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SpaceShipTwo Design and Pics Released
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:25 PM
from the stuff-i'll-never-be-able-to-afford dept.
from the stuff-i'll-never-be-able-to-afford dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Designs and photos for Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic's new suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, and its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, have been released." Lots of specs and numbers if you're interested in that sort of thing although nothing hugely detailed.
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2008, The Year of the Spaceship 126 comments
DynaSoar writes "2008 Could be a the year of the Spaceship.
Virgin Galactic intends to unveil White Knight 2 as well as Spaceship 2 during the next year, at this point planning for January. Burt Rutan, always reticent to comments on progress of any project, says nothing to support or contradict Virgin Galactic's announcement. However, the report states that Spaceship 2 is 50% complete and White Knight 2 is 60% complete. In addition, Virgin Galactic is considering using White Knight 2, or possible its successor White Knight 3, to put small satellites in orbit for a cost of US$3 million, less than half the current front runner in (projected) low cost orbital launches; SpaceX's Falcon at US$6.7 million. Tourism aside, this could be an extremely lucrative spin off of Virgin Galactic's original plans. If this turns out to be a profitable endeavor, the cost of tourism flights could drop significantly."
Submission: SpaceShipTwo design and pics released by Anonymous Coward
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Space Tourism Industry Gains New Competitor 104 comments
mattnyc99 writes "There's a new entry in the race for the first space tourism jet: XCOR Aerospace, a California-based rocket builder. The company says its clean-burning, two-seat Lynx spacecraft will lift off by 2010. After we only saw a mockup of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo a couple months back, you'd think this was serious competition in the 'New Space' race, but these photos show that Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites is well on its way with construction."
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Pilot (Score:2)
I think I'll wait... (Score:3, Funny)
Great! (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not on this rocket: it's designed to come back.
Parallels and Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/top10/wright-flyer.jpg [aerospaceweb.org] Here is the wrights' "space ship one"
http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/786/506847.JPG [dkimages.com] Here is what the aircraft started looking like 4 years after the Wright's first flight.
It took 30 years for Jet technology to appear, I wonder if it will be a similar amount of time before we get private orbital cabability.
Re:Parallels and Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Why cheer for irrelevance? Cheer for what actually matters.
By the way -- I'm not sure the analogy with early aircraft is the one you're going for. Just ignoring how little capital it took to build an airplane versus what it takes to make an orbital spacecraft, you should realize that early airplanes suffered major crashes at very regular intervals. The pilots typically survived because the performance of said aircraft was so low. The first cross-country flight took weeks and involved dozens of crashes. For the first around-the-world race, the US strategically placed replacement parts and even entire replacement airplanes for its pilots to use.
Even if that was an analogy you wanted to use, you should be comparing early aircraft with early rockets (V2, Redstone, etc), not with SS1 and their "repeat what's done decades ago in a way that we know damn well won't scale to anything". SS1 isn't developing new technology or pushing the envelope; they're making craft that don't advance anything except people's ability to have a joyride.
Parent
First thing that comes to mind re. WhiteKnight II (Score:2)
More pics here (Score:3, Informative)
May the ships be built better than the server was (Score:2)
Have to say (Score:5, Insightful)
FYI, from el Wiki: "More than 65,000 would-be space tourists have applied for the first batch of 100 tickets to be available. The price will initially be US$200,000. However, after the first 100 tickets are sold the price would be dropped to around $100,000. Then deposits after the first year will drop to around $20,000. The duration of the flight will be approximately 2.5 hours, and weekly launches are planned.
In December 2007 Virgin Galactic had 200 paid-up applicants on its books for the early flights, and 95% were passing the necessary 6-8 g centrifuge tests"
Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Article (Score:3, Informative)
PICTURES: Virgin Galactic unveils Dyna-Soar style SpaceShipTwo design and twin-fuselage White Knight II configuration
By Rob Coppinger
Virgin Galactic has unveiled a SpaceShipTwo (SS2) design, created by Scaled Composites, that harks back to the NASA/USAF Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar glider of the 1960s, while Scaled's carrier aircraft, White Knight II (WK2) has been given a twin-fuselage configuration.
