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Space Science

SpaceShipOne Flight Test 175

Posted by michael from the keep-parachute-handy dept.
Soft writes "Scaled Composites' entry for the X-Prize, the SpaceShipOne, has had a successful first (unpowered) flight test. The spacecraft was dropped from the White Knight carrier aircraft at 47,000 ft (14 km) and 105 kt (194 km/h, 120 mph) and touched down after a 1.1-hour glide at Mojave airport. Photos are available."
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SpaceShipOne Flight Test More

SpaceShipOne Flight Test

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  • Well... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We know it sinks. But, will it fly?
    • It must flight. Sinking (lets call it submerging - maybe it will work as sub...) is an extra feature for which one will have to pay extra. As for now it can glide. And flight (vertically towards the Earth).

  • SpaceShipOne? (Score:3, Funny)

    by AntiOrganic ( 650691 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @04:49PM (#6656178) Homepage
    SpaceShipOne comes with a 14-day trial from SpaceShipOne Networks. To obtain the free SpaceShipOne, please look harder.
  • All went nice and clean, good photos and looks all good to go

    Rus
    • Let us hope for more succesful events of this type. Recently there hadn't been many successes in the are of `space missions'. Of course it was just gliding but anyway it's a good sign.

  • Flight Time? (Score:5, Informative)

    by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @04:56PM (#6656197)
    Flight Time: 1.1 hours / 19 minutes

    The post refers to a 1.1 hour flight, which shocked me as a rather long glide from 47,000 feet, but after reading the article it seems that total flight duration was 1.1 hours and actual glide time was a more understandable 19 minutes. 19 minutes is still great from that altitude as Nasa's shuttle has a much higher sink rate, despite its greater weight.

    • Re:Flight Time? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Megahurts ( 215296 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:03PM (#6656237)
      wouldn't the sink rate have more to do with aerodynamics than weight? And all other things being equal, wouldn't a heavier ship be expected to sink faster than an identically shaped but lighter one?

      • Re:Flight Time? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by FreeLinux ( 555387 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:09PM (#6656263)
        Indeed the sink rate has far more to do with aerodynamics than weight, which was what I was trying to say. The glide time seems far greater on the SpaceshipOne than on the shuttle meaning that its aerodynamics are better thus a lower sink rate. However, I anticipated that someone would argue that the compariosn is invalid due the far greater weight of the shuttle so, I was just trying to head off ill informed comments.

        • I would argue that weight is irrelevant. However, wingloading is very significant. This is typically measured in lbs / ft2 (thats pounds per square foot). The shuttle's wing loading is very very high, partly due to its high weight, partly due to its relatively small wings.

          Wingloading has an impact on sink rate. As wingload goes up, sink rate does as well; i.e. the more work a piece of wing has to do in terms of lifting, the more drag it produces. ergo, higher wing loadings usually equal higher drag.

      • Re:Flight Time? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by caferace ( 442 )
        It has a pretty unique design in that the entire tail section flips up and acts as a sort of air brake, then flips down when G's are reduced and the atmosphere is dense enough to sustain controlled flight. Remember, this isn't expected to head quite out into the deepest darkest depths of space but to meet the X-Prize guidelines/rules [xprize.org].

        If I remember coeectly, the SS1 was designed to handle an expected 5.5 G's or so upon "re-entry".

        Besides Burt Rutan is a genius, so it has to work. ;)

    • Re:Flight Time? (Score:3, Informative)

      by snake_dad ( 311844 )
      19 minutes is still great from that altitude as Nasa's shuttle has a much higher sink rate, despite its greater weight.

      This plane does not have to do a full re-entry into the atmosphere, I think that gives Rutan a bit more leeway in aerodynamic design.

  • I'm happy to see that it glides. But looking at the design I have to wonder how it could possibly handle the heat and stresses of atmospheric re-entry.

    • Re:Can it handle re-entry? (Score:5, Informative)

      by blufive ( 573081 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:23PM (#6656325) Homepage
      I have to wonder how it could possibly handle the heat and stresses of atmospheric re-entry.

      Re-entry from orbit involves hitting the atmosphere at almost-orbital speeds - about 17,000+ mph.

