Rutan's SpaceshipOne Hits 200,000 Feet 292
An anonymous reader writes "Burt Rutan's privately-built SpaceshipOne is one step closer to winning the X-Prize after zooming to what witnesses say was somewhere around 200,000 feet on only its third powered flight. (See also the partial update from Scaled Composites.)"
geez (Score:1, Informative)
Re:geez (Score:3, Informative)
Almost halfway there, not bad.
Re:geez (Score:4, Informative)
No, LEO starts at around 200 miles (above 300 km). And the altitude is only half the trick to orbit, the other is speed...
Re:Um ah... (Score:5, Informative)
True, there's no exhaust track. But you can follow it on radar, or through a telescope, or you can estimate the altitude based on altitude and velocity at engine cutoff.
Re:Re-launch? (Score:3, Informative)
altitude is only half the trick to orbit, the othe (Score:3, Informative)
Re:geez (Score:5, Informative)
Stable orbit is 350km minimum to 1400 km
More info here [wikipedia.org]
Re:Paid by the microsoft tax (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Re-launch? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two thirds of the way there... (Score:3, Informative)
The test appears to have got the space craft to 61Kilometers, the Xprize is 100Kilometers (twice)
So yes, they are getting close.
M@
Salvage One (Score:3, Informative)
Salvage 1 webpage [geocities.com]
Photos... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does anyone know? (Score:5, Informative)
They're making some really neat progress with the jet vane concept, but until they get site and vehicle clearance they won't be coming close to catching up with the Scaled Team.
That's ok though, each team: Scaled, Armadillo, XCor, DaVinci, etc. is approaching things differently, so who knows we might end up with a heterogenous and competitive rocket industry.
Heck, there's even JP Aerospace [jpaerospace.com] with their airship/ballon platform to orbit method!
Re:Does The X-Prize Ship (Score:4, Informative)
Info from Scaled Composites (Score:5, Informative)
"Launch conditions were 46,000 feet and 120 knots. Motor light off occurred 10 seconds after release and the vehicle boosted smoothly to 150,000 feet and Mach 2.5. Subsequent coast to apogee of 211,400 feet. During a portion of the boost, the flight director display was inoperative, however the pilot continued the planned trajectory referencing the external horizon. Reaction control authority was as predicted and the vehicle recovered in feather experiencing 1.9M and 3.5G's. Feather oscillations were actively damped by the pilot and the wing was de-feathered starting at 55,000 feet. The onboard avionics was re-booted and a smooth and uneventful landing made to Mojave." - Scaled Composites LLC [scaled.com]
So it looks like it went to 211,400 ft. Those witnesses knew what they were talking about.
Re:Third Flight (Score:2, Informative)
Source: The "Test Updates" page on the scaled composites web site (link in article).
Jan
Re:Videos (Score:3, Informative)
Hardly ICBM (Score:1, Informative)
Current rocket plane records (X15) (Score:5, Informative)
Altitude: 354300 ft (107.9 km, 67.1 mi) Joseph Walker.
IIRC, the x prize contender would not necessarily break the height record, since it would only require an altitude of 100km or 330000 ft. However, the trick is the vehicle must (a) be privately funded, (b) be capable of carrying two passengers in addition to the pilot and (3) repeat the feat within two weeks.
Undoubtedly the X prize contestant will probably go the extra 7 km and break the altitude record for good measure.
FYI: William Knight recently passed away on May 7.
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-050804a
Re:Two thirds of the way there... (Score:5, Informative)
Presumably Rutan will have designed for this weight. It's probably just a matter of filling up the tanks all the way, but they'll be doing more testing than just "kick the tires and light the fires".
Re:Videos (Score:3, Informative)
Re:altitude is only half the trick to orbit, the o (Score:5, Informative)
And have some magical engine capable of thrusting you to 17,000 mph in a short instant (and some kind of dampening field so you wont be killed from the acceleration)
That's why space vehicles curve backwards as they accelerate through the atmosphere so they have plenty of angular velocity once they reach the proper altitude. Maintaining orbit is all about getting to the proper angular speed tangental to the earth.
