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Space Science

X Prize Race Heats Up 92

Posted by michael from the stand-waaaaay-back dept.
evenprime writes "Armadillo Aerospace have already done a drop test, and Burt Rutan's company Scaled Composites did a second flight test of their launch plane/spacecraft combination on July 3. SC haven't posted the results yet, but when they do you will find them here. Sadly, PanAero doesn't appear to be doing that well. Although I like their "Junkyard Wars" technique, it doesn't look stuffing rockets in the back end of a business jet will build a legitimate contender."
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X Prize Race Heats Up More

X Prize Race Heats Up

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  • Armadillo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tra2499 ( 652099 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @05:46AM (#6423069)
    It's interesting to note that Carmack, with Armadillo Aerospace, is taking more of an Open-Source approach to the X-Prize by participating in mailing lists and discussing various aspects of his designs with others in the rocketry community. While he's not going full-disclosure, he's at least sharing a lot more than Rutan.

    I'm cheering for Armadillo.
    • Also like open source, it takes the cohabitation of skill, knowlege, resources, leadership and sheer balls and luck to get anything off the ground.

      Come up short on any of the above, and your project goes nowhere. (Well, it might blow up spectacularly!)

    • Re:Armadillo (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Flounder ( 42112 ) * on Saturday July 12, 2003 @05:55AM (#6423086)
      Carmack may be "open source", but Rutan is probably the most likely person currently participating in the X-Prize competition. This is the guy that designed, built, and flew the Voyager (the first non-stop around the world plane with no refuelling).

      Open source doesn't always mean successful. I'm sure if Oppenheimer was "open source" while developing the atomic bomb during WWII, it would have been ALOT more difficult to win the war.

      Agreed, comparing The Manhatten Project and the X-Prize is a stretch. But it's less of a stretch than comparing OSS and rocket science.

      • Re:Armadillo (Score:2, Interesting)

        by tra2499 ( 652099 )
        I don't disagree about Rutan's chances vs. Carmack's. Rutan has quite a lead. Even Carmack has commented on Rutan's chances.

        I think you might have read too much into my comments. I didn't say I thought Carmack was likely to win because of his approach. I said I was cheering for him.
      • Carmack may be "open source", but Rutan is probably the most likely person currently participating in the X-Prize competition. This is the guy that designed, built, and flew the Voyager (the first non-stop around the world plane with no refuelling).

        Building a single rocket recovered by parachute is simpler than building two complete aircraft.

        I agree that Rutan's approach is more likely to lead to a safe and commercially viable suborbital tourist vehicle. But Carmack's approach still has a fair chance to
        • But Carmack's approach still has a fair chance to win the X-Prize first. Carmack is taking a lot of shortcuts that a more advanced design like Ruth's simply can't use.

          Given what I know about Armadillo Aerospace's rocket design, I have some serious concerns whether it will actually work as advertised. I mean, has Armadillo actually started constructing a rocket that can lift three crew members to 62.1 miles altitude, return safely, and do it again within two weeks?? Meanwhile, it appears that Scaled Compos
          • >I mean, has Armadillo actually started constructing a rocket that can lift three crew members to 62.1 miles altitude, return safely, and do it again within two weeks??

            The short answer is yes , the vehicle is almost done. Here's a picture of it parachuting to the ground during a recent drop test on July 5th: http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/Images/RLV/Armadi llo/dropTest-669801-R1-20A_md.jpg . (For more pictures of the vehicle, go to http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Ho me/News?n

            • I'm posting this under my login, being the karma whore that I am. Next time I won't be so nice!

              I mean, has Armadillo actually started constructing a rocket that can lift three crew members to 62.1 miles altitude, return safely, and do it again within two weeks??

              The short answer is yes, the vehicle is almost done. Here's a picture of it [hobbyspace.com] parachuting to the ground during a recent drop test on July 5th.

              For more pictures of the vehicle, go here [armadilloaerospace.com]. For an article about the drop test, go here [space.com].

              But I mu

        • I agree that Rutan's approach is more likely to lead to a safe and commercially viable suborbital tourist vehicle. But Carmack's approach still has a fair chance to win the X-Prize first. Carmack is taking a lot of shortcuts that a more advanced design like Rutan's simply can't use.

          I don't agree at all.