      SSO is designed to fly SUB-orbital. Its re-entry will be MUCH slower. Scaled Composites' website quotes [scaled.com] a maximum speed of about 2,500 mph. Kinetic heating shouldn't be a major problem at that sort of speed.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:30PM (#6656366)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I think I know what you mean, like fire thrusters/rockets against the direction of orbit, but also angled downward towards the earth? That way the craft would slow and wouldn't fall quite as fast. Or just fire dead ahead and slow as much as possible before the atmosphere thickens too much. I'd like to know too.
        • The amount of fuel necessary to do this would be completely impractical, comparable to the amount of fuel needed to launch the orbiter in the first place. It's *far* more efficient to use the atmosphere to slow down.

        • Re:Can it handle re-entry? (Score:5, Informative)

          by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @06:04PM (#6656533) Journal

          First, the X-price is about creating a sub-orbital craft, not an orbital one. Still, it's a valid question you ask.

          Rockets to slow the capsule / spaceship down for rentry purposes has been used on every single manned spaceship I know of. They are called retro-rockets and are employed to initiate re-entry at the proper time and place to put the capsule / spaceship down where it's supposed to come down. The alternative is to stay in orbit until it dacays naturaly, and then who knows how long you will stay up there or where you will come down.

          That said, I assume you knew that already and are wondering about rocketengines / other engines that can be used continualy for a logner period of time to brake the craft faster than purely aerodynamic braking can achive?

          In theory it is nothing stopping you from trying that - apart from the weight of both engines and fuel. Not only does the rule of thumb tells us that for every kilogram you want to take into orbit, you'll burn ten kilograms of fuel to get it there, but as the engiens and fuel will have to be protected against the heat of re-entry, you nead a larger (thus heavier) heatshield as well as a larger (heavier) craft overall. And that in turns means - you guessed it - that you'll have to burn even more fuel getting it up there.

          On the other hand, if you're simply suggesting dropping the relative groundvelocity of the craft to zero before it re-enetered the atmosphere, so it would drop straight down, I see two problems. Firstly, you would have to do it fast (since loss in speed means loss in altitude - thus meeting the atmosphere), which means an allmighty kick in the pants for the poor astronauts (very hight G). Secondly, the heatpulse would be about the same anyway - the craft will have a whooping huge potential energy from simply beeing that high, and that will be converted to kinetic energy (read; speed) on the way down. Remember Epot = mgh while Ekin = 1/2mv, and if we assume that all the potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy (which it ain't, a whole lot will turn into heat), we find that Epot = Ekin, thus mgh=1/2mv. Simplify, and you see that the speed (v) equals the square root of two times the height multiplied with the gravitatinal pull (v=sq(2gh) ). Thus, if we set the height to 100 km (100000 meter) and we assume that g is constant at 9.82ms, we find that the speed of the craft as it reaches the surface is no less than 1401.42 meter a second, equal to 5045kmh, equal to 3136mph, or about 4.25 Mach. So to summarise, you won't save anything by 'stopping' in your orbital tracks.

          • Re:Can it handle re-entry? (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Not quite true.. good math but it forgets that once you do begin dealing with the atmosphere the aerodynamic drag vrs gravity will create a terminal velocity ( ie the reason a feather and a brick dropped from a hight don't hit the ground at the same time ) so it will not continually accelerate all the way down to a smoking hole in the dessert. Also once it encountered enough atmosphere it would go from a falling rock to a flying glider which would allow greater control in the descent and you could trade som
          • Well using numbers from previous posts, the slowing down method is still better than hitting it directly. Assuming that you are falling straight down at 3136mph at 100km, (which of course you wouldnt be, but just for comparison purposes) that is still significantly slower than the previously mentioned speed of 17,000mph to be in orbit.

        • ...could you reduce the amount of heating during rentry by slowing the craft down much much more before it reenters?

          If you had the reaction mass in orbit as a refueling point, there is no question that this would work. It is out of reach of today's technology with its dependence on chemical rockets, because the cost of hauling the fuel up with you is much too great. But that could change in a hurry, if we happen to find a source of ice that is already up there somewhere...