To be launched on a Lockheed Martin Titan III rocket, Dyna-Soar was for hypersonic flight research but the programme was cancelled before the first vehicle was completed. Some of its subsystems were used in later X-15 flight research and Dyna-Soar became a testbed for advanced technologies that contributed to projects, including the Space Shuttle.
Above: SpaceShipTwo is carried between the two fuselages of White Knight II
Virgin Galactic's commercial operations will now start from New Mexico's Spaceport America in 2010 and not from Mojave air and space port in California, as originally planned, but the WK2, SS2 launch system will be test flown by Scaled at the Californian port.
At its 23 January press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York city Virgin Galactic described SS2 as using the same basic technology, construction and design as its predecessor SpaceShipOne (SS1), as 100% composite and twice as large as the $10 million X-Prize winning vehicle, SS1.
Above: SpaceShipTwo transitions into feathering mode for its reentry
The SS2 is 18.3m (60ft) long, has a wingspan of 12.8m, a tail height of 4.5m with a passenger cabin that is 3.66m long and 2.28m in diameter. Despite being so much larger than SS1, SS2 will still use a front nose skid, and not nose gear. Released at 50,000ft (15,200m) by WK2, the rocket glider's apogee is expected to be up to 110km (68 miles).
Above: SpaceShipTwo is under construction at Scaled Composites
The carrier aircraft, WK2, is now 23.7m-long, it still has a wingspan of 42.7m, with a tail height of 7.62m and its integration is now 80% complete - with the assembly of the wing underway in preparation for its mating with the twin fuselages.
The WK2 will have four Pratt and Whitney PW308 engines, as revealed by Flight in September last year. And as Flight has also reported WK2's crew and passenger cabin will be the same; for training purposes.
Above: White Knight II under construction with its twin fuselages being fitted with their tail fins at Scaled Composites
Virgin Galactic also announced that the SS2 simulator is now operational, ahead of the previous March 2008 date that had been given. It is already being used for pilot training.
Above: Brian Binnie, Scaled Composites pilot, sits in the SpaceShipTwo simulator
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
But, really, if private space travel is to become commonplace, what we want is boring and un-sexy technology -- not exciting and cutting edge.
What we need is the equivalent of a Buick station wagon with wood-grain trim. Boring as hell, but a reliable vehicle which focuses on doing the task instead of pushing the envelope. Once you have that, then this stuff can start to become routine based on available technology.
Cheers
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Interesting)
As to my understanding of rocket science, well, for starters, maybe you should learn manners before you return to the discussion. You're not going to convince people to agree with your opinion if you insult them first. You only come across as an idiot when you do it; regardless of how smart you may be. You also might try opening your mind to ideas that don't fit with your own narrow view of the world.
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Informative)
**quote**
As I mentioned before, I was in error about how much delta v it takes, including gravity losses, to get in orbit, 9500 m/s instead of 11km/s. So about a quarter of the necessary delta v was provided by the motor and a further 300 or so m/s by the plane. Given that SpaceShipTwo goes a bit higher and has more downrange than SpaceShipOne, it probably has a little more delta v. So you're too low by at least a factor of 2 in your delta v estimate. And there's still higher ISP fuels. For example, they can use liquid oxygen in their hybrid to boost ISP. And higher mass ratios will obviously be needed. But I see no reason orbital delta v can't be reached.
****
Twice the thrust is probably attainable with more engines(check) and a little more fuel that has a higher energy output(I hate acronyms - a pet peeve of mine). The ship itself that launches them can also without a doubt be made to go faster, especially not IF, but WHEN we get scramjets and similar technologies working. 4000m/sec from the module and 1-2000m/sec from the booster/plane/etc is suddenly not so far off the mark.
IME, when you start talking about engineering problems and the difference between making it happen and the prototypes is a matter of 2-3x the test results, it's a matter of figuring it out more than being in the realm of "not possible". I don't think Scaled Composites second design can get into orbit, but it's a good step in the right direction, make no mistake about it.
