SpaceShipOne Flight Completed Successfully 998
knothead99 writes "CNN is reporting the successful liftoff of SpaceShipOne from a runway in the Mojave desert. Around 10:30 EDT the craft will reach an altitude of 50,000 feet and they'll separate from White Knight and ignite the rocket for space entry. More information can also be found at the Mojave Airport website" Update: 06/21 15:36 GMT by S : An MSNBC story confirms that SpaceShipOne 'glided safely back to Earth, landing back at the Mojave Airport' around 8.15AM PST.
Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Best part, Rutan has admitted that SS1 is scalable, meaning it could become an orbital launch vehicle. Sweet.
Awesome (Score:2, Insightful)
Hoorah for the human species (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody Is Covering It (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Attaining orbit is not a matter of height. It's a matter of going so fast that you continuously miss the Earth. The only reason why a space craft has to fly so high is that the thick atmosphere will slow it down.
Excellent! Now, the sooner we see real, ... (Score:3, Insightful)
clarification? (Score:2, Insightful)
ed
Re:blow by blow (Score:5, Insightful)
1250 GMT (8:50 a.m. EDT)
The International Space Station will be flying high above Mojave at approximately the time SpaceShipOne is scheduled to launch. The Expedition 9 resident crew will attempt to photograph the launch and contrail.
The ISS crew, likely to be remembered as caretakers of NASA's failed scheme, will be witness to the future of space exploration. Poetic, isn't it?
It also occurs to me that if something bad happens to the Russian space program, the ISS crew may have to wait for Rutan's future orbital project, if they hope to get home at all...
Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)
It's both: you won't stay in orbit long at 100km, there's too much drag when you're travelling at 7+ km/s.
Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)
If NASA has been putting out steam rail engines, this is the first car, a precursor to the Model T of space. When the design is a couple iterations down the line, it will be ready for mass production.
Freeways in the sky and weekend jaunts to the Moon are a matter of time, technology and will. The simple act of just *showing* that it can be done provides the critical and hard to get last part of that triad.
--
Evan
Re:I never thought (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure you can. You can orbit below that altitude too, as long as you choose an orbit which never intersects anything too hard. A near equatorial orbit lets you go round at a height just a bit higher than Kilimanjaro (you gotta have a safety margin, after all).
The big problem is that the air is rather thick down there. This has two consequences. First the drag means you slow down so fast that you either hit something pretty hard pretty quickly unless your engines are working hard enough to counteract the drag. Second, the drag dissipates so much energy in such a small volume that it gets pretty damned hot very close to your vehicle. The shuttle was much higher when it burned up, and travelling significantly slower than orbital speed at 10km to boot.
Paul
Do not count on CNN's techincal expertise.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, Mach speed changes as a function of altitude! Mach is dependent on airpressure, the speed of sound changes with it.
And CNN does not seem to employ anyone who understands science in the least.
Re:Question (Score:2, Insightful)
If you can carry a rocket up to the edge of space with a craft like SpaceShipOne, and launch it from there, it's a lot easier to get your satellite up to LEO. There's no reason to accelerate the whole plane up to that altitude/velocity! By taking advantage of this, the reusable part of the launch vehicle doesn't experience ridiculous temperatures on re-entry like the Shuttle and the vehicle has a significantly higher chance of repeated survival.
I'm proud of Scaled! I've worked on designs like this and I didn't think the primes/politicians would ever let something like this be built! Good luck with Tier Two!
Hurray! (Score:2, Insightful)
Worlds grow old and suns grow cold
And death we never can doubt.
Time's cold wind, wailing down the past,
Reminds us that all flesh is grass
And history's lamps blow out.
But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
Cycles turn while the far stars burn,
And people and planets age.
Life's crown passes to younger lands,
Time brushes dust of hope from his hands
And turns another page.
But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
But we who feel the weight of the wheel
When winter falls over our world
Can hope for tomorrow and raise our eyes
To a silver moon in the opened skies
And a single flag unfurled.
But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
We know well what Life can tell:
If you would not perish, then grow.
And today our fragile flesh and steel
Have laid our hands on a vaster wheel
With all of the stars to know
That the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
From all who tried out of history's tide,
Salute for the team that won.
