Flight Testing Of Burt Rutan's X Prize Entry

evenprime writes "The X Prize website is reporting that Burt Rutan's company Scaled Composites did some flight testing on their SpaceShipOne/White Knight launch platform on May 19, 2003. Next up: drop tests. There's also a nice write-up at the BBC website."

Re:The profit is not in underpants.

[aiabx]

You forgot the details:
3a) Take passengers for $50k rides.
3b) Licence technology
3c) Sell space planes for $5m.
-aiabx

Optimism

[Tancred]

What a great thing, the X-Prize. Space flight will eventually be dominated by private enterprise anyway, and this accelerates it. I think it's important as a way to get younger generations excited about the future in the same way past generations were in the early days of space programs.

Re:Huge things at stake

[rodney dill]

If not the Darwin Award the runner-ups will surely get worse, Aviation (or space travel depending on how you look at it) obscurity. Who remember's, without googling, other aviators that were competing against Linberg for the first non stop transatlantic flight.

Re:Huge things at stake

[Moofie]

Rutan has a better track record than the rest of the competitors, combined.

Re:X-Prize & Surreality

[Moofie]

Complex design? Airborne launch is well-proven technology. The spacecraft is very cleverly and elegantly designed. The vehicle has enough "cargo" space to carry three people. Or two people and 200lbs of cargo. It carries a lot more than my Miata, and my Miata is a damn useful vehicle. Although I don't want to hold up the Shuttle as a great design, it obviously does fine with unpowered landing. Carrying fuel for re-entry and landing is insanely expensive in terms of weight and vehicle size. Unless there's something mission critical that requires fuel during the landing evolution, you /really/ don't want to waste weight with it.

What do you base your cost estimates on?

Re:Huge things at stake

[lnoble]

The Darwin awards are about people killing themselves in a manner of utter stupidity and negligence to their own lives. The assumtion being that in doing so they better the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool. Those competing for the X Prize are far different, taking the utmost precaution in ensure the safty of the test pilots. This also isn't a life or death game. It's a race, and though more dangerous than most everyone still has the ability to cross the finish line, only the one to does it first wins the prize.

Re:X-Prize & Surreality

[maggard]

The pluses to the design are the high-altitude launch (elegant), and the low-speed entry (elegant).

Agreed.

The minuses as I see it are the relatively complex design,

Compared to what? X-33? Personal jetpacks? NCC-X? Sure it could be brute-forced with a big block of steel and a coupla nukes but this whole thing is about design. Indeed this one looks simpler then most of the others once one gets over it not being designed by a T-square.

lack of cargo space,

It's not intended to be a tug. Rather it's a demo meeting the X-Pride criteria put together privately in two years. Pull out the seats if you want luggage. Besides, where would it bring cargo to?

cost,

Cheaper then most anything else. Heck, privately financed at that.

unpowered landing.

This is the beta version. Ruttan's got a long history with aircraft including unpowered or marginally-powered ones, I'm sure it'll land fine, seems to have worked well for the 99 ton SST.

Oh, and the fact that it is very, very ugly.

Oh, well yeah, that it doesn't jibe with your sense of aesthetics means it hasn't a chance. Howzabout you post your photo and the rest of us can predict your odds of success?

A similar re-entry vehicle, but larger with powered maneuverability on re-entry,

Why? 'Cause you want a commercial passenger service on the 1st flight? You've got some bias against unpowered landings?

with a high-altitude balloon as a "first stage" would rock.

Why? Kewler? I think the first flight succeeding would rock, not your backseat redesigning.

And be cheaper.

How? Helium costs y'know. And that balloon & helium wouldn't be recoverable. Plus the first meter off the ground under a big balloon is really hazardous, a heck of a lot more then a glider landing.

Besides, the White Night is also the trainer for the spacecraft. Yep, you heard me, they load a profile on computer in the WN and it flies the same as the spacecraft! Double duty saving lots of money.

I'm not really sure how huge a balloon (hydrogen or helium) would have to be to drag something that big to the requisite altitude, especially if you intended to go beyond 100km.

Big. The math isn't that hard for a rough but trust me, big. and expensive. And non-reusable. And a hazard afterwords.

The second stage would be heavier, unless you had a new fuel or more efficient use of the fuel.

Yeah, well now that you've pretty much trashed all the other engineering now you want, what, super rockets? Sure, we'll just use the ones off your Voltron doll...

How about just come out with it and admit you want Star Trek teleporters, forget this nasty uncomfortable dangerous test vehicle stuff? Hell I bet the thing doesn't even have in-flight service with a decent bar cart!

Frankly you come off as the the exact sort of useless US holiday poster you mention. Lots of inane second guessing, apparently no homework before reading one article, coming up with ridiculous requirements: Cargo? For a test vehicle? Meeting X-Prize criteria? Have you EVER been around ANY sort of engineering project?

Score you -3 for silly whiner.

Re:Big news, but no interest

[Saeger]

It's a sad fact that some slashdotters still think slashdot is one homogenous group where every voice represents the whole. Perhaps its human nature to have risk-seeking-mutants and scoffing, scared-shitless-mutants in the same genepool.

--

Re:Armadillo's page recently updated too!

[EnglishTim]

To be fair, it does have a parachute as well, it's just that even with a parachute you tend to be going at a reasonable speed (say, 20mph or so) when you land. This is why all the Apollo space capsules landed down in water.

I think the crushable nose is a good idea to soften the landing, if you're going to be landing on land.

Re:Seven minutes in heaven

[arivanov]

That is called proof of concept silly.

And the interesting bit conceptually is not the spaceship. It is the White Knight.

Multiple attempts have been made in the past to use planes as a launch platform. Most have gone nowhere because a general purpose plane cannot reach altitude and or speed to replace a proper stage 1 rocket.

Only exemption seemed to be a project to use russian backfire class supersonic bombers and the second stage of some american missile (forgot which one). Unfortunately it died off due to lack of funding, agreement, etc. Otherwise it had a chance as the backfire has both the thrust and operating ceiling to do this.

Anyway, the backfire project is apparently dead. So this seems to be the only game in town in terms of proving that the 60 years old "rocket on top of a rocket" design can now be abandoned in favour of something more environmentally and economically sound.

President, no thanks

[Julian Morrison]

My only disagreement is with "Rutan for president". It's an insult to this great man to lump him in with an organization, government, whose whole existence is predicated on force and which can only fund itself by theft.

To the contrary it's the efforts of Mr Rutan and others like him which will finally put our species out of the reach of government.

Re:President, no thanks

[Moofie]

You and I are coming to the same conclusions from opposite sides.

Which probably means we're right. : )

more on powered landing...

[rebelcool]

powered landing is a long way away. Simple reason being: Aero Engines weigh alot.

And pounds you put in for aero engines is that much less weight you can carry to orbit (or edge of space, as is the case here). For small craft, putting in a single aero engine would mean ditching the crew and all their luggage entirely.

Re:I don't think so, either.

[Moofie]

What happens if the wings break off?

It's always possible to have a mission-failure point in a design. Good engineers identify those points, and design redundancies and fail-safes. That's why we pay engineers lots of money.

I hope. Anybody want to hire me? : )