          Now, I can certainly see both sides' arguments in the SSTO vs TSTO debate, but using two stages to go suborbital is definetly not the way to this (affordable consumer spaceflight) in the long run.

          OTOH

      • maybe not open source, but IIRC the Manhattan project did bring a huge number of scientists together who talked fairly freely amongst themselves. What Open Source tries to encourage is come sort of hive activity where the whole is more than the sum of the parts. If it's less, you're in trouble!
      • I agree Rutan is most likely to win, but don't forget that Rutan's funding is at least an order of magnitude higher than Carmack's. Carmack and co would actually make money if they won the prize, you certainly can't say the same about Rutan.

      • Re:Armadillo (Score:3, Informative)

        by Eight 01 ( 614650 )
        Burt Rutan designed and built the Voyager, but it was flown by his brother, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager. Dick Rutan is the older brother, and focused his energies on flying including a distingueshed record in Vietnam. Burt Rutan's interests were model airplanes and design. His company, Scaled Composites, was formed to scale up model airplane manufacturing techniques to create larger planes such as Voyager and White Knight.

    • Re:Armadillo? Ouch!!! (Score:5, Funny)

      by MickLinux ( 579158 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @06:05AM (#6423107) Journal
      From the website:

      1. The flight profile of the Black Armadillo starts out in a familiar fashion, but shortly after reaching the peak altitude of 107 km (67 miles), it operates in a manner which can only be described as "ground breaking."


      I don't think I want to be a passenger in that particular entry. Breaking ground is a pretty severe way of landing, in my opinion.

      • They don't break the ground; the specially designed nose cone crumples. They've run a test at the calculated velocity that they're expecting to have when they hit the ground---with an actual man inside. He said that it wasn't too bad, and the accererometer didn't give readings that sounded too unhealthy. Personally, I think that the most risky part of the landing is the wobbling that they saw in the helicopter drop test, and that's likely to go away if they fall farther. I assume that they hit the terminal

  • tumbling (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hanzie ( 16075 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @05:50AM (#6423076)
    I'd hardly call rocket engines added to a working design of a plane a "junkyard wars" approach.

    More like two reliable systems mated together. Sure, the union isn't inherently reliable, due to unforseen interactions, but the individual components of each certainly are. They may be behind, but it's no reason to scoff at them.

    • Re:tumbling (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by Flounder ( 42112 ) *
      So, if I strap a few million bottle rockets to my VW bug, I could get into orbit?? Sure, the union isn't inherently reliable, but the individual components of each certaily are.

      Oh, sleep deprivation, how you make Slashdot posts so much more inventive and enjoyable.

    • Re:tumbling (Score:4, Informative)

      by tra2499 ( 652099 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @06:02AM (#6423099)
      The problem is that the airframe and the wings are NOT designed to withstand the necessary stress of escape velocity.

      If you look at the successful "space plane" type vehicles that NASA or any other big research team has developed, you'll see that it required designs that looked more like a rocket than an airplane to get anything anywhere near the edge of space.

      If not a "junkyard wars" approach, it is an extremely optimistic design. I would expect the wings to rip out at the roots when they light up the rocket motors.

      • Re:tumbling (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Flounder ( 42112 ) *
        If not a "junkyard wars" approach, it is an extremely optimistic design. I would expect the wings to rip out at the roots when they light up the rocket motors.

        The article describes that the rocket motors would be incremently ignited. IANARS, but I would assume this would lessen the stress on the wings. However, I would be interested to see how they handle re-entry. The frigging space shuttle burned up, why wouldn't a modified LearJet?

        • Re:tumbling (Score:4, Interesting)

          by tra2499 ( 652099 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @06:24AM (#6423146)
          It's not necessarily the sudden shock that makes parts separate themselves from each other. The airframe was rated to 0.8 Mach. Okay, let's assume that the FAA is being their usually pessimistic selves when it comes to airframe ratings and that it can sustain twice that much for a short duration. The speed of sound (Mach 1) is roughly 780 mph. If the airframe is capable of short bursts of 1.6 Mach, then I can't really see it surviving 2.97 Mach.

          Once they hit transsonic, they will undergo a severe amount of turbulence. The longer they spend in the transsonic region, the bigger danger to those long, thin wings.

        • Re:tumbling (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ColaMan ( 37550 )
          Well.... it seems the 100km point is the top of the curve for them, so they're only going relatively slowly as they re-enter.