And the old Earth smiles at her children's reach,
The wave that carried us up the beach
To reach for the shining sun.
For the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.
(c) 1975 Leslie Fish
Re:I never thought (Score:2, Insightful)
ALSO note that per the article itself, they said they're hoping on doing the *same flight* commercially within 10-15 years "affordably." I can freaking guarrantee you that my father in law, for example, would sell the shelby he has in his garage that he babies, and remortgage his house, even if it meant only 3 minutes of weightlessness - just to have broken the Space Barrier. Do NOT underestimate the lingering determination of the original Trekkies. It is NOT hype that this is big.
If you compare the computing power of 20, or even just 10, years ago with that of today - its an amazing difference. If there are semi-regular trips to the space barrier on a commercial level, we will learn a TREMENDOUS amount. As humans (esp us Americans), we learn far more by doing than we do by theorizing. Just as we have chips in computers now that break theories of 20 years ago as far as what would be possible, the actual commoditization...of sorts...of space travel will also make it cheaper, faster, better, etc blah.
Reporting "news" (OT) (Score:2, Insightful)
Looks like you're getting sucked into the "get the scoop" game. That's one of those artificial games the news media have created to increase profits: Make people think that getting all news a split-second before anyone else is Very Important, then sell more by doing that.
In reality, scoops are good for some news: when they affect stock prices in a surprising way, when there is imminent danger to the public, etc. But most news, like this one, doesn't affect you adversely if it's delivered some time after it occurs.
If you're really into getting the scoop, you can visit major news media where most stories are pre-written for that reason. Here at Slashdot, we're pretty relaxed about such things. We like our news late, duped, with lots of typos and inaccuracies. But then, Slashdot is not really about "news" (the title is very much tongue-in-cheek), it's about the comments, moderation and trolls.
-hadohk
Private space travel = bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you imagine soccer mom's private spacecraft, with her using one hand to hold the cell phone and the other to beat the kids?
We still need to get aircraft to stop running into fixed objects.. and each other!
Re:nothing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:3, Insightful)
Spacecraft before the space shuttle used that to great effect. The space shuttle has more or less become a prime example of how NOT to do it. The ceramic shields were expensive, brittle, and (as it seems) prone to failure at the worst possible time.
I think they were trying too too hard on the space shuttle to make it re-usable. Certainly the avionics computers and the seats were prime candidates to be re-used between flights. But I think if they had to do it again they'd make the engines and the heat shields disposable. Those two systems were responsible for more groundings, failures, and overall expense than anything else.
Re:I never thought (Score:1, Insightful)
Greed is a good thing. Without greed there would be no SpaceShip One. Ponder that a second before you go off on some socialist rant about greed.
And if it still doesn't sink in, remember that it was an AMERICAN company motivated by GREED that pulled off this historic achievement. Not some SOCIALIST collective giving lip-service to 'the common good'.
Max
A question for the Rocket Scientists on /. (Score:4, Insightful)
One option is that perhaps they won't, and they will go back to the drawing board to come up with a totally new design. That doesn't seem right to me; Bert is a smart guy, and they have put a lot of resources and time into this, would they just throw it away.
My thought is that they will scale things up and add another stage.
In essence, what Burt has done is design a rocket where each stage is designed to suite it's part of the flight, and then return in one piece. At the moment they have a stage to get high in the atmosphere, and a stage to get into space, why not add a new stage to get you to LEO and beyond.
If WK and SS-1 (SS-2?) were scaled up, is there any reason why a third stage couldn't piggy-back on SS-1 to 100km and then detach and boost into LEO. Both the previous stages would then land and wait for the return of the orbiter. Each would have it's own crew (or perhaps a really good auto-pilot).
Basically you end up with the advantages of a multi-stage rocket (or the shuttle) but with completely reusable stages.
Have I completely missed something? Would the seperation at 100km be too difficult? Would there be too much mass for it to be feasible?
Paul
p.s. Well done to everyone at Scaled. An amazing achievement, no matter what the "but I want a pony!" crowd might say. This has been one small step in the right direction, on a long journey.
Re:Except they didn't. (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, just a couple of years back quite a few self-proclaimed pundits said the exact same thing about privately-funded ventures trying to do just what SpaceShip One accomplished today...along with a few officials at NASA, as well.