I have to give them props for trying at least. Their goal is to get into space and not just give joy-rides, after all.
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:4, Informative)
1) It's not "twice"; it's level of performance is a tenth that of what is needed for orbit.
2) Thrust is not the problem; it's ISP and staging.
and a little more fuel
Try a hundred times more fuel and a craft equivalently large enough to manage it. See OTRAG for details.
that has a higher energy output(I hate acronyms - a pet peeve of mine).
Nobody who discusses rocketry any relevant amount will spell out the words "specific impulse" every time. It's just "ISP". Insisting on spelling everything out marks you as a novice as much as I'd come across as an internet novice by constantly spelling out www as "world-wide web".
The ship itself that launches them can also without a doubt be made to go faster, especially not IF, but WHEN we get scramjets and similar technologies working.
Lol. Just, lol.
4000m/sec from the module and 1-2000m/sec from the booster/plane/etc is suddenly not so far off the mark.
What is off the mark is that Scaled is going to go from polybut and nitrous to an as-of-yet in-development technology that requires carbon-carbon panels and an extensive regenerative cooling system with typically hydrogen fuel, without completely starting from scratch to boot.
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:4, Informative)
Further, the team isn't even *trying* to advance the state of the art in any fundamental science.
But that's why it's interesting. This is a low-tech engineering approach, with as close to commodity parts as they can manage. They're still a long long way from anyhting useful, but if they ever do get there they will have knocked a couple of 0s off the price, and significantly reduced the engineering complexity.
Naturally that provokes hostility from real rocket scientists - hey, the next thing you know, rocket science will be simple enough to outsource to India.
And the Penske team did famously win an Indy-car race with a very low-tech Buick-like engine once (pushrods for the win!), but that's a different story.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that the aerospace community has been way too fixated on making the perfect machine. It's just not possible in one go. Look at what happened to Venturestar. Instead of doing some intermediate, *flying* prototypes it was a big bang approach and they sunk how many billions into it? With *nothing* to show.
SS2 won't make it to orbit. And, many of the technologies in
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Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
Then making 'space flight' available to more of the public helps create more awareness.
Parent
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
"Progressively" implies continuity. There is no "progressive" approach to orbit from their current design.
This is the source of your error. Repeatedly, you make two observations. Namely that you need more delta v and that you need considerable TPS for reentry. These are known problems with various solutions. I don't see the vehicle requiring a major redesign, after all delta v is fixable by better ISP engines and a larger mass ratio. Maybe the resulting vehicle will be too heavy for a plane to carry it economically, but I doubt they'd have gone this far without figuring that out. And TPS systems are pretty we
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Infrastructure and corporate organization comes first.
Here's a good analogy. It's the early days of aviation, and you want a plane that can cross the Atlantic in 8 hours. No plane can cross the Atlantic at all at that point in time. What do you do? If you are bound by economic reality, you realize that if you build a functioning route structure with existing tech, and build it with future development in mind, it will be less of a jump from that than simply magically building a plane.
Continental a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On a technical level you're right. But SS2 addresses a different problem. Once joyrides into space are sold, space tourism will be established as a market. Right now space tourism is a single-segment market: for several million dollars the Russians will sell you one of their spots on the space station. Aside from that, no one knows for sure how many people will pay how much money to go into space. If SpaceShipTwo is a commercial success, that decreases the risk and proves the potential return of investing i
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right. Because Mercury and Gemini were simply copying what people did half a century earlier except getting worse performance despite greatly improved technology at their disposal, in a method that's completely unscaleable to orbit.
Right?
SeaLaunch, Orbital Scie
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Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheer for the rocketry not matters, not the irrelevant joyrides.
Parent
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As for meaningful rocketry and the beleaguered state of other systems, their two Falcon 1 launches thus far have failed to reach orbit.
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Cheer for the rocketry not matters, not the irrelevant joyrides.