          What I envision is a reentry v

        • Sure you could, but the only way to slow yourself down outside the atmosphere by using rockets. And rockets require fuel. And carrying fuel to orbit for a beefier de-orbit burn takes more fuel, which takes more fuel to lift, which takes more fuel to lift, repeat recursion until desired effect is achieved.

          You would also need a big big rocket, because you'd have to decelerate rapidly indeed in order to 1) decrease your velocity enough to make it worthwhile, and 2) Get the pointy end back into the wind. On
        • There is a basic flaw in the idea of slowing down the spacecraft before reentry:

          Orbital mechanics show that there is a direct link between speed and orbit height. If you slow down, your orbit height increases. If you speed up, height decreases. This makes rendevous in space tricky to say the least. The first attempts during gemini were not real successful, but they have it down to an art form now.

          So in orbit you have to speed up to get down to the atmosphere. Once you get the atmospheric drag, orbita

          • That is a really warped version of orbital mechanics you're using.

            Yes, a lower orbit means you're moving faster, but speeding up will not move you into a lower orbit.

            Imagine a ship in a circular orbit. If it fires thrusters to speed up, its orbit will change shape, into an ellipse, with the "lowest" part of the orbit in line with the circlular orbit. As the craft moves from the lowest part of the orbit to the highest, it will be slowed down by gravity, trading kinetic energy for gravitational potential

        • SSO and Reentry (Score:4, Informative)

          by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <chris...travers@@@gmail...com> on Sunday August 10, 2003 @01:12AM (#6658040) Homepage Journal
          Maybe this is a stupid question, but could you reduce the amount of heating during rentry by slowing the craft down much much more before it reenters?

          Funny you ask. SSO has a unique design in which the wings fold during re-entry and provide an aerodynamically stable "shuttlecocking" effect such that the belly remains down. This means more drag at higher altitudes, simpler re-entry controll, etc. Then the wing converts pack and the pilot glides the vehicle in. More drag at higher altitudes also means that it is decelleration is more spread out, so the heat (potential energy -> kenetic energy -> heat) is applied at a slower rate and is less of a problem.

          It is all there in the FAQ.
          • Funny you ask. SSO has a unique design in which the wings fold during re-entry

            Anyone else read that as SCO the first time? I almost jumped out of my chair... what? You mean they've got their grubby fingers in this IP pie too?

            • Anyone else read that as SCO the first time?

              After I wrote this, I realized that SSO was also the acronym for Single Sign On.....

              FWIW, SSO is SpaceShipOne, not SCO or Single Sign On ;)
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I have to wonder how it could possibly handle the heat and stresses of atmospheric re-entry. Re-entry from orbit involves hitting the atmosphere at almost-orbital speeds - about 17,000+ mph. SSO is designed to fly SUB-orbital. Its re-entry will be MUCH slower. Scaled Composites' website quotes a maximum speed of about 2,500 mph. Kinetic heating shouldn't be a major problem at that sort of speed.

        In fact Burt said that the IAS (INDICATED airspeed) never goes above around 180 knots even though the ship

        • While Indicated Air Speed is a very useful number aerodynamically (for working out things like stall speed, aerodynamic loading, and so forth), it's not much help when you're trying to work out things like kinetic heating - for that you need to pay attention to the True Air Speed and Mach Number.

          Yes, air density is important - you'll get more heating in denser air - but at equivalent IAS values, you'll get more heating at Mach 3 than at Mach 0.5

          That said: SSO won't have to deal with kinetic heating anythi

    • Its only designed to fly suborbitaly, the forces involved here are much less than those encountered when re-entering from orbit.
    • You gotta take into consideration that it has to reenter only from 100km at no relative speed to ground ( and atmosphere ) . As opposed to Mach 18 of real orbital reenty.
      So the heat is much smaller than true orbital vehicles.
      How will it handle this "benign" reentry ? Its got this funky shuttle cock tail arrangement going, read up on it on original launch day articles.
      Anyhow, i hope Carmack, brits or some of canadians will win. "Elite" airship designer working on angel investor budget doesnt convey the tr
    • Wired Story on Burt Rutan and the White Knight/Space Ship One aircraft/spacecraft can be found here [wired.com]

  • Let's go! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TheHawke ( 237817 )
    I know what Chuck Yeager would say: "Gas that beast up and let's go punch a hole in the sky with it!"