Looks like they didn't have a clue what they were talking about, either.
Max
Re:Private space travel = bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Advertising is next (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Question (Score:2, Insightful)
While your point #2 may be correct, #1 is (to quote you) "simply incorrect" - what physical explanation can you give to justify it? The poster is correct - "escape velocity" is just the velocity required for an object to escape Earth's gravitational field (in actuality, probably to arrive at a point where Earth's gravitational field is counterbalanced by other influences).
There is no physical reason that a spacecraft (given an engine which can generate the required thrust) could NOT leave Earth at any velocity - from
(disclaimer - if someone with a physics or aeronautical engineering degree beyond my B.S. can correct me, I welcome a better understanding of classical mechanics)
Note to governments... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tier One == SpaceShipOne, Tier Two == Orbiter? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Predictions? (Score:1, Insightful)
10 years: A couple companies are pursuing spaceflight, spending billions. Cost of sending up vehicles are much higher than the cost of a ticket.
20 years: No commercial spaceflights currently underway, except occasional flights into low-orbit. Investors, disgusted with the lack of any tangible financial reward, have pulled out completely. Realization that only a government with no expectation of profit has the financial resources to escape Earth's orbit. NASAs return to the Moon is delayed due to enormous budget deficits and a hundred million retired baby boomers who want their social security checks.
50 years: Global shortages of hydrocarbons haved led to widespread war and increased defense spending, with the net result that all space exploration not related to military supremacy (i.e. military satellites) has been cancelled.
lift technology (Score:2, Insightful)
like a spent bullet... (Score:2, Insightful)
Once the rocket's fuel was spent, SpaceShipOne kept going up for about three minutes to reach 104km, a height at which it lost speed like a spent bullet.
haha! "like a spent bullet"... Only the Arab world would use such an analogy so freely.
Re:Is Burt Rutan the Roger Moore of flight ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of all the X-Prize competitors, Scaled Composites have been the most media-shy. He receives lots of publicity for his projects because they are pretty, innovative, and successful.
Also I heard on Cnn interview of Rutan that he didn't develop this rocket with the X prize in mind.
They have spent more than double the prize money developing Tier One. They'd have to be pretty stupid to be in it just to win the X-Prize. While it would be nice to recoup $10m by winning the prize, they will continue their developement whether they win or not. (Mass fatalities excluded.)
Just another contest bought out by the richest guy.
Yes. That was the point. Encourage the private sector to invest in commercial space travel by rewarding the smart investor with $10m.
Really. I'm sure you can find out more on CNN.
Re:Ethics and priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
I take it that you donate every single penny of your disposable income to those starving people, rather than waste it on frivolous uses like internet access, beer and vacations?
No, didn't think so.
Why is this interesting? (Score:3, Insightful)
Spaceflight gets interesting when you can actually put stuff into orbit. So that once it goes up, it stays up without using more fuel. That means you have to get the rocket flying at close to Mach 25. Then once you've gotten up to Mach 25, if you want to land again, you've got to slow back down to zero, which means getting rid of a heck of a lot of kinetic energy. That's why the Space Shuttle needs those notorious problematic thermal tiles, to dissipate the ferocious amount of heat created by that slowdown. Think your car's brakes get hot driving down a mountain? Try it from orbit.
SpaceShip One's propaganda made it sound like they'd beaten NASA by developing better reentry technology that didn't need thermal tiles. In reality, they didn't need thermal tiles because they never reached anywhere near orbital speed, so they didn't have all that heat to dissipate. If they ever build an orbital craft, they'll have to deal with reentry heat just like everyone else has.
SpaceShip One is about as close to that as the Wright Brothers flyer is to a jet airliner. The amount of technical development (and expenditure) needed to get a reusable vehicle in orbit makes what's been done so far look pretty trivial. Space Ship One got about as far into space as the Redstone rockets of the 1950's.
I don't mean to belittle the accomplishment but it shouldn't be overestimated either. It's a step, an important step, but a baby step, there are a lot more to go.
Re:Early shutdown? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Real news for a change (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize, I hope, that the European explorers who came to the "New World" did more than their fair share of killing?