Not to be rude, but you need to get a clue here. Joyrides mean more money in a growing space economy. SpaceShipTwo is a critical test of space tourism. Will it get enough business to cover development costs or help fund an orbital vehicle? Sure SpaceX's $2-3k/kg is very sexy especially since they're close to a demonstration launch, but SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in private manned space. Further, SpaceX has yet to successfully launch anything while Scaled Composites has three successful launches (with
Don't Be a Party Pooper (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
That's because it doesn't go fast enough to need one. It peaked out at Mach 2.5 (and this was in the upper atmosphere, meaning it was getting far less heating than a jet moving at this speed), not Mach 18 or so (and remember that energy is proportional to the velocity *squared*). This is not "state of the art". It's "state of the art fifty years ago". It's not contributing a damn thing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
To say Scaled Composites is not "contributing" is incorrect. Who do you think came up with and has built and flown a throttleable solid rocket engine? (I'll give you a hint, It wasn't SpaceX.) They've also come up with some interesting canopy (window
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
~300km/~5000m/s is "barely off the pad"? In what universe? It'd have easily been 7,800 m/s if they just had an upper stage baffle.
Who do you think came up with and has built and flown a throttleable solid rocket engine? (I'll give you a hint, It wasn't SpaceX.)
I'll give you a hint: It wasn't Scaled. They flew a hybrid rocket. One that got them a mere 3% of the energy of an equivalent mass in orbit and cannot scale to orbit.
They've also c
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Plus, why does something need to advance the state of the art to be cool or worth doing? Making something that's already proven to be possible cheaper and more accesible is a noble goal too (see also: the personal computer revolu
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Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
A LOT to see here (Score:5, Informative)
They are learning how to build an infrastructure that could take paying customers to orbit.
They are gaining experience carrying passengers and a spaceship up to the edge of space.
They are gaining experience dealing with novice 'astronauts' and what it takes to prepare them and what they should expect from them in a weightless environment.
They are gaining experience designing and building and flying carrier aircraft.
I would imagine that the next generation will use a different rocket design, go significantly faster, and start using heat shielding, with yet a bigger carrier aircraft.
Once they have that in place, the next generation can upgrade the 'spaceship' to something with serious rockets that have the capability of reaching orbital speeds.
Or should they have gone for orbit first and hope everything else works at the same time?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:4, Insightful)
Other than contributions like feathered reentry I agree that it does very little to advance the state of the art.
But that is precisely the point. The state of the art does not need much advancing. Everything we really need know in order to get into space has been known for a couple of decades and has advanced very little even with much bigger budgets thrown at it by governments around the world. What we need to advance is the state of practice and Scaled/Virgin is doing exactly that.
Just one small example: an aircraft capable of carrying with proper ground clearance and safely dropping this size of load did not exist until now. It can be useful for many other applications like this one [airlaunchllc.com]. Does this advance the state of the art? Of course not. We've known such an aircraft can be built for well over half a century. But having this kind of aircraft actually available shaves many millions and a lot of risk from the budget of projects that need it. We all know these projects are facing lots of risks and are always underbudgeted so every little bit of help they can get really counts.
So it has been funded by joyriders. Anything wrong with that? Would you rather fund such development with your tax dollars?
Parent
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nose Skid (Score:4, Informative)
It's simpler and more lightweight. Less moving parts. Also probably a lot easier to package.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This flies directly in the face of the early poster that claims SS2 doesn't push the state of the art. SOA applies not only to new materials or designs that have never been seen before. It also applies to using old techniques in new ways, or in places that they weren't used before. It's no
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe that the corkscrew problem of the first of the two X-Prize flights might have been due to pilot error or something easily correctable.
The second flight, by the ex-Navy pilot, didn't have the problem. In fact, the pilot broke the unofficial altitude record held by an X15.
(Of course, on an earlier test flight if my memory is right, the same pilot landed SS2 a bit hard, causing the landing skid to collapse. Embarassing, but not a disaster. But that is what doing test flights is about.)