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Space Science

SpaceShipOne Completes Second Test Flight 194

Posted by CowboyNeal from the making-reed-richards-proud dept.
waynegoode writes "According to an article at Space.com, Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne suborbital rocket plane made its second powered flight today. The piloted vehicle was powered by a hybrid rocket motor to over 105,000 feet. The engine burned for 40 seconds, zipping to Mach 2. SpaceShipOne is one of several projects competing for the $10 million X Prize. Slashdot mentioned yesterday that it received a license from the FAA, the first license for a suborbital rocket."
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SpaceShipOne Completes Second Test Flight More

SpaceShipOne Completes Second Test Flight

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  • Good luck to them! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) * <homerun@gmail.com> on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:50PM (#8809739)
    This is a very exciting project to watch. Clearly Rutan and company are not entirely doing this for the money as they have easily spent more than the $10M prize already. They must be pretty serious as they have applied for DOT/FAA permits, according to the article:

    Just yesterday, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced it had issued the world's first license for a sub-orbital manned rocket flight.

    The license was issued April 1 by the DOT's Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation to Scaled Composites. This federal paperwork green-lighted a sequence of sub-orbital flights by Scaled Composites for a one-year period.

    The license to Scaled Composites is the first to authorize piloted flight on a sub-orbital trajectory, the DOT statement noted.

    I hope we are able to witness this "...piloted flight on a sub-orbital trajector.."this year!

    Happy Trails!

    Erick

    • Re:Good luck to them! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by RedWizzard ( 192002 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:08PM (#8809938)
      Clearly Rutan and company are not entirely doing this for the money as they have easily spent more than the $10M prize already.
      You are right that Scaled Composites will have spent more than $10M. I've heard that their budget is $30-40M. But they are trying to develop a commercial venture so they are certainly "in it for the money", not the X-Prize (although that will obviously help), but the money to be made in space tourism.

    • Re:Good luck to them! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Bobdoer ( 727516 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:10PM (#8809965) Homepage Journal
      Personally, I hope that SpaceShipOne does much better than RealPlayerOne.
    • Clearly Rutan and company are not entirely doing this for the money as they have easily spent more than the $10M prize already.

      They indeed might not be doing it entirely for the money but that is hardly evidence. From the start I've considered the $10 million to be more of a publicity stunt, an incentive to speed the projects along a little bit, and some startup cash so some company doesn't win and go bankrupt before they start selling tickets. Who ever gets there first is going to get huge publicity an
    • I suspect that they will
      1. Start selling tourists packages to millionare +.
      2. scale the 2 ships up so that they can get to orbit.
      • These go pretty much straight up and back down. Probably don't need to go much over 5-10 times the speed of sound at most on the way up, and much less coming down, since they are made of composites. Orbital requires going real fast (17,000 mph) much closer to horizontal. The de-orbit is where the heat comes in. Unless you carry enough fuel up to slow down entirely by rocket power, you have to scrub that speed by friction with the astmosphere. Maybe real careful and slow and cautious aero braking would
      • Well, American Express is already offering a suborbital flight [membershiprewards.com] as a membership reward (only 20,000,000 points!) through Space Adventures [spaceadventures.com]. Neither Rutan nor Scaled Composites appear to be involved in this venture.

  • Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:52PM (#8809763)
    As only a casual X-Prize follower, SpaceShipOne is the only X-Prize contestant team name I can come up with off the top of my head now.

    Is there any other team that's anywhere close to keeping SpaceShipOne's pace, or are they now the presumed winner of the X-Prize unless they really stumble?

    • Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Informative)

      by SpyPlane ( 733043 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:57PM (#8809819)
      How about our favorite FPS gaming programmer turned rocketman John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace?

      http://www.armadilloaerospace.com

      Wow, that was a big possesive noun.

      • Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Informative)

        by MrBlue VT ( 245806 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:10PM (#8809961) Homepage
        I've been following Armadillo about every week on their news page for the past year. I like their dedication and method of building a ship.

        They have however spent a lot of time dealing with engine issues. They've already had to go from a 90% peroxide monopropellent design to a 50% peroxide/methanol mixed-monoprop because FNC (one of the few companies that make 90% peroxide) wasn't willing to sell it to them. They've spent a lot more time dealing with designing the engines than they anticipated. Just goes to show, rocket engine design is not simple!

