SpaceShipOne 100 km Attempt Slated for June 21 345
apsmith writes "Scaled Composites has just announced their first attempt at breaking 100 km, scheduled for June 21. This would make it the first commercial manned vehicle to officially enter space. This is not quite an Ansari X prize attempt since it will carry only one person without the extra mass corresponding to the 3-person prize requirement; they have to give at least 30 days' notice for that. Past flight history is available from their site; the Discovery Channel is producing a documentary on the whole project, 'Rutan's Race For Space.'" Roger_Explosion adds "If successful, the craft - named Space Ship One - will become the world's first commercial manned space vehicle. Space Ship One will temporarily leave the earth's atmosphere, and the pilot (yet to be announced) will experience about three minutes of weightlessness."
I say... (Score:2, Insightful)
This could be the beginning of the next Space Age.
BOOOOOOOOM! (Score:2, Insightful)
Does the Russian's new policy of sending up folks for big amounts of cash (the Japanese reporter, etc) not count as commercial flight?
First commercial or private? (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe that distinction goes to the Russians, who are the first to fly a paying customer in the flesh. It would be more correct to say that Space Ship One is the first privately developed manned craft to reach space. Until they fly a paying customer, I don't count Space Ship One as a vehicle of commerce. Just splitting hairs...
Re:BOOOOOOOOM! (Score:1, Insightful)
i dislike nonsense moderation.
Re:X Prize Claimed on July 4th, 2004? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is still experimental flight and they're minimizing personel risks.
Re:I say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps, although I'm not so sure we should be so happy about corporations owning the space.
Re:X Prize Claimed on July 4th, 2004? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:BOOOOOOOOM! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the Russian tourist flights were commercial flights, but they were done by a government. This is the first private venture into space. In a year or so, when the technology is more established, it will be possible to go into space for A LOT less than the $20 million that the Russians have been charging. The goal is to provide space tourism for about the cost of a luxury ocean cruise.
Re:I say... (Score:5, Insightful)
We've already seen how the gov't owned it. Just how would "the people" own it instead of the gov't or a corporation?
Now that's what being a billionaire is all about! (Score:5, Insightful)
-Mark
Re:more adds (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason this is big is that this is private manned spaceflight. As long as the government has a stranglehold on who does and doesn't qualify for space, then there can be no real human expansion. The sooner private interests are getting into space (eventually it'll be orbit, then beyond) the sooner we'll have meaningful colonization of places like the moon and Mars. This is vital to the survival of the species, as long as we're all stuck on this rock, the next comet or solar flare can wipe us all out.
Re:Yes, It's Impressive (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a start. Once you have something like this, hopefully flying paying passangers on suborbital flights, you have proven that there is a marked for commercal, manned access to space (there allready exists commercal launcers for unmanned sattelites and probes - Sea Launch is one). Once you proven that, companies will start sinking real cash into it - perhaps taking the logical next step and build a 'space hotel' and a shuttle able to ferry more than three people up and down at a time.
One has to prove that a marked exist before the big corps are willing to put money on the table; to suggest that they should go ahead and build a launcer able to put 100 metric tons in LEO is like saying NASA shouldn't have wasted time on Mercury and Gemini, but gone straight to the moon. You must learn to walk before you can run.
Commercial space craft? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Private space craft" would be a more correct term.
Re:Now that's what being a billionaire is all abou (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Space vs. Weightlessness (Score:3, Insightful)
If there was no gravity (acceleration), you'd be "weightless", relative to the acceleration of the train. This is why it's harder to walk forward on an accelerating train than one that is moving steadily... you're not fighing the acceleration.
It's the commercial version of Mercury (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like the beginning fo powered flight, governments have held all the cards and technology till now. What you are seeing is the highly efficent start of commercial space ventures. They will evolve through vehicles much faster than NASA did because they already have more knowledge to build on, and they also have the ability to make changes and adjustments faster and cheaper than a bureauracy like NASA. NASA isn't projected to have a new man-rated vehicle for another decade, and at the cost of BILLIONS. It is likely that before they accomplish that, the commercial industry will catch up and have a 4-man orbital vehicle by the end of this decade.
Finally, the dollars will be there. Right now, if you asked NASA to get you into a sub-orbital launch, it would probably cost them $100 million minimum in development to get you there. Your price tag might be as high as 10-15 million. Rutan is doing it for less than 5 million (that's including vehicle development) and your price (once operable) will be about $80-100K per launch. Once these cheap methods are solidified, I could see an orbital flight dropping down to a $10-12K price tag for 4-5 orbits. If they get it that low, then space tourism will be the economic demand this industry is hoping. Hell, I would pay $20k to go into orbit!
What I am saying is that you need to be a little patient. These companies will get you there far cheaper than NASA, and in a much shorter amount of time. This is just the beginning, but all things will come.
