By Brett Duesing

Personal Tools

Due to the experimental nature of rocket-making, development of a lunar lander is exhaustively iterative. Breed started with a rough CAD model of his design, leaving the details to be determined in the course of trial-and-error. 

“As far as software and design, it’s probably a lot of old school tactics – take a piece of metal, hold it up to where you want to go, measure it with calipers, and sketch it out,” says Breed, who does most of his CAD work in the 3-D surface modeler Rhinoceros, an inexpensive program used by industrial designers to build highly accurate curved components. Rhinoceros models convert easily to CAM software, which creates robotic instructions for automated cutters. “I’ll sketch out a part in Rhinoceros, export it and cut it out through SheetCAM and bolt it on.  And then go on to the next piece.”

One advantage the team has had that explains its remarkable progress after only one year is the addition of CNC equipment into the home shop. 

The milling machine that sits in the Breeds’ garage is perhaps the biggest commercial breakthrough in recent years to empower inventors. While CNC machines, which cut accurate metal components through basic computer instructions based on CAD designs, have been around 40 years, the Breeds’ Tormach PCNC 1100 finally brings this technology down to a personal level.

The Tormach machine has all the cutting capability to make most mechanical parts. It can make cuts in heavy steel plate, or carve out curves through harder materials like titanium. 

Iteration after iteration of the quadrant engine designs are tested in the Mohave Desert. This early trial produced thrust for 106 seconds. The grand prize in competition requires the lander to hover for at least 180 seconds.

A few years ago, such capabilities could be found only in a factory environment. A powerful CNC machine used to demand both advanced machinist and programming skills, required 3 phase power, and came with a hefty price tag.

The Tormach PCNC 1100 was especially engineered as a prototyping mill that could run in a garage and is simple enough for a novice to operate. Each machine includes both CAD and CAM software. The combination of CAD, CAM, and a milling machine delivers the fabrication capabilities within an individual’s budget. 

“One of the other competitors in the contest, Team Masten, decided to do everything in detailed CAD drawings and then sent out all the parts to have them made in fabrication shops. They’ve been working on their vehicle for two years now and they aren’t any farther ahead with a group of eight than we are with the two of us in our garage after a year,” explains Breed. “I think the fundamental reason is that we can make parts. We don’t have a two-week turnaround from drawing to building a part. When we have a new idea, we can test it out that afternoon. Being able to make the components in-house allows us to do many more iterations much more quickly.  In rocketry, you have to rely less on analysis, and more on testing.”

Back To The Individual

The modern technological age we live in can be traced to a few luminaries like Edison, Ford and Lindburgh. For decades since, individual innovation has faded as corporations took the helm. The next chapter of history may rest once again on breakthroughs from the minds of unreasonably driven individuals. 

“The availability of low-cost machine tools, and CAD tools that a normal mortal can both use and afford, computing power, and online communities: all of these developments empowers the individual American inventor in a way that changes how things are made. I don’t think it’s so much the Xprize is spurring this empowerment, it’s more a change that’s happening in the world.”

The Breeds' part-time rocket project has taken off so quickly because they can produce professional-grade parts in their garage, avoiding the long wait and large expense of having components fabricated by outside shops. The Tormach PCNC mill is an example how factory technology is becoming personalized.

Breed cites his day job as an example of the inventor’s resurgence. When he began his career designing circuitry, a new product required three weeks and a whole staff of engineers, drafters, part material procurers. Today, Breed can do all of it in eight hours on his computer, and even order the materials online. Now with automated machining tools, engineers now don’t even need the support staff of fabricators to make a prototype. 

“Creative people used to need help. In a traditional engineering organization, you have just a few creative designers, then you have a bunch of worker bees around them. In time, the worker bee jobs are going away, but it makes the creative types infinitely more valuable and powerful, because now they can create on their own,” says Breed.

“They are much less likely to be working for GE or GM than working as independent consultants who can participate with eight or ten companies and use their skill set a lot more extensively.”

As for the Xprize challenge, no awards have yet been claimed after the second meeting of competitors, only one of which, a former Ansari team, has been able to get off the ground. Unreasonable Rocket will continue to test its design for a flight at the 2008 event. 

Prize or no prize, the Breeds have committed themselves fully to the endeavor. “My goal for the entire project is not just to do the task, but to show that a couple motivated people in their garage can accomplish big things,” says Breed. 

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him; the unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself,” wrote George Bernard Shaw. “All progress depends on the unreasonable man."