        Other issues include how to get the thing back on the ground safely. They initally planned to use a big ass parachute to land it, but they found out that this really restricts them in terms of getting a launch license. Because there is a possiblity for such huge range drift with the parachute design (thus endangering public safety since it can land in a huge footprint) that they've now had to think about doing a powered landing using the engines. This of course, leaves much less room for error on landing. An alternative would be to have the pilot bail out and parachute down while the ship lands by itself, but again this adds complexity.

        Although I'd love to see them win, the fact is, Rutan is way ahead of them in terms of testing and having a working prototype ship. Basically SS1 is the favorite by quite a bit as of now.
        • No it is easy to build rocket engines, dealing with all of the retarded govt regulations is hard.

          I have what I think is a innovative design for a new engine but I cannot try it. It requires aluminum powder and you have to sell your soul to the govt and jump through a thousand hoops just to get something simple like aluminum powder. If I even attempted to build a test engine the damn feds would probably be all over me accusing me of attempted terrorism.

          • If you need powered aluminum, I can get you plenty. All my neighbors drink pop from cans (I'm the strange one on the block who can't stand soda) and most throw them away. Cans are about as pure aluminum as you can get, so I'll just powder them, and then sell to you.

            Okay, so I'll burn the paint off too, and if you like I will use electrolysis to get rid of the Al oxide.

        • Goes to show you once again -- Rocket Science is Easy!. Rocket Engineering is Hard!. :)
        • An alternative would be to have the pilot bail out and parachute down while the ship lands by itself,

          I believe this is what the Vostok cosmonauts did.
      • blast that!!! I want doomIII NOW!!!

    • Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Carnildo ( 712617 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:59PM (#8809841) Homepage Journal
      SpaceShipOne is the most likely winner, but Armadillo Aerospace is also trying for a launch this year, and could potentially beat SpaceShipOne.
    • www.armadilloaerospace.com
    • Yes. The da Vinci project looks to be making an announcement on the date of their attempt (the launch site has already been stated) on the 16th.

    • Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mark_Uplanguage ( 444809 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:46PM (#8810327)
      The real trick to the X prize, if you read the whole article, is that everyone has to get the FAA approval. So if there are any thoughts to other teams forgoing safety to try and beat the clock, think again. Indeed as a long time fan of Rutan, he's been the only real contender in my mind, due to his ability to solve any challenge presented because he thinks completely out of the box. That tail fin which flips up to control descent is a mark of true genius.

      • Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by budgenator ( 254554 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @08:31PM (#8810694) Journal
        The FAA sub-orbital space flight license is required for U.S. contenders in the X Prize competition.
        The impression I got was that Americans teams needed FAA license, and probably foreign teams opperating in the US. I'd suppose that a Russian team opperating inside Russia would have their own licenses or permits from appropriate Russian agencies. I'm unsure if the X-prise rules specify where the opperation has to take place.

      • Fortunately US pilots have a tradition of experimental planes, and a regulation to place them under. Not everything needed to get into space, but you can work under those rules to do a lot of test flights before you have to get into untested regulatory waters.

        Mind you would be a fool to start with an experimental plane classification and give no hints that you intend to reach farther. Regulators do not like it when you surprise them. However you can work with them in well understood areas, while makin

        • I point you to Legal Issues for Commercial Reusable Launch Vehicles [space.edu]

          If I recall correctly, I saw a NASA image of one of the shuttles with a small "Experimental" designation on it.

          I can imagine NASA talking to the FAA going "oh yah, we're working on a new er, aircraft, yeah, aircraft... we need a experimental type certificate for it... no,no, nothing fancy really, just a pretty standard glider design... in the post by tuesday afternoon? Ok, thanks!"
          • I also like one of the sentences in the first few paragraphs :
            In the near future, reusable launch vehicles will routinely take off and land (intact) from just about anywhere there's a prepared surface

            The "(intact)" suggesting that perhaps it's not quite the case at the moment ;-)

  • I 100% agree with this story (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:52PM (#8809766)
    please moderate this comment up for that factor alone.