          Still, they would fall an awfully long way before they can actually get any lift off those wings again. They mention approximately 180 seconds of free-fall - so at 9.8m/s^2... thats 1700m/s at the end of that stage, discounting any drag (which , if they're in free fall, implies none).

          Shuttles generally begin de-orbit at about 6,000m/s or so , but they're in a 'proper' orbit, not sub
        • Because the shuttle reenters about an order of magnitude faster than the jet.
        • There's an important difference between going up-and-down and attaining orbit.

          To stay in orbit, you've got to accelerate to orbital velocity. That takes about an order of magnitude more energy than just lifting yourself out of the atmosphere.

          Notice how long the shuttle's engines keep burning after it is fifty miles up.

          That's part of the answer to the question about reentry heating. The business jet won't be braking from 18,000 miles per hour.
        • The space shuttle burned up because it was going about 17,000 miles per hour - orbital velocity - when it started re-entry. The LearJet, on the other hand, is going to be going a mere Mach 3 (as it's just sub-orbital) - far more manageable.
      • Yes, it seems pretty optimistic to me too. _If_ they make it to space, I don't see how they could return with a nose-up attitude (since the plane is designed to go nose-first). They will end up going too fast, and break up on reentry, or stall and end up in a flat spin. Good luck to them, but I hope they try this with remote control first.

      • Re:tumbling (Score:2, Interesting)

        by AdEbh ( 468372 )

        The problem is that the airframe and the wings are NOT designed to withstand the necessary stress of escape velocity.

        Correct, yet only shows that you did not follow the link & read. If you had, you know that their flight plan calls for sub-orbital speeds. Sub-orbital speeds are, as the name implies, slower than orbital speed. Which in turn even slower than escape velocities, which for some strange reason your talking about. Escape velocity is the speed at which you totally escape (hence the name) th

      • The problem is that the airframe and the wings are NOT designed to withstand the necessary stress of escape velocity.

        They don't need to reach escape velocity. Not sure where you got that from.

        They're not trying to escape Earth's gravity and go into orbit around the sun. They're trying to get to an altitude of just 100km above the Earth. Huge difference. They're talking about a max velocity less than mach 3. Escape velocity is more like about mach 35 at sea level.

      • No, they are not going to a great speed. They only need to reach 100km or so. This is a far cry from going into orbit.

    • Re:tumbling (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Using a conventional airframe to go beyond most of the atmosphere has been done before, although not to such a high altitude. For the skeptics, see http://www.batnet.com/mfwright/nf104.html , numerous other sources.

      For the person wondering about why the plane would not burn up, it's not in orbit. Reentry speed is nothing akin to the shuttle's drop from 18,000 mph.

      Bear in mind however that the closest Chuck Yeager came to being killed while testing a plane was in the NF-104, and that's because of the trick
      • Bear in mind however that the closest Chuck Yeager came to being killed while testing a plane was in the NF-104, and that's because of the tricky transition from attitude control by thruster to aerodynamic attitude control

        Fly by wire may take all the "excitement" out of this transition, so mere humans don't have to worry about it (unless the avionics packs in, of course)
    • The X15 needed manouvering jets as it did not have enough air on the control surfaces to maintain stability. The X15 was a plane designed for a rocket and it was still was hard to fly. I suspect Scaled Composites will need some more work. This is a very different plane to Voyager.

  • PanAero - ascent sounds plausible, descent doesn't (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can accept that PanAero's ascent plan may well work, but I suspect the standard airframe will have objections to the proposed 70 angle of attack descent. Their team profile on xprize.com makes no mention of how they're going to control the attitude (the conventional control surfaces won't be any use).
    • I can't point you at the specific reference, but I believe they are incorporating cold gas thrusters, similiar to the MMU (manned manuvering unit) that astronauts use on space walks. Virtually all the X-prize vehicles are planning to use them (although I think the Black Armadillo relies on atmospheric drag for re-entry orientation).

  • Wanna fly it? (Score:5, Informative)

    by davids-world.com ( 551216 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @06:38AM (#6423173) Homepage
    Interestingly, the simulator Scaled Composits uses to train their pilots is available for cheap: X-Plane [x-plane.com] does the job at Scaled Composites with their own sim cockpit [scaled.com].

    Runs on OS X, OS9 and Windows. Warning: Harder to fly than MS Flightsim -- of course!

