I got to Mojave yesterday evening (it's a long way from El Paso), slept in my car, and got to the airfield itself just before 4 a.m. Traffic on state highway 58 was brisk already, though not clogged (which it later became), and nearly every car was turning onto the two-lane entrance heading for acres of packed-dirt parking spaces near the runway from which SpaceShipOne would take off.
The crowd which built up in the following hours was surprisingly quiet on takeoff, which happened right at 7:45 local time. Not exactly hushed -- perhaps "hesitant" is a better word, or maybe just waking up. Only scattered clapping (guilty!) as the White Knight / SpaceShipOne piggyback duo lifted off, followed shortly by two chase planes, an AlphaJet and a Beechcraft Starship. The enthusiasm grew, though, as the flight progressed; a P.A. system kept the spectators informed of the trip's progress.
When SpaceShipOne finally separated and fired upward ("Good release, good release!" over the P.A, followed by enthusiastic cheering), it was after three separate two-minute warnings, then for one-minute and 30-second intervals. After an 84-second burn followed by a clean shutdown, SpaceShipOne coasted to its final altitude. At 90 seconds into the flight, the ship was well past 100,000 feet, and out of sight to the unaided eye. At 7:51, an altitude of 328,000 feet was reported, but the ship was still climbing for the next 40,000 feet under its own momentum. The reported peak altitude is enough to top the previous record, set by an X-15 at 354,200 ft. in 1963.
The descent was happily uneventful. At 60,000 feet, Binnie experienced "slight oscillations" -- consistent with previous flights, according to the announcer, who continued to count down the altitude. At approximately 45,000 feet, the conditions are right for contrails, and more cheering erupted when those popped into view. The crowd perked up and cheered even more with the first of two sonic booms audible on the ground (the booms that occur during ascent aren't), pointing and shading their eyes from the sun, following the ship as it traveled in wide arcs to bleed off the energy of the ascent, followed by a smooth 3-point landing.
(Special thanks to the members of the Foothill High School band who traveled the three hours from Orange County to watch the flight and play both before and after the flight. The launch itself was surprisingly low on ceremony, and their playing provided a bit of well-deserved pomp.)
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Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Interesting)
After the first several dignitaries and rich adventurers (and probably pile of useless pop stars and actors/actresses) the thing will probably be booked solid with geeks with telescopes.
i wonder if William Shatner can get me cheap tickets through Priceline...
Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Funny)
"I'm sorry sir, your bags went to Uranus."
"D'Oh!"
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, and cost US$200,000
And have a non-trivial chance of killing you
Other than that, I'm totally there dude!
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Free gmail invites [slashdot.org]
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and cost US$200,000
And have a non-trivial chance of killing you
One day this will all be routine and our children's children will be fascinated that people went into space on those Saturn V powered mostrosities or even the space shuttles. You have to look past the present and visualize the future. After a few crotchety space stations, what's to stop someone from building a hotel/resort/convention center in space? Money. Practicality? Don't talk to me about practicality, I've been to enough convention centers and you oughta know people go there to get away, shoot some golf, etc. All of which and new entertainment possibilities be made possible in Zero G. The only concern I'd have about such a thing is radiation and stray space garbage smacking into it, but I think they could get that sorted out too.
Dream a little.
we've got another broken window, cruise over to the space K-Mart and get a space scooter full of whoever is hanging around to work on it.
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Insightful)
I can (and do) dream a lot, and I'm looking forward to a day when parabolic descent lasts for more than a few brief seconds, but the parent poster extrapolated from today's events into "Suddenly that old commercial advertisement for a Hilton Hotel in space doesn't sound so wacky anymore" and I disagree.
I think it still sounds as absurd as it did when it first aired, perhaps more so now, because I now have a more educated appreciation for just what it takes to get into space, let alone orbit.
Today is a watershed event in human history.
Today does not herald in the age of zero-G convention centers.
