Mission Redesign

Just an update for our loyal follower(s?)

We've been tossing around a few real-life, income-generating projects and making some strides towards putting together a medium scale aquaponics system. I've currently got a 10 by 12 foot greenhouse awaiting assembly, and we'll be setting up some tanks stocked with catfish and arctic char. The goal is to have the system operational and producing food by March 2011. If successful, we'll be scaling the system up for use on the CVX-101.

Further developments with impact resistant materials suitable for the hull have yielded positive results, and we anticipate bringing at least one of these materials to at least small scale production within 18 months in the form of personal or vehicular armor.

Propulsion still lags as the least-developed technology, but a small testbed should be available for demonstration in a few weeks. Minor issues with fabrication of the thrust cell have postponed final design and construction, but we're planning a debut to coincide with an anime convention, as we've secured a willing victim volunteer to attend a convention "dressed" as Cortana from the Halo series of video games. Yes, our testbed will strongly resemble 343 Guilty Spark, the Monitor of Installation 04.

So far, things are looking good, but we still need to make decisions on crew size and maximum anticipated mission length so that we can finalize the numbers for the required internal volume for storage and crew quarters, engine thrust, and life support systems, as well as to aid in scaling the aquaponics system for sustained food production (assuming missions greater than 6 months from the nearest base of operations).

I'll be back in a few weeks with another update, so keep your ear to the ground and your eyes on the stars!

Wecome!

We're just getting things up and running, but thanks for stopping by to see what we're all about!

Right now, we're a collective of approximately 20 researchers, tinkerers, and self-sufficient homesteader type folks that got the brilliant idea to turn terrestrial self-contained food, water, and power production systems into a space-ready apparatus.

Why on earth would we do this?

Recent breakthroughs in nontraditional propulsion technology led a few of us to conclude that transorbital flight is possible for long durations without conventional rocket fuel. We'll be posting articles on everything from aquaponics to what you might call warp drive, all with real world demonstrations. Expect lots of photos, videos, and a sprinkling of cuts and scrapes and expletives as we put together the ultimate self contained homestead.... in SPACE.

Our overarching goal is, in fact, to build a spacecraft, but failing funding and manpower, the projects we accomplish should be able to help us live better, easier, or just have some fun today, even if we don't get outside the troposphere.

So come back soon, we're planning about two articles a week, posted on wednesday and friday evenings, but larger projects will be sprinkled in as we get the video edited.

Thanks for your time!