    X-Plane, being fairly realistic, even has an FAA rating so it can be used (with a $150.000 motion platform) to log hours towards your Airline Transport Certificate.

    • Re:Wanna fly it? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hayesjaj ( 267076 )
      Yes, it is more realistic, but it still needs work. From an experienced pilot's point of view, out of the box, X-Plan isn't as "real" as M$ Flightsim 2002 Pro (I'm sorry, but I did a snap roll in a 747 at 250 knots in the new xplane beta out of the box...that won't happen) . If you have some time (and the knowhow) to tweak it, it can really rock though. It is way more customizable and the graphics are much prettier. They need to add some more joystick support though...our setup here uses 6 usb joys for
      • Have you ever tried a snap roll in a 747 to prove it can't be done? ;-)

        I seem to remember that one guy barrel rolled a 737 or similar (apparently it looks impressive, but is a 1G manoever) and was told not to do it again.
        • It was Tex Johnston, one of Boeing's top test pilots, in a 367-80 (a 707 prototype) doing an aileron roll over the hydroplane races at Seattle's Seafair.

          I was told long ago that a 747 is good for 2.5Gs, so it'd be a pretty slow snap roll. Most light aircraft are rated for +6/-3 or so Gs and most acrobatic aircraft are rated for at least +/-9.

  • Don't do it. It'll void your warranty.

  • Are Competitors Building Dead-End Technology? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @06:57AM (#6423201)
    I don't mean to demean any of the efforts, and all that cash is an obvious incentive. But, are any of the competitiors building something that isn't dead-end technology?

    Consider: Rutan and others plan to boost a more-or-less conventional aircraft to a few times the speed of sound, coast to altitude, and glide back. (You can't just put a bigger firecracker in the back, remember. You need life-support, navigation, communications, and, especially, safe passage through re-entry.)

    So, one of them bags the X-Prize, but in the end you still have a vehicle with a maximum velocity of 1500-2500 mph. That's a long way from the 17,000 mph needed to reach and sustain orbit.

    Are any X-Prize competitors building something that can be the basis of a realistic orbital vehicle?

    • Re:Are Competitors Building Dead-End Technology? (Score:5, Informative)

      by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @07:13AM (#6423219)
      Fortunately, Scaled Composite's entry into the X-Prize competition is not as dead-end as some people think.

      Remember, by launching SpaceShipOne at over 50,000 feet altitude, that right there saves a tremendous amount of propellant needed to fly to the 62.1 mile altitude. It's the same method that allowed the relatively small X-15 with its XLR-99 rocket motor to reach over 354,000 feet, or 67.5 miles into space. During the late 1980's, there were serious studies about building a small spaceplane launched from the top of a modified 747-200 that has been fitted with a de-rated version of the Space Shuttle main engine; Rutan could apply what he learns from SpaceShipOne and build a small spaceplane that could carry as many as seven crew or its equivalent in cargo to the International Space Station. Indeed, I've heard of a company that proposes towing a fully-fueled spaceplane behind another large jet and then launching it at around 40,000 feet; because it launches at this altitude, the spaceplane needs far less propellants to reach low Earth orbit (LEO).

      • Re:Are Competitors Building Dead-End Technology? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by seanthenerd ( 678349 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @09:30AM (#6423521) Journal
        Actually, I read in a PopSci article (right here [popsci.com]) that Rutan does have plans for the SpaceShipOne/WhiteKnight, but that he wants others to build and commercialize them:

        Rutan's historical model is Wilbur Wright's tour of France in 1908, which sparked tremendous growth in the industry. Rutan wants SpaceShipOne to kick-start a similar burst of innovation. Hence his ambitious post-X-Prize testing and demonstration plan: Fly every Tuesday for five months, 20 flights in a row on schedule, to determine the system's cost and reliability. Though he envisions everything from 10- passenger suborbital tour buses to a giant White Knight that uses eight 747 engines to launch a 300-ton spacecraft, Rutan says those are for others to build: "The Wrights didn't build the world's first airliner--they didn't need to," he says. "I hope people don't expect me to certificate a spaceship and offer rides. I want to be doing something more exciting by then."

