One of the strangest rocket designs we've ever seen was shown off earlier this month. Adding to the general sense of strangeness hovering over the project, it says the venture will be funded by selling coins that can be exchanged for gold that will be obtained via asteroid mining.
The idea of the EcoRocket Heavy looks very strange. It's powered by steam and stuffed to the gills with boosters, making it technically wider than it is tall, which makes it look like an art Deco skyscraper or a wedding cake.
It looks like it was dreamt up by a teenager on Kerbal Space Program.
The response in the space community was very strong.
"This is possibly the dumbest space thing I've ever seen," Eric Berger said.
"ARCA Space just revealed the updated concept for EcoRocket Heavy and I'll be having nightmares about it for a long time," another user said.
One exclaimed, "wtf."
We wanted to know how Popescu felt about that kind of feedback. He was steadfast in his stance in the interview.
He told Futurism that he should expect people's reaction to be reserved.
If you see a car with five wheels, your reaction will be negative.
A little bit of experience is what ArcA has. It's been successful in launching two rockets into the air so far, but it's a long way from the ground.
It was awarded a contract by the European Space Agency to develop a parachute system. The craft crashed on the surface of Mars in 2016 after failing to make it.
The company has a colorful past. There were headlines for a battery-powered hoverboard that never came to fruition.
The adventures have been more serious. In New Mexico, Popescu was arrested and jailed on 13 counts of fraud and five counts of embezzlement.
Popescu claimed in a video posted to Facebook that he was the victim of a conspiracy by his ex-wife and a former board director.
In a new white paper about the asteroid mining plants, the company wrote that the story sounds pretty unbelievable, but unfortunately it is true.
Popescu went as far as to say that his time in prison was one of the best things that ever happened to him, because it gave him time to think and focus on how he's going to restart the organization.
His arrest was a good experience because it made him reexamine his approach to rocketry.
The EcoRocket Heavy would be made up of 540 "propulsion modules" spread out across several levels, which would make it an awkward stack.
The rocket is so large it is four times the width of the spaceship.
Why did this strange design come about? It will save money because it will be spent on a smaller crane.
The white paper states that the taller the rocket, the bigger the crane. It was clear to us that this must be avoided because the rental or manufacturing of those cranes is very expensive.
A lot of supporting equipment is required to work on a single body, which is why it is unique.
The company that went bankrupt in 1987 suggested using mass-produced units spread out across several stages, similar to the one Popescu mentioned.
The idea was tested at several German and African test sites before the company shut down.
The Eco Rocket Heavy had a surprisingly low drag penalty, according to Popescu.
There were some substantial "technical challenges" that the German company's designs always seemed to come out below.
It would take a long time to cluster all these units together because they would have to get them perfectly aligned.
The amount of money it costs to launch a project into space was the goal of both OTRAG and Arca Space. The idea of using water as a way to get a giant rocket off the ground was taken to a whole new level by ArcA.
The Eco Rocket's name suggests that it was designed with the environment in mind, but Popescu said that wasn't the original intent.
"Actually, I need to admit that the first drive for us to build the EcoRocket was not actually the pursuit of the ecological aspect," Popescu said.
The EcoRocket Heavy's first two stages use steam from heated water, which has turned out to be a bit of a problem.
The team noticed that steam was worse than other propellants.
It was clear that using steam alone wasn't going to be effective.
He said that at some point, they were thinking, "Okay, this is not going anywhere" This is not a good idea.
The team decided to use only the upper stages' polluting fuels to give them the extra lift they need.
Popescu thinks that people don't care about expelling pollutants into outer space when the rocket goes past the stratosphere.
The EcoRocket is a construction made up of hundreds of hot water tanks and a couple of traditional rocket stages.
The performance was traded for cost reduction and environment protection, something the company sees as a fair trade.
Does the vision of ARCA amount to a rocket that can perform in the real world?
According to the company's website, the Eco Rocket Heavy will be the heaviest and has the highest thrust compared to any other vehicle ever built. The lowest cost/kg ever recorded is promised by it.
The company needs to raise money by selling investors on the idea of mining asteroids for resources.
In the year 2022, the year in which the token sale is planned to kick off, there will be an endless list of scam artists who promise various benefits or returns and then pull the rug from under them.
Popescu believes that the math works out. Launching an asteroid mining mission will cost in the range of $100 million, which is very high risk, but also high reward, which would scare away classic investors.
He said that individual investors wouldn't be asked to contribute "big amounts of money."
To succeed, the company would have to generate a lot of interest, raise a lot of money, and find a resource-rich asteroid.
International space law, which could undermine such endeavors before they even get off the ground, isn't even mentioned.
I guess good luck? They will certainly need it, according to a recent Ars post by Berger.
The super heavy booster was lifted using giant robot arms.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