    • Re:Let's go! (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Gas that beast up and let's go punch a hole in the sky with it!"

      Too bad things don't work like that anymore.

      That male bravado won't get you anywhere. You must think, consider, design and re-design the experiments. Then you'll test it unmanned for a few years and THEN you'll let the test pilots to take over.

      • "You must think, consider, design and re-design the experiments. Then you'll test it unmanned for a few years and THEN..."

        You left out the part about the IP lawyers who will ensure that this will ultimately get swallowed up in a massive pile of red tape, and drain it of any hope for success.

        Sorry about the pessimism, but I lump consumer space flight in with finding a cure for cancer.

        --
        In my great great grandchildren's lifetime? I'll still doubt it.

        • Re:Let's go! (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ceejayoz ( 567949 )
          Sorry about the pessimism, but I lump consumer space flight in with finding a cure for cancer.

          What, you mean the fact that they're both something that we've made great strides towards in the last 10 years, and both are extremely important to humanity? Good comparison!

  • Precision (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:10PM (#6656267)

    The space ship was launched at 47,000 feet and 105 knots, 10 nm east of Mojave.

    How the hell did they measure that? I mean, it has an altitude of 47000 feet and a velocity 105 knots and they tell you it is 10 nanometers east of Mojave!

    • Re:Precision (Score:4, Informative)

      by curtlewis ( 662976 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:32PM (#6656378)
      in this case, 10 nm means 10 nautical miles, not 10 nanometers.

      A nautical mile is slightly more than a mile ( I forget the specifics), but 10 nm is roughly 11 miles.

      • It is simple: One imperial mile is 1609 meter. One nautical mile is 1852 meter. One kilometer - which is the preferable way to measure distances if you have seen the light of the metric system - is 1000 meter. One norwegian mil is (at least in this day and age) 10000 meter (10 kilometer).

        So they dropped it 18520 meters east of Mojave, or about what I would say was roughtly one-point-eight mil away from touchdown.

      • Re:Precision (Score:3, Informative)

        by Siergen ( 607001 )
        From www.dictionary.com:

        nautical mile A unit of length used in sea and air navigation, based on the length of one minute of arc of a great circle, especially an international and U.S. unit equal to 1,852 meters (about 6,076 feet). Also called sea mile.

        Since aeronatical charts have hash marks for each minute of latitude along the north-south lontigude lines, it is easy to pull nm distances off using ruler that are corrected for the map's distortion due to projection.

        • Re:Precision (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          also from www.dictionary.com

          joke: Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
      • And you wonder why your Mars landers keep crashing...
      • A nautical mile is slightly more than a mile ( I forget the specifics), but 10 nm is roughly 11 miles.

        11 miles, 2 chains, 4 rods, 6 poles, 7 cubits and half a furlong.
    • Mixing your metric with your imperial? You should work for NASA ;-)
    • Hey man - when will you damned americans start to use metric system? How many Mars probes must fail? .-)

      • Re:Precision (Score:2, Funny)

        by homebru ( 57152 )
        when will you damned-good americans start to use metric system?

        When the Greeks reckon time by the kalends?

        I took the liberty of re-inserting the portion of the hyphenated phrase which your non-American-made keyboard left out. You're welcome.

  • Not so short (Score:4, Interesting)

    by poptones ( 653660 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:21PM (#6656313) Journal
    In the older press release they mentioned the entire flight would be very short - something like 30-45 minutes. But with this sort of glide rate (avg sink less than 12fps when moving 150fps?) the possibilities for "space" (subspace? suborbital?) tourism seem much more clear. A 30 minute trip doesn't sound like much fun at all, but if you're in a ship that can glide back to earth over 4 or 5 hours, that opens all sorts of new doors - like transatlantic flight, to name one. Not as many passengers as the Concorde, but an infinitely cooler trip.

