Rocket Racing League Showcases New X-Racers 39
FleaPlus writes "The Rocket Racing League demonstrated two of their new 'Mark III' X-Racer rocketplanes at an air show in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Besides making for a fun show, the League also pushes the boundaries for reusable and easily maintainable rocket engines. (The X-Racer's liquid oxygen and ethanol rocket engine was made by John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace, which recently released a video showcasing some of the rockets they've launched and landed in the past year.)"
Re:Interesting.... (Score:4, Interesting)
> Except we've been waiting for this 'Rocket Racing League' to [i]take off[/i], pun or not, for the last [b]six years[/b]. It is the Duke Nukem Forever of motor^H^H^H^Hsports.
Yup, the financial crash sucked for a lot of things, especially high-risk ventures like the Rocket Racing League seeking cash from investors. It looks like they've managed to get enough funding to design and build the first two race vehicles though, so hopefully the odds are now quite good of seeing races in the near future.
It's not just the BIG tech... (Score:3, Interesting)
With high tech sports like this, the fancy stuff gets a lot of press, but I bet the small stuff will really help out space exploration.
Take the 3D virtual race course technology, not super surprising, but super dam useful for future civilian rocket/space flight applications.
Just having a place, such as a the Rocket Racing league, that provides a venue and funding to develop bleeding edge, high risk tech is a massive boon for progress.
Safety systems, rocket aerodynamics, even flight strategy techniques. It will also provide a new employment pool and a place to get experience for new engineers, flight crew and pilots.