History in the Construction of the Constitution LSRV

Constitution LSRV Concept, Design and Construction

     I always fantasized about designing and building the most advanced land speed racer, with the most powerful engine I could get my hands on. This was the way land speed record cars were always built in the past. When my friend and partner Ken Mason told me he wanted to get an LR-99 rocket engine up and running I suggested we build the ultimate car. I believe the United States at this point in time and history is the most technically advanced nation in the world and should be second to none in any field or area. With Great Britain currently holdingthe land speed record we need to build a machine that can not only get the record back but literally put it out of reachof any other nation. I envisioned a super car with a power plant and design that could be improved upon during the coming years. A design that was originally conceived to run in the super sonic regime not just reach it. My plans called for me driving this machine to a new world's record of 1,000 plus miles per hour and then leaving this machine in a museum (possibly the Smithsonian) for future younger LSR drivers to use in case the record was ever broken by another nation. Then like a rare jewel placed back on display under trust for the next attempt. The basic concept will be built totally from stainless steel and exotic metals such as Titanium and Inconel X to last forever. This is not an individuals ego extension but my gift to the most beautiful science/sport known to man the Land Speed Record and it's proponents. The LSR and all it's participants have given me so much joy in my life I want to give something back. It is the clay of an ever changing sculpture to my brothers and sisters of the future. Some of the people who will campaign this machine may not even been born yet. Ken suggested we name the new machine "Freedom" and I liked that but I believe we couldn't enjoy this freedom to do what we please if it weren't for the Constitution that our nation is founded on. People of this nation must never let the Constitution be erode trading their freedom for protection or comfort. Ken and I wanted to always remind people that this country is only as great as it's principles. So this super vehicle will be named "Constitution land speed research vehicle" or LSRV. With this in mind I began working on a car that could be driven to Mach 3 or 2,300 miles per hour.

     The LR-99 rocket engine was developed for the X-15 rocket plane which was a high speed, high altitude research plane developed in the 1950s and flown through most of the 1960s. During that time it propelled pilot/astronauts to speeds greater than 4,000 miles per hour and altitude of over 60 miles or space. It is still the fastest known manned aircraft in the world. The LR-99 was nicknamed the "Million horse power rocket engine" but the most power it ever made during the program was in the 680,000 range. The term horsepower is a coefficient of actual work being done not thrust so it can be a variable. The LR-99 runs on liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Ammonia,pumped into the combustion chamber by pumps fueled by hydrogen peroxide decomposition rocket motors. It had a bad reputation for not starting at low engine settings (the engine was throttable) and had to be started at full throttle and pulled back in order to function as planned. Ammonia also being very toxic is difficult to handle and hard to ignite. Ken Mason opted to run the engine on aqueous Ethanol (alcohol) and LOX. Alcohol is easy to handle, readily available and because it evaporates quickly becomes less of a fire problem as time progresses in case of a spill or crash scenario. In order to simplify the engine Ken decided to blow the fuel into the combustion chamber with Helium gas supplied from a series of Titanium high pressure spherical pressure vessels. The LR-99 had a maximum thrust of 57,000 to 60,000 lbs. We will be running slightly less thrust and if I can keep the vehicles weight down maybe 50,000 will be all we will ever need.

     Ken Mason and I bought four new engines in the crates, about twenty years ago from a surplus dealer who was going to smelt them for scrap. They originally cost the American tax payer about $9,000,000.00 apiece and I think when all the dust settled we spent about $6,000.00 for the lot. At the time we were working on Sonic Wind and didn't even know what we were going to do with these monster engines but just couldn't let a scrapper melt them down for the precious metal that they contained. Many rocket engine nozzles of the 1950s and 60s were basically a cone shape of thin cooling tubes welded together with either silver or gold alloys. They have mostly been reprocessed for the gold and that is why so few liquid rocket engines exists today even though we built thousands of ICBMs. The LR-99 engines were built of a new high temperature Nickel alloy called Inconel X welded together with a silver alloy solder.

     At present we are going to use the engines in their original state but we have plans to eventually remove the DeLaval nozzle. Which is made of hundreds of tubes which flow fuel for cooling and build a composite nozzle. This will allow us to run the engine at less pressures for greater thrust and we can build the nozzle so it will have the perfect throat size for the altitude we will be running the engine at. If we run at Bonneville lets say we can shape the nozzle diameter for an altitude of 4,100 feet. The original nozzle designed by Reaction Motors Inc. was to be most efficient at altitude of 60 miles. So you could say Ken and I are going to hot rod a million horse power rocket engine in order to suit our needs.