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Free gmail invites [slashdot.org]
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Insightful)
Reality check.
According to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association [aopa.org], your chances of dying or being seriously injured in an airplane are about 1:4.3 MILLION.
Your chances of dying or being seriously injured in a car, by comparison, work out to about 1:125.
I would say that right now, space flight has a higher than 1:125 chance of serious injury and/or death, but not substantially, and not as the technology matures. I think it will evolve to being quite safe, personally.
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Insightful)
The risk for an incident involving a car is much higher than that involving an airplane because most people's exposure to cars is far higher than airplanes. I interact with cars as a driver, passenger, or pedestrian every day. I might fly, as a passenger in an airplane, once or twice a year.
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Your comment is simply wrong (Score:5, Informative)
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Bigelow's inflatables and the next prize (Score:5, Informative)
Bigelow has recently announced the logical follow-up to the X-Prize: America's Space Prize [space.com], a $50 million prize to build a vehicle capable of taking 7 people to an orbiting space habitat and back before the end of the decade.
Bigelow actually denies any plans for an orbital hotel, but with his background everyone keeps assuming that's his intention anyway.
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space (Score:5, Funny)
Do you jump in your car and innovate home?
If I built the car from parts I mostly designed myself, then yeah, I innovate to work and back.
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Re:Summer Vacation In Outer Space As a CORPS (Score:5, Insightful)
This statement would only make sense if you think the government should own your life. If, on the other hand, you believe individuals own their own lives, you'd be glad the government stayed out of the way.
Some other contenders:
* American Astronautics
* Acceleration Engineering
* American Advent
* ARCA
* Armadillo Aerospace
* Bristol Spaceplanes
* Canadian Arrow
* Da Vinci
* Discraft Corporation
* Fundamental Technology Systems
* High Altitude Research Corp.
* Interorbital Systems
* ILAT
* Lone Star Space Access
* Micro Space
* Pablo de León & Associates
* PanAero, Inc.
* Pioneer Rocketplane
* Mojave Aerospace Ventures, LLC.
* Space Transport Corporation
* Starchaser Industries LTD
* Suborbital Corporation
* TGV Rockets, Inc.
* Vanguard Spacecraft
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A little disappointing (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you think will happen to the other projects? I suppose they must have been funded well enough to not depend on receiving the prize.
Re:A little disappointing (Score:5, Informative)
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A little disappointing, but predictable! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:A little disappointing (Score:5, Insightful)
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Binnie has to survive for 24 hours (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Binnie has to survive for 24 hours (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but bullets generally come in boxes of 10 or 20.
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Burt Rutan (Score:5, Insightful)
Congrats to Paul Allen as well, for his vision and support.
Old News. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Old News. (Score:5, Funny)
At least we got the news today instead of next week. Although we'll probably also get this report next week.
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Watched it live.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to say, it brought a tear to my eye when they did it. Yo, America - you guys have something to be proud of today!
Microsoft Money does something cool for a change. (Score:5, Interesting)
I just hope these guys didn't use Microsoft Space Management to run the thing, although I have a nasty feeling that they had to
Well, it worked. And today, that's all that matters. I lift a glass of metaphorical champagne. For today, a truce -- at least until I see my next Windows meltdown here on the ground.
(Come to think of it, though, I believe Paul Allen has very little to do with Microsoft nowadays -- right?)
D
Re:Microsoft Money does something cool for a chang (Score:5, Informative)
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extra weight (Score:5, Funny)
Budget embarressingly smaller? (Score:5, Insightful)
now today will forever be a dual anniversary (Score:5, Funny)
Soviet Russia and Capitalist America, forever entwined by space history.
budget embarrassingly smaller than NASA's (Score:5, Insightful)
>embarrassingly smaller than NASA's.
Let's see them reach orbital velocity and then I'll be impressed by the budget difference.