    • Re:Not so short (Score:5, Interesting)

      by photonic ( 584757 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:30PM (#6656365)
      In the older press release they mentioned the entire flight would be very short - something like 30-45 minutes. But with this sort of glide rate (avg sink less than 12fps when moving 150fps?) the possibilities for "space" (subspace? suborbital?) tourism seem much more clear. A 30 minute trip doesn't sound like much fun at all, but if you're in a ship that can glide back to earth over 4 or 5 hours, that opens all sorts of new doors - like transatlantic flight, to name one. Not as many passengers as the Concorde, but an infinitely cooler trip.

      I don't know how you get to 4 or 5 hours, but i assume you think that it can glide all the way down from 100 km up. Remember however that at that height there is hardly any air to glide in. You thus fall back like a brick, slow down when you hit the upper atmosphere (+- 20 km) and glide for the last part. This will get you more in the 30-45 min range.
      • True (sorta) but if you spend an hour or two "getting up" then an hour coming down - and you're doing a couple of machs peak speed, then you can travel a really, really long way in that last hour.

        Wasn't the plan to launch this thing at 60,000 feet or more at 300+ MPH?

        • Re:Not so short (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Moofie ( 22272 )
          Um, where exactly are you going to keep the fuel to keep yourself travelling at "a couple of machs"? You'd have to make SpaceShip One about (loose guess) seven times its current size. I bet the carrier a/c won't be able to deal with that.

          High speed atmospheric flight is obscenely expensive, fuel-wise.
          • Uh... dude... the thing has a fucking rocket engine on it to take it up to 100,000+ feet. Did you miss that part?

            • Re:Not so short (Score:2, Insightful)

              by Moofie ( 22272 )
              ...which then runs out of fuel. The rocket engine will not keep the airplane going at "a couple of machs" for any length of time.

              I promise.
              • Hilarious. So in what capacity are you working on this project?

                • Re:promise? (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by Moofie ( 22272 )
                  I'm not. Duh. I do, however, know more about rocketry and aviation than most humans. I wouldn't call myself an expert on all things that fly, but I could explain to you in detail how to compute the fuel consumption for a rocket motor. I won't, though, because you're trolling me.

                  If you can develop a rocket engine that will drive you at "a couple of machs" for, say, two hours, and will fit in SS1's airframe, I'd wager you could make a very large amount of money.

  • Now things are heating up... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:30PM (#6656369) Journal

    The competitors for the X-price [xprice.org] are one after the other dropping their capsules / spaceships out of the sky to test at least part of their re-entry profile, and Burt Rutans entry at least flies like a dream (big surprice - he designs flyingmachiens for a living, don't he?). The X-price is running until January 1, 2005 (qoute; The X PRIZE is fully funded through January 1, 2005, through private donations and backed by an insurance policy to guarantee that the $10 million is in place on the day that the prize is won), giving the teams a little more than one year to launch, overhaul their machines and launch again.

    I'm getting all excited over the prosects ahead of us. Never mind if the X-price succeds in jumpstarting the space-tourism or not - we're getting a taste of what the spacerace was like when the USA and the USSR were competing about getting the first man up into space, allthought this time all the teams are playing with open cards.

    I'm willing to bet all my karma that we'll have the first launch before next summer; anyone willing to bet against it?

  • SpaceDev's engine is ready (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:33PM (#6656386)
    Spacedev completed the last and full scale test of it's rocket motor for SpaceShip One last week. So, it has a way go up now. Here's the link...
    SpaceDev Performs Successful Rocket Motor Test [yahoo.com]
    • Do we know whether it's SpaceDev that will be providing the engine, or are they still competing with eAc? (Both companies have recent ground tests listed on scaled.com)

      BTW, I see little evidence that any other X-Prize competitors are anywhere near as ready as SpaceShipOne. Or maybe they're the only ones that seem to be building a commercially useful vehicle. Thoughts?

      • No choice made yet, I believe both competitors have now performed full length runs, essentially ground level endurance runs of the same time as the expected launch runs.

        While they may select one hybrid provider now, testing an engine on the ground is not always the same as testing it in flight (which is why this stuff really IS rocket science).