        Go, Burt!
      • Earlier, there was talk of sending a tweaked X-15 on a sort-of orbital flight. North American proposed using a 3-stage booster to send the plane on a single orbit flight. Maximum altitude to be 120 km., with a 75-km peigee. They figured the low altitude meant the X-15 could fly back in, avoiding the need for retrorockets. The pilot would eject and the plane would ditch in the ocean.
    • Theres the UK Starchaser [starchaser.co.uk] which is a basic standard rocket style design, and in the true Brit fashion, a fairly amateur/volunteer project (like Thrust SSC).

  • Knicker elastic powered X prize (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dollyknot ( 216765 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @07:08AM (#6423208) Homepage
    Three jet aircraft take off. Two jets at either end of a long piece of knicker elastic. The third jet would have the payload of a space rocket attached by a hook to the middle of the knicker elastic. When all three planes have reached their ceiling. The middle plane flies earthwards, the other two planes fly horizontaly in opposite directions, loading the knicker elastic with the mathematical maximum of energy. When this point is reached, the middle plane releases the space rocket. All the energy stored in the knicker elastic will be transfered to the space rocket. How fast would the space rocket be going before it fired its engine, how much fuel would it need to achieve escape velocity?

    I am not a mathematician, nor a materials scientist, so I do not know how much energy can be stored in knicker elastic. But I'm sure that it can be released in an effective way to be able to claim the 'X' prize.

    I will not die happy if I never see elephants dance the pas de deux. Or human beings achieve true bird like flight. Or humanity starts the herculean task of putting the earth back the way they found it. Come on lads parties over, lets clean the place up, and put all the trees back. I know a place where there is lots of space, lots of room, its very quiet, very clean, no bugs, and twenty four hours a day sunshine. No earthquakes, no typhoons, hurricanes, very few neighbours.
    • Three jet aircraft take off. Two jets at either end of a long piece of knicker elastic.

      Further proof that an already fairly amusing joke can always be made funnier by the use of British words.

  • If I was one of them fancy "dot-com" rich fellas.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Braintrust ( 449843 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @07:13AM (#6423220)
    ... I'd be spending my moolah on propulsion technology research, as opposed to the more high-profile Drive For The X-Prize.

    Dense and compact energy sources... hell, fund fusion research for a start... more powerful and efficent ion engines... I don't happen to be a rocket scientist, but you get the idea.

    To me, the one who revolutionizes propulsion, will be the first trillionaire in history. Not to mention a true hero to future generations.

    The name's Cochrane... Zefram Cochrane... it could be you...

    I would like some interplanetary travel (at least!) before I pass from this place. Someone help me out...

    • I would like some interplanetary travel (at least!) before I pass from this place. Someone help me out...

      Ralph Kramden: Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

      The answer to everything lies in 50's sitcoms and domestic violence.

    • Researching fundamentally new forms of energy is expensive, even out of the range of most billionares. Stretching current technology to the limits of human ingenuity, on the other hand, is relatively cheap.

      If someone offered ten million for the first demonstration of an energy producing fusion reactor, it's unlikely anybody would be motivated who wasn't working on it already.
  • ...into the back of a business jet may not work, but stuffing rockets into the back of a surplus Concorde might...
    • Hum... You may have something! It can take a heavy load on its surfaces, small, thin. Hum it could work!!! And be a grand way to end its service but introduce the next evelolution.

      If a controled "POWER" reentry flight could be engineered into this then the reentry heat would not be needed to "burn off" orbital speed. IE kenetic into heat energy.
    • These surplus concordes you talk about.. where can I get one?

  • Here's my question ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <<kt.celce> <ta> <eb>> on Saturday July 12, 2003 @11:43AM (#6424031) Homepage Journal
    Why is it that we're only hearing about this in ninche geek websites. Shouldn't "The average man's race for space" be newsworthy? I mean the race for the moon had nearly everyone with a television at the time glue to the newscast to see just how close everyone was getting NIGHTLY.

    Armadillo and Scaled Composites have quite the financial backing and I think everyone believes that it's just a matter of time before either they succeed or take part in the most expensive darwin award to date. I'm kinda tired of the top news story being W's and Blairs lies and the "war in Iraq" that's supposed to be over yet we're still reportting casulties on both sides.

    Everyone dreams of going to space, everyone has looked up in the night sky and thought I wonder what it's really like up there, and everyone at one time growing up pretended they were an astronaut/cosmonaut. I really wish the Ministry of News would declare this newsworthy beyound the nince websites and occassional backpage news blurb.

