How many model rocket engines would it take to launch a real rocket into space?

[Pipcard]

http://what-if.xkcd.com/24/

About 65,000, give or take a few.
You’d have to arrange them like this:

The rocket would weigh about as much as a tow truck. There wouldn’t be room for anything except the engines, aerodynamic shell, and minimal staging equipment.

 

[statickid]

reminds me of the emperors chair

 

[Mantis]

Not sure it would be possible. Those little rocket engines are very ineffecient as far as weight goes. Most of the weight of each of them is the casing rather than the propellant. The more engines you added to over come weight, the more engines you would have to add to overcome the additional weight. If you were to take them apart and reform the propellant inside a single more efficient casing you might be able to do it with a x number of tens of thousands of engines.

 

[Urwumpe]

For reaching barely Mach 3 and coast above the Kalman line, it should be enough. There is a function somewhere how much DV you can maximal get with an infinite number of stages, this 30 stage rocket should closely approach it.

 

[Bloodworth]

Actually, it depends on exactly what KIND of model rocket engines you are referring to. I remember reading an article in a high power rocketry magazine about 20 years ago, of a group in California that set out to set an altitude record for model rocketry. Their Rocket was a single stage boost with a second stage coast with a camera and altimeter. They launched from black rock desert, with the engine having been manufactured on site. While they were unable to recover the second stage, they sent the transmitted video footage to NASA who did their math on it and declared that it had reached an altitude of 54 miles.

Just found new information...4
http://www.hobbyspace.com/Rocketry/Advanced/records.html

 

[mrbusdriver]

It's basically a home built sounding rocket, solid propellant. 60+ miles up...was flown some months ago. 1st "amature rocket" into "space".

 

[RisingFury]

1st "amature rocket" into "space".

Nope.

http://sugarshot.org/

 

[statickid]

Meanwhile I met these people a couple months ago at a wedding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXZfCXgY3P4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

---------- Post added at 09:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:12 AM ----------

That's a full beer keg by the way :lol:

 

[N_Molson]

It would never work because with that much stages and engines, you will have multiple failures and a big K-Boom !