How Is The Armadillo Knowledgebase Organized?

Belated congrats on your LLC2 qualification.

I've been following Armadillo's exploits for years and through all the iterations of engines, injectors, nozzles, etc, I've wondered how you guys kept track of this ever-growing bundle of acquired knowledge. Do you just have a bunch of text files with point-form notes, or do you have a more formal way of keeping track of what you've learned?

If they don't, maybe we could make a project in the Spacefellowship of organizing the info in the Armadillo updates and even on their posts to the Armadillo forum . . . I'd be willing to help.

Yes a little wiki or database would be nice. With Hyperlinks of course. I would be happy to help data mine.

It's all stored in John Carmack's massive brain .

That's likely true, though for the whole team. Our knowledge is in emails, a few design documents, some posts to ARocket, and a lot of experiences kept in people's heads.

Heck, as a developer I'd be darn interested in this...

I couldn't begin to imagine what could be done with a resource like that.
I'm sure it would be a lot of work to organize, sift through the posts, data, and to pick the brains of the team members.
If I had the time I would gladly help, unfortunately I am a bit sparse on that .

I wonder what the Armadillo guys think about this

It sounds like 1) a lot of work for them, 2) not necessary to their operations, and 3) a potential enormous competitive loss if someone got a hold of it. They paid for that knowledge in blood, sweat, and, well, maybe not any actual tears yet, but certainly a lot of time, energy, and money. If it were all boiled down to a nicely indexed DVD, it'd be industrial espionage waiting to happen.

Wait until 10 years from now; if John follows precedent, he'll open source the plans to Pixel right about the time they do their first orbital shots (same as he did with open sourcing Doom after Quake shipped....)

... as he did with Quake 1, 2 and 3 subsequently

But you don't really want to wait for him to open source the engineering plans, because a) there probably aren't any (at least no detailed technical drawings) and b) if you are willing to learn about rockets and build something like pixel or the mod, you just have to buy a book about liquid fuel rocket engines, learn and understand the principles and then read through the archive of updates over at armadillo's website. There is a TON of information there, especially regarding engine development.

Of course, there isn't everything there, but certainly enough to start your own learning by doing project. It basically is the same with game engines from ID software: only the code of the engine(s) has been open sourced, not the actual content of the game(s). So you still have to develop/design your own stuff to make it work.


But well, maybe Armadillo will open source their GN&C code a few years from now

Hi Guys,

Going through the old Armadillo forum stuff I realized that no one from the team ever answered this!

Now, 6 years later, with Armadillo in hibernation, much of the core team has joined forced to pick up where we left off. Of course we lament the fact that John is no longer a part, but we understand fully why that is not the case. He has is own pair of Golden Handcuffs with Oculus/Facebook to keep him occupied for a while.

When Armadillo was winding down after the last flight, one of the things we did at John's request was document everything with as much of the design reasons and test details as we could muster. The document produced was very extensive. It is called "The Book of Stig", and for the most part may remain a fabled unicorn for folks that would generally like to get their hands on it.

That book is ITAR restricted for obvious reasons, and I doubt that it will ever be published for general public dissemination. It has test data as well as the decisions behind each level of change in design. The information in that book could very well be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars because it takes things from such sources as "Propulsion Elements" and shows experimental data that refines the math into a working engine.

I am pleased that the Exos Aerospace Systems & Technologies (EAST) team has formed and is moving forward now before we lose the knowledge with the flavor of the experience to back it up. Even though John Carmack is missing from the equation, our prior work brought us appropriate contacts to write new GNC software for the SARGE vehicle. Some of the same team that wrote the platform for NASA's Morpheus vehicle will be working on the new SARGE platform.

One of the reasons for the kickstarter campaign is so that we can refine the models appropriately for them to be able to do their work.

If you would like to participate in an actual launch, you can actually do that now through this Kickstarter campaign! Sign up to be a part and experience the launch with us!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/95173281/spaceflight-fast-and-affordable-access-to-sub-orbi?ref=email

Phil

Excellent Answer!