    So who do I call, I'm curious, is there a director of the Ministry of News that declares everything in america newsworthy? Isn't it time that we started focusing on individual efforts for success rather than constantly dwelling on what's gone wrong for the last year? Did the war in Iraq stop these guys? Did september 11th (well legislation limiting their supplies sure didn't help)? Are they terrorists in disguise? NO NO NO NO NO, I want everyone to see that there's hope for the future and not everything is so dark and abismal.

    • Everyone dreams of going to space, everyone has looked up in the night sky and thought I wonder what it's really like up there, and everyone at one time growing up pretended they were an astronaut/cosmonaut.

      Fortunately, by the time they grow up, most people have had these ludicrous, insane and unrealistic dreams beaten out of them by a financially gutted school system staffed with overworked, exhausted teachers, a government/media complex which constantly reminds us that bombers are a better investment th
      • and of course the neverending daily grind of merely surviving as a non-wealthy North American

        I think that you haven't seriously considered what would comprise the neverending daily grind of merely surviving as a non-wealthy African, Asian, or South American.

        The very poorest North Americans are wealthy by Third World standards. Heck, you've probably got running water and everything.
        • The very poorest North Americans are wealthy by Third World standards.

          Of course this truth underlies any discussion of poverty and class in North America. But you can't dismiss anyone's poverty based on the fact that there are poorer people elsewhere, living under different circumstances. A laborer living on $1.50 a day in Kenya will take small comfort in the fact that there are people living on $0.75 a day in rural Eritrea. He'll still feel poor.
    • > I really wish the Ministry of News would declare this newsworthy beyound the nince websites and occassional backpage news blurb.

      Actually, in the year 2003 press coverage has started to pick up. If you pick up a July copy of Popular Science or Wired , the cover stories are about the X-Prize. And I'm certain that as the X-Prize teams near their launch dates, press coverage will pick up dramatically. And once the X-Prize is won -- well, that will be interesting.

      Here are the articles:
      Popular [popsci.com]
  • it doesn't look stuffing rockets in the back end of a business jet will build a legitimate contender.

    But it could simplify live testing. "Sorry, Mr. Gates, but autopilot kicked in and is trying to take us into space. I don't know why."

  • X Prize timing... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Centurion509 ( 685702 ) on Saturday July 12, 2003 @05:57PM (#6425348)
    One of the greatest side-effects of the claiming of the X Prize will be something that no one could have predicted just a year ago:

    The X Prize will be won while the space shuttle is grounded.

    So what, you might ask. Well, it's a big deal. For years, various groups have been trying to persuade NASA to work with, not compete with,
    private ventures. And NASA has always given many reasons to refuse, the biggest one being "when was the last time a private company flew a man in space on their own rocket... er, never?" Of course, that's a perfectly legitimate concern.

    But when the X-Prize is won while the shuttle is grounded, I think it will send a big message to both NASA and the people in the Administration who hold the purse strings, and we might see some interesting changes in NASA policy, the kind of changes that might speed up the day when every middle class American can enjoy a trip into space for a reasonable price.

    Cool, huh?

    And it's clear that the X Prize is going to be won soon. Check out
    this article [aviationnow.com], which describes Rutan's plans to fly into space by December.
    • That's a very interesting point, but the converse needs to be considered as well: People may die trying to claim the X Prize while NASA is in a cautious mode. This could send a far different message.
    • That would be intersting esp after a chunk of foam did that much damage in the test this week! YIPE!

      A lot died trying to crossing the Alantic and but a simple designed driven by guts and a idea that won the day. Yes we dont fly in single person planes across the Alantic but use jets. Same with space. Some of these ideas actualy date back to the mid 20th century or more but with todays tech are possible and practical.

      Be nice if they would boost the xprise money if you could go past the ISS and take a pictu

    • ...the kind of changes that might speed up the day when every middle class American can enjoy a trip into space for a reasonable price.

      Personally, I'd like to see the day when any person from *anywhere* can enjoy a trip to space for a reasonable price.

  • You can see the main UK effort here [starchaser.co.uk] (there are others but they dont seem to have come as far as this one practically).

    They have launched a fairly large rocket recently, and have onboard video on the site for you to check out. I think the X prize is a great competition, and gives people the chance to "think out of the box", there has to be a cheaper way of getting into space (and back!) than the currently over inflated budget of the national space agencies. (I have worked in the space sectory for quite a

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