  • 1/3 of the way there... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MBAFK ( 769131 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:54PM (#8809781)
    They have to get to 328,000 feet, seems like they are looking pretty good.

    • Bet this one only went 1/3 of the way because... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:04PM (#8809891) Journal
      They have to get to 328,000 feet, seems like they are looking pretty good.

      I bet this one only went a third of the way because that's about as far up as they can go while still controlling the craft's attitude with control surfaces.

      Power for the rest of the altitude should be no problem, since their engine seems to be working just fine. But they'll need also need their attitude control and reentry heat shielding working to go extra-atmospheric - where they can't just glide down the whole way.

      So first some tests where the limits of the aircraft mode are demonstrated and debugged, followed by tests where the additonal functions are also used.

      One step at a time wins the race. B-)
      • They have reaction control and heat shielding on the craft as of present. The heat shielding was recently added.
        • They have reaction control and heat shielding on the craft as of present. The heat shielding was recently added.

          Right.

          This flight would be to check the airworthyness of the craft with all systems installed (but some not yet required to be operational for mission success).

          If everything went well I'd expect the next flight to actually use the reaction attitude control in lieu of control surfaces (if they didn't check that this time around), or to go up high enough that they're actually needed for flight c

      • Re:Bet this one only went 1/3 of the way because.. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        A few months ago I got a behind-the-scenes tour of Scaled Composites facilities in Mojave. Of course the highlight of the day was getting to walk around the hangar where the Space Ship One and White Knight were stored. I can assure you that they have the thermal control and attitude control problems taken care of. Exoatmospheric, they use reaction jet thrusters to orient the spacecraft, just like any manned spacecraft. For the re-entry, the pilot really has to do nothing, just feather the wings and the

  • Um (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 )
    "Scaled Composites has its eyes on snagging the X Prize, a high-stakes international race to fly a reusable private vehicle to the edge of space and return safely to Earth."

    There is no way in hell anyone is going to accomplish this feat for under $10 Million. What is this going to buy them? Bragging rights? Certainly not a spot next to Lockhead or Boeing.

    • Re:Um (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You're a dumbass. It's not the money, its the goal.

    • Re:Um (Score:5, Informative)

      by lostchicken ( 226656 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:07PM (#8809922)
      Scaled has a huge reputation in the industry. They're sort of the outsource Skunk Works. Companies like Boeing and Lockheed go to Scaled when they need something bizarre built and tested. Scaled isn't ever going to have a spot next to Boeing and Lockheed because Boeing and Lockheed are their customers.

    • Re:Um (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pokeyburro ( 472024 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:08PM (#8809944) Homepage
      Pretty much bragging rights, yes.

      Or you could look at it this way: sub-orbital flight can potentially yield returns far beyond the investment. And I don't mean just the ability to fly at sub-orbital altitudes; getting this far proves you've got the brains and cojones to achieve this feat, which attracts other investors, which can fund bigger projects.

      But if you can't bear the investment, the X-Prize may soften that blow to the point that a company may give it a try. Think of it as a carrot that will feed you long enough to get to the BIG carrot farther on.
      • I find it very interesting that this is sponsored by Paul Allen:

        (Link to Article) [space.com]

        Perhaps if there were some way of capturing people's imagination (i.e. capturing people like Paul Allen's or other bajillionaires imaginations), more private people would invest in natural science? Private corporations sure aren't going to do it anymore -- look at the demise of pure science at Bell Labs. This is perhaps something positive on multiple fronts... with the potential to grow the investment of wealthy individuals

    • Rutan, a guy who has been a pioneer for as ong as I can remember (and I can remember quite a long time back now). Then you got a guy who helped startup the largest software company in the history of the world. They're well on the way to launching a space vehicle that not only represents a huge step up for private space ventures, but does so in a craft that looks and operates substantially unlike anything the largest government in space has ever made operable.

