally) there is math to support where the energy came from to create the Big Bang in the first place...and how our universe seems to exhibit both quantum effects at the micro level and chaos effects in the macro level. Or, so it does if I'm reading the articles correctly. :D

I always thought a Bussard ramjet as described in Tau Zero (and again later in Niven's "A World Out of Time") would make a cool rocket design...and you've gone and done it! Booyah! :)