It is not that I am unimpressed by the flight, but I'm not really impressed by comparing the budgets of two totally different projects with totally different goals.
Shwaaa? (Score:5, Interesting)
That is the point - to 'technically" do it. Sure the X-prize is won, but like a first in anything this is a starting point not a finish line.
I'm sure more technically minded will discuss practial applications and new limits to be beaten. But I'm glad I was here to "witness" this. I imagine in 100 years when people will talk about this like they talk about kittyhawk now.
Great job scaled composites! (Score:5, Interesting)
it will win the $10 million purse, and more importantly attain the prestige of repeatably (if only technically) reaching space, on a budget embarrassingly smaller than NASA's
Although this is a great feat for a privately funded venture. This is only equivalent to NASA's first manned suborbital flight which happened in 1961. NASA has still put many people in space for extended periods of time, including 12 manned flights to the moon. And for all practical purposes, NASA started this adventure with no prior experience or knowledge of space flight. Also, a good portion of NASA's budget is for the first "A" in the acronym.
Again, this is a great feat, and its a first, but this is only the very beginning of private space flight.
Historical moment (Score:5, Funny)
Lighting a lot of fires... (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations are particularly in order for Anousheh Ansari's family [girlgeeks.org] without whom the X-Prize would not have been funded.
Hopefully guys like Paul Allen and Bill Gates will get the idea they can do a lot more with their philanthropy money if they put up prize awards than if the schmooze it up with toadies. If they do they will start making major advances not just in space migration but in life extension, intelligence increase and fusion energy [geocities.com] which will finally embarrass the government into doing what it should have been doing all along the right thing as well:
Fund prizes, not proposals.
Thinking about it... (Score:5, Insightful)
After I watched it I was thinking about who it really shows as being behind the ball. Well NASA is the obvious choice, but NASA made an investment from the 70s on into Shuttle and with the tangled web they have to tread with Congress and internal inertia, I don't think we can say "Look, NASA sucks!"
Who it really makes look foolish, in my opinion, is the Chinese space program.
They have been ramping up for thier space program for decades, and thier way of doing it was to buy Russian hardware, reverse engineer it and then build it again. No one knows how much that cost the Chinese, but look at Scaled. 250 people and about 25 million in venture capital is running a space operation out in the desert. Yea they haven't orbited yet. But they will, I've read it costs about $80,000 in fuel and prep.
Frustrated by the (lack) of coverage. (Score:5, Interesting)
I was bebopping from one news channel to another (no, I don't get CNN), looking for coverage of the flight. About 7:30-ish, NBC said they were going to have the seperation live in about ten minutes. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Lots of blather about how Mt. St. Helens could erupt at any time, much blather about Hollywood news, politics, and/or both, but naft on Space Ship One.
Then I caught mention that it had hit the mark, and would soon be landing. Again, live coverage of the landing coming up on MSNBC. Again, nothing. Nothing. More Mount St. Helens blather, more Hollywood, more people selling unsound "treatments" for non-existant "diseases",, then, finally, on Fox, a shot of SS1 landing.
Total coverage, from 6 different networks' news shows? Under a minute. For an event that could well have a major impact on humanity for generations to come. Not even 60 whole seconds of air time. Compare this to Lindberg's landing, and the hullabaloo that caused.
I'm steamed. As NBC claimed they were going to have live coverage, and didn't, and NBC is now MSNBC, I really hope that Paul Allen will raise the roof about this. After CBS' fake memos, and NBC dropping the ball here, I REALLY hate to point out that the place that had the most coverage, and the timeliest, was Fox News.
Scary.
Food for thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, I notice Rutan did NOT go on the second flight. In fact, from the fact that the two "passengers" were balast (again!), I'm concerned that Scaled Composites were more concerned about the rolls in the first flight than they let on.
Remember, Rutan was all dead-set on going into space on the second flight, and the spirit of the X-Prize rules was that the vehicle was to carry passengers. The fact that only the pilot was on the second flight indicates that the potential publicity coup of being on the second flight was outweighed by the risks.