An old NASA saying is "space is difficult", it should really be "space is easy, bureauracy is difficult".
Re:Now that's what being a billionaire is all abou (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Commercial space craft? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not correct - the ship carries no cargo nor paying passengers so it's not "commercial".
Just because the cargo gives a thumbs up before the flight doesn't mean it isn't cargo.
The company is attempting to haul 3 people (cargo) into suborbital flight twice in two weeks to collect a pile of money.
Sounds like a commercial enterprise to me.
Re:Yes, It's Impressive (Score:3, Insightful)
The big thing is not the winner of the prize. It's what happens *after* the prize. Most of the other plans for reusable boosters (Roton, Phoenix, etc) never got to suborbit.
The big potential here is that most of the big issues to make a pretty cheap booster for at least microsats have been solved and there's signifigant *new* engineering expertise in a bunch of people who are used to building stuff in new ways. Even if some of the leading contenders don't make the X-prize in time but does manage to get some flying in, it's much more likely that they will be able to attract investers and/or throw some more money at the problem, and start making products.
Real purpose of the XPrize (Score:2, Insightful)
> for a real, useful, spacecraft.
Which is useful indeed. To put it in language understandable to the slashdot crowd, what it demonstrates is the potential of the effort in exactly the way that ESR postulates that a successful Open Source project generally requires one or a small group of developers to produce enough of a new project to demonstrate to potential contributers that the project has potential to succeed.
A winning XPrize craft isn't useful for any other purpose than to demonstrate to investors that a) you are serious b) you have already put in the effort to develop the skills needed to attempt actual spaceflight.
Because the only major thing seperating an X-prize craft from an actual spaceship is budget. The idea was to set the bar low enough that a small group could attain it but high enough that only a serious effort, one able to springboard from XPrize to real commercial spaceflight, would succeed.
Re: :X Prize Claimed on July 4th, 2004? (Score:2, Insightful)
I just booked the last 5 rooms in one of the motels in Mojave. I'm taking a lot of kids to see this one.
Re:Good Luck, But I Don't Think It Leads Anywhere (Score:3, Insightful)
The pertinent point of the X-Prize efforts isn't putting people into space. We know how to do that. It's putting people into space at an affordable and profitable price, not for the tens of billions NASA spends to do it.
Re:Is there a next step? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me ask you:
Was the Wright brothers' plane a special purpose vehicle or a general lift vehicle?
Was the 'Spirit of St. Louis' scalable to larger flights with more people/cargo, or once it was proven that you could fly to France, did other people build craft that would do the job?
Was the Bell X-1 scaled up to accomodate more than just the test pilot?
Consider that breaking the sound barrier was first done in a rocket-plane, something that has NEVER been used for large passenger carrying craft. The Concorde flew Mach2 on jet engines, not rockets.
The purpose, as I see it, of SS1 and the X-Prize in general, is to spurr activity in this sector of engineering, which will hopefully lead to revolutionary new craft and even perhaps some new and exciting propulsion systems, advanced materials for absorbing and disappating heat, rapid prototyping, and more rugged avionics.
Once it's been proven that space can be reached relatively cheaply, it's only a matter of time before companies spring up to take advantage of this opportunity.
This vehicle is a test-craft, much like the original Wright-flyer. It's a proof of concept. It's the next step in aviation.
And if nothing else, imagine if Rutan offered a kit version, like the Long EZ, that you could purchase for
I'd start saving my pennies if I were you.
Also please remember that once upon a time, flying by jet was horribly expensive compared to prop-aircraft, hence the term "jet set" to describe rich people.
Eventually, development in this area reduced the cost of flying by jet, and now, you can hop a plane to just about anywhere in the world for a reasonable amount.
Space travel or Suborbital travel will start out expensive, but over time, as there is more development, it will eventually get cheaper.
I think FEDEX will invest in such a system before airlines do, but if you can get a package from NYC to Hong Kong in 3 hours, it's only a matter of time before companies start trying to get their executives from NYC to Hong Kong in 3 hours.
SS1 is the start of all this. It's not meant to be the final design of a larger craft any more than the X-1 was the final design for some larger supersonic craft.
Instead, SS1 is the stepping stone for design work to bring us that larger suborbital craft, that may be based on entirely different technology.
I hope this answers your question.
Re:I say... (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually that's cooperation.
Google says: [google.com] (emphasis mine)
The blessing and curse of corporations is that the owner's are not responsible for the actions of the corporation.
So who is responsible? No one. The lowly workers are responsible to their managers, the managers to the executives, and the executives to the stockholders, but the stockholders aren't responsible to anyone but themselves.
I can think of another class of people [google.com] that aren't responsible to anyone but themselves. (but of course that doesn't mean they can't sometimes be benevolent)
I'm not saying corporations are evil [abac.com], but just that you can't trust them as you would an individual or cooperative group.