Kurt Vonnegut said it best in "Breakfast of Champions":
"For example, teachers of children in the United States of America wrote this date on the blackboard again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy:
1492
The teachers told the children that this was when the continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them."
What a Tragedy it will be.. (Score:3, Insightful)
What a tragedy it will be, to squander what we have achieved today.
What a tragedy it will be for all of us to destroy earth with out ever setting foot on another planet in the name of space exploration.
What a tragedy it will be for us to wither away and die, our gaze constant at the dwindling light in the horizon, watching all that we could have discovered and knowing all that we missed.
What a tragedy it will be for our sons and daughters who look upon us to set an example, who look upon us to lead and instead find us fighting in the name of God
What a tragedy that other civilizations, alien to ours, will oneday reflect upon what we were capable of, but miserably failed.
Re:Ethics and priorities (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chase planes? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A Truly Historic Day (Score:3, Insightful)
I share your sentiment about the success of the flight, but I'm puzzled by the comparison. There have been many historic events, both in the US and abroad, that are at least in the same topic from which to draw comparison...
How about STS-107 - more recent, very historic. And although it was tragic, at least in the end good has come of it.
Or how about all of the Mars exploration? Or mankinds unified and rekindled interest in space? All more recent, more relevant and equally as historic. Not to mention, more positive!
Re:Predictions? (Score:2, Insightful)
Cars took all of 15 years to gain widespread popularity. Henry Ford would tell you that. The Ford T appeared in 1908, some 12 years after the very first real cars appeared (1896). It was a cultural phenomenon by 1910. Similarly, aircraft, the first controllable type appearing in 1903, were in use for a whole slew of purposes by 1920 - not the least of which having been as weapons in WWI.
Mars has a value as, at least, a forward base for mining the asteroid belt. A single asteroid can contain enough paladium, platinum, silver and gold to make the entire return trip worthwhile several times over. Also, there will be a market for off-world colonization, just as there was a market for transatlantic colonization (an area most US-located readers should be familiar with), for much the same reasons.
As to Mars, I think living inside a bubble is far better than you make it out to be. Mars has pressure, which reduces the need for bulky space suits to move about, and allows aircraft, gravity which allows vehicles to move effectively around, and most importantly: Lots of room. It apparently has water, also, if you're willing to work for it A geodesic dome can be built almost arbitrarily big, also, allowing for breathable atmosphere covering a whole city, as well as a controlled climate. Terraforming (for which the ideas are already appearing; so much for 500 years...) is not by a long stretch a necessity for comfortable habitation on another world.
I think the prospects for the future are far better than the naysayers would have them be. Looking back at previous pioneering works, I'd say this one will likely follow a similar pattern. That makes this century a very interesting one to live in.
Re:Except they didn't. (Score:3, Insightful)
At this point, I think it's pretty safe to assume that anybody who reads Slashdot knows at least the basic history of the Apollo program. As such, there's really no reason for anyone to continually add footnotes about it, and so it's equally safe to assume anyone who harps on the lack of said footnotes is only doing so to try to score cheap debate points.
Also, I disagree with the assumption that future orbital flights will be substantially cheaper just because launches with Spaceship One were cheaper. No major space program has ever had a reason to compete in this niche (manned reuseable suborbital vehicles), so the field was still wide open for someone to come in with a good idea. By contrast, there have been a lot of people exploring options for cheap reuseable orbital flight with no results, so someone coming into the field from private industry will need either an equal investment of sweat equity or an extremely unconventional bright idea that all the experts would have missed.
Re:Dead end projects (Score:5, Insightful)
Any research like this is well worth doing, even if the end benefits are not immediate.
What's with the care-free reentry? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Except they didn't. (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, it'd be nice if someone actually demonstrated that these composites existed. All I ask is for one chemist who works in that general field to give a rough estimate of the percentage weight savings we're likely to see with new materials over, say, the Space Shuttle's insulation system.
Oh, and the reason I invoked decade is because the parent post specifically said "in ten years", not from any particular knowledge or assumed knowledge on my part. I'm just trying to get across to people, with limited success, that orbital spaceflight is hard and all the suborbital teams don't appear to have even started dealing with the issues that make it hard.
"airframe buckling"??? (Score:3, Insightful)
X Prize (Score:2, Insightful)