        I'm still boggled that eAc is allowed to perform rocket tests over waterways in Florida (check their test videos). There must be a lot of exemptions near the Cape f

  • The cool thing about all of this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chadamir ( 665725 ) on Saturday August 09, 2003 @05:34PM (#6656390) Homepage
    is that it's sort of like living in the 1950s and experiencing all of this new space stuff for the first time. We are lucky to be living in interesting times.

  • gratz, but... (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by curtlewis ( 662976 )
    No way in hell you'd catch me hitchin a ride on such a flimsy lookin rig. I can just see the wings getting ripped off by turbulence.

    I wish them and all the contestants success, though.
    • Flamebait!? Moderators are on crack. It amazes me how dumb some people are. It's someones opinion, you idiots!
      • of course the moderator was on crack, because its a troll, not flamebait. why flamebait? because he based his decision on it LOOKING flimsy. how he figures its flimsy is beyond me. a sphere is a very strong shape, he doesn't know how thick the walls are. he didn't offer qualifications for knowing the wings might get ripped off.

        supposing he is just ignorant, he deserves to be modded down for not saying anything worthwhile. he's adding more noise which interferes with the signal, and he needs to learn
        • A troll? Flamebait?
          I think not.

          I don't feel the craft looks very strong. Am I an aeronautics expert? No. Am I a Structural Engineer? No.

          But would I ride in the plane? No.

          And am I likely to be given the opportunity to? No.

          I wished the team all the success. Just because I wouldn't feel comfortable flying in the craft does not make the post either a troll or a flame.

          And I'll bet I'm not the only slashdotter that wouldn't feel comfortable riding in that plane.
          • your post was not a flame, lets get past that

            from the FAQ [slashdot.org]
            Insightful -- An Insightful statement makes you think, puts a new spin on a given story (or aspect of a story). An analogy you hadn't thought of, or a telling counterexample, are examples of Insightful comments.

            Informative -- Often comments add new information to explain the circumstances hinted at by a particular story, fill in "The Other Side" of an argument, provide specifications to a product described too vaguely elsewhere, etc. Such comments
            • by the definition you posted, it's not a troll.

              It was not a prank comment, nor was it intended to provoke ANY response.

              But enough of the dickering over moderation. Posts are poorly moderated all the time.

      • And now you're flaming the moderators. Looks like they were right, after all. :)

  • Ugly (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Easy2RememberNick ( 179395 )
    Is it just me or are both those airplanes/spaceships ugly as hell?

    ------------
    Off topic: Could someone get rid of that white dot in the ad banner at the top of the page it's driving me crazy!
    • it's mostly just you. that carrier plane actually looks kinda neat to me... weird as all hells, but so weird it flips over into neatness. looks like a slimmed-down container crane with wings, almost. except most container cranes don't have that all-fiberglass sleekness, of course.

      SS1 could do with a smaller wing, perhaps, but i guess if you wanna fly where there's barely any air you need all the lifting surfaces you can get...

      (for a really weird-looking Rutan creation, google for the Boomerang. asymmetr

    • "Is it just me "

      Yup

    • Almost all of Rutan's designs look different than "normal" planes. Check the Projects gallery and you'll see that WK and SS1 has the same design features as many of his other designs.

      Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say.

    • Re:Ugly (Score:1)

      by lxs ( 131946 )
      Well, personally I would like to see more spaceships modeled on 1930's science fiction [easyspace.com]
  • <trainee geek>Can anyone tell me what type the chase plane is in this [scaled.com] pic?</trainee geek>
  • Well, it certainly looks like space-craft I'd happilly ride in. Yet I want the Brits building a rocket out of a cemet-mixer to win.
  • The space ship was launched at 47,000 feet and 105 knots, 10 nm east of Mojave

    10 nanometres in around an hour? Man, I love progress...

  • Smithsonians Air and Space mag did an interview on Rutan, is pretty interesting and includes a quicktime panaorama [airspacemag.com] of some of his aircraft.

    http://www.airandspacemagazine.com/ASM/Web/TWD/rut an.html [airandspacemagazine.com]

  • All of Burt Rutan's designs come from his intuition of aerodynamics. He uses "exactly zero" [wired.com] wind tunnel testing. Makes me think all the time I spent dinking around with wind tunnels back in school was wasted.
  • you snooze you lose. I'm waiting, waiting, waiting.

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