The only risks we're aware of are the "bang" heard on the first sub-orbital flight, and the propensity for SpaceShipOne to lose control on the edge of the atmosphere. The first problem was likely overcome, which means that the second problem likely has not.
Whilst I certainly applaud Scaled Composites for what they have achieved, I think it's worth stressing that they will need to achieve a lot more (on the technical front) before the technology becomes viable.
John Carmack's team... (Score:5, Informative)
They are continuing work, albeit at a slower pace.
Re:John Carmack's team... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:368,000 ft, not 328,000 (Score:5, Informative)
Besides, 368,000 feet is also higher than the X-15 altitude record (roughly 355,000 feet).
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Re:368,000 ft, not 328,000 (Score:5, Informative)
SPACESHIPONE WINS THE $10 M ANSARI X PRIZE [xprize.com]
(apologies if slashcode mangles the above link)
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Re:Recalibrating prices (Score:5, Informative)
sub-orbital Mercury missions went nearly twice as high, and the rest
were all orbital. This is closer to the X-15 project: carried up by a
plane and dropped and then firing a rocket engine to just reach the edge
of space. There is a big difference.
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The X-15 (Score:5, Informative)
If you assume that a 1960 dollar is worth 4x of what it is today, then SS1 cost 1/4 of the X-15.
Well done Scaled!
myke
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Re:The X-15 (Score:5, Informative)
The X-15 program cost a heck of a lot more than $25,000,000... though it did make nearly 200 flights, rather than three.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter6.html:
'The program's total cost, including development and eight years of operations are usually estimated at $300 million in 1969 dollars. Each flight is estimated to have cost $600,000.'
So that would put X-15 development cost at about $180 million in 1969 dollars vs about $25 million in 2004 dollars for SS1. Whether it's a fair comparison is debatable, however, since the X-15 had to make high speed flights as well as high altitude flights.
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Re:Recalibrating prices (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew I would find posting like this one ;-)
No they were not. Early Mercury missions were flying the ballistic trajectory. All the equipment (except the booster) was identical to the later orbital flights. The only different thing to do to a Mercury capsule to go orbital instead of ballistic was to push it harder with a more powerful booster.
As such, SpaceShipOne flights (which go straight up) are NOT sub-orbital in a Mercury sense.
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Re:Recalibrating prices (Score:5, Informative)
No, no it doesn't. It doesn't encounter any heat whatsoever. It's quite cold in the upper atmosphere. The Shuttle generates a lot of heat upon re-entry, though. That heat is created by the friction of doing an atmospheric entry at a low angle and with high speed.
The genius of SpaceShipOne is that it essentially tumbles back into the atmosphere at a high angle of attack, with a high drag configuration, and very low speed. The low speed entry generates very little friction and therefore negligable heat.
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Re:Obligatory.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:WTF!!?!! (Score:5, Informative)
Rutan uses an engine of a very different design than anything used by NASA (Nitrous Oxide and rubber), and the re-entry configuration (feathering the wings to maximize drag)is totally new AFAIK. Think about it - the skin of this spacecraft is constructed of fabric and glue!!!
I would love to learn more about how Scaled was able to be so succesfull on such a limited budget using a completely new and radical desgn. There is probably a lesson here applicable to just about any engineering endeavor.
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Re:WTF!!?!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they are piggy backing on NASA.
But I guess that NASA developed a number of things.
BTW, I have done work for NASA and it will always remain one of my favorite entities. But NASA did not stand alone. They stood on the shoulders of other giants.
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Re:You are an idiot. (Score:5, Insightful)
None of this takes away from Rutan et al.s fantastic achievement. But let's keep a little perspective : NASA has problems, but it still has achieved an incredible amount, and it (and the smart people who work there) deserve a bit more respect from the slashdot crowd.
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