Orbitting the earth is much more difficult than touching space on a ballistic trajectory. You need way more engine power and heat ablative materials and design to handle the re-entry friction.
Re:Another competitor (Score:4, Informative)
He hasnt made much of a progress as of late, due to personal life interfering.
You can follow all of those developments on HobbySpace RLV News [hobbyspace.com] and Space Log [hobbyspace.com]
Re:Some intriguing pics of the flight here (Score:3, Informative)
Alans Mojave Weblog has more [mojavebooks.com] on that one
Re:Wet Blanket (Score:3, Informative)
It doesn't matter that the current vehicles have no hope of getting to LEO. Suborbital is useful and potentially profitable by itself. Tourism is one possibility. People pay tens of thousands of dollars for an hour in a MiG-29, and you can probably find customers willing to pay a similar amount for a ride into space. Another possibility is microsatellites. Once you're in space, you can launch another rocket from your suborbital craft to put a very small (on the order of a kilogram) satellite into orbit, and there appears to be a market for this sort of thing as well if it can be done cheaply.
Scaled Composites is planning on revenue from both of these markets, from what I remember. They aren't just running a research program, they're also aiming to turn it into something that makes money. Once you have profitable, private suborbital vehicles, orbit can come in a natural, slow progression.
Re:geez (Score:3, Informative)
It may be fun and cynical to attribute the cost of getting to space to bureaucratic overhead, but it's seldom true. Getting to space is HARD.
By the way, I think you're confusing your stereotypes of the military and of NASA. Although, NASA has had its problems, too, mainly for being too trusting of contractors. The company that I used to work at, Rockwell Collins, once had a contract for the shuttle. The shuttle project had no cap, so everyone started charging their hours to it. Rockwell was eventually caught and punished, but you get the idea.
Re:Gov't oversight?? (Score:2, Informative)
As for too many agencies being involved, I guess I'm not so sure here. There is limited airspace, so regulation is needed to keep the skies safe, and rockets full of explosive fuels could certainly pose a hazard to the public. Therefore, requiring testers to check with the authorities first seems like a logical thing to do. Contrary to what many have been grumbling about over the apparent slow-down in space exploration (a government conspiracy to keep private industry out of space, for instant), the relevant agencies seems to be open to allowing people with something to actually test to do their testing. In fact, if XCOR is any indication, the gov't seems to be interested in allowing private industry to take the next step and conduct for-profit space flight.
For now.
Re:Just think (Score:2, Informative)
Re:geez-- employee of NASA?? (Score:2, Informative)
ah hem....Radar? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:altitude is only half the trick to orbit, the o (Score:4, Informative)
ma = mv^2/r
F = GMm/r^2 so v^2 = GMm/r
So kinetic energy K = m/2 GM/r
Potential energy, though, is defined as the integral from an infinite distance to the current radius:
U = GMm/r
Oddly enough, this means that the kinetic energy is always half the potential energy for a circular orbit (2K = U)
Also, note that if your kinetic energy equals or exceeds your potential, then you're at or above escape velocity and aren't in orbit any more (Vescape^2 = GM/r).
Orbit nothing to do with altitude (Score:3, Informative)
To put this in perspective, the amount of energy you need to expend to get sufficient horizontal velocity (about 7 miles per second), if expended going straight up (like the X-Prize people are doing), would take you 700 miles high.
In simple terms, going 50 miles straight up is dealing with about one fourteenth the amount of energy you'd need to deal with to attain orbit.
Re:Privitization of space is dangerous... (Score:3, Informative)
Even a very small asteroid would require hundreds, perhaps thousands, of megatons of nuclear detonations to nudge it a degree or two.
Re:Privitization of space is dangerous... (Score:2, Informative)
how many nukes is this (small) spaceship
carrying not even a tiny fraction of the distance to this hypothetical asteroid of yours? in a pathetic attempt to deflect the asteroid
if SS1, or its like could reach an asteroid, its allready within seconds of hitting the earth, and if it could deflect it, its too small to worry about anyway.
Re:Rocket Planes and Politics (Score:1, Informative)