      Ten Million is just the beginning. those "braggi

    • Lindbergh wasn't trying to be a transatlantic taxi (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TigerNut ( 718742 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:17PM (#8810042) Homepage Journal
      A lot of the aviation 'firsts' had nothing to do with commercial interests on the part of the participants. They just wanted to DO it, because they thought they could. On that note, Carmack's efforts are closer in spirit to those of the Wrights, Lindbergh, et al, than Rutan (since Burt and Dick are well known in the experimental aircraft business) but it looks like that within a couple of years there will be a number of private organizations capable of doing Low-Earth-Orbit vehicle insertion. What that is going to do for society? I dunno. The suborbital capability alone basically gives Rutan etc. the ability to deliver people or cargo partway around the world in half an hour. That would be one hell of a courier service.

      • Re:Lindbergh wasn't trying to be a transatlantic t (Score:4, Informative)

        by PhantomHarlock ( 189617 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:27PM (#8810129)
        > Carmack's efforts are closer in spirit to those of the Wrights, Lindbergh, et al, than Rutan (since Burt and Dick are well known in the experimental aircraft business)

        Except that the wrights spent most of the rest of their career suing other people over patents. Everyone else continued innovating despite them. But I am sure you are referring to the good part where they were building aircraft out of their bicycle shop. :)

      • Re:Lindbergh wasn't trying to be a transatlantic t (Score:4, Informative)

        by corngrower ( 738661 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:32PM (#8810189) Journal
        You realize that the first nonstop transatlantic flight was made by a couple of Brits, not Lindbergh. He was first to solo. I think the flight by the British really was more important historically, but you won't find it in any American textbooks.
        • As an American I would say you are wrong. I rember reading about the first nonstop flight. It was in a Vickers Vimy converted WWI bomber. The landed in bog In Ireland.
          The funny thing is that almost no one rembers what prize Lindbergh was going for. It was not a solo Atlantic crossing. Lindbergh's claim to fame was the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris. He did not have to do it solo at all. In fact most of the other teams where just that teams. Lindbergh figured he would rather have more fuel then
      • That would be one hell of a courier service.

        I can just see it now. Boss says to newbie secretary "send this letter to Singapore by the fastest means possible". A weeks later, the accounting dept. inquires why the company received a shipping bill from $35M from UnitedScaledCompositesExpress.

      • A lot of the aviation 'firsts' had nothing to do with commercial interests on the part of the participants. They just wanted to DO it, because they thought they could.

        Uh huh.

        While I won't argue that Lindbergh was interested in doing this, the $25,000 Raymond Orteig Prize was most certainly a driving force behind the actual attempt. Even the most noble person needs to eat, and unlike science, engineering advances almost always come with some reward, be it financial or strategic.

  • A Little Questionable Article? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by slakr ( 604101 ) * on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:55PM (#8809795)
    This is a really interesting development, and best of luck to these guys. But this quote from the article: "The engine burned for 40 seconds, zipping to Mach 2, or two times the speed of sound, according to a source that witnessed the test flight high above Mojave, California skies." is a little wierd. An unnamed source, who is just credited as a "witness" doesn't sound like the right person to make these sorts of claims.
    • Debrief or not, one would have expected some mention on the Scaled Composites homepage [scaled.com] that the test had taken place. The last announcement came out the same day. No doubt they got the licence but maybe the rest is just a hoax by someone to shake up the competition.

  • Slashdot in space... (Score:3, Funny)

    by RedPhoenix ( 124662 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:55PM (#8809798)
    Slashdot mentioned yesterday that it received a license from the FAA, the first license for a suborbital rocket.

    Woohoo.. interplanetary takeover. If 'News limited' can have their own satellites, so can we.

    Slashdot, your official lunar news source.

  • Curses, foiled again! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SB9876 ( 723368 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:59PM (#8809839)
    Drat, someone beat me on the article submission. At least this time, the editors will finally have a decent reason to reject my submission, though.

    Unless something goes seriously wrong with Scaled's program, it looks they've got the thing pretty much sewn up. The only serious competitors to Scaled right now are Carmack's Armadillo and those craaazy Canucks on the Da Vinci project. Given that this is almost exactly 1/3 of the way to the X Prize and that they already have broken the red tape barrier, I have trouble seeing anyone catching up to Rutan and crew at this point.

  • I hope they get there, but what next? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by skywolf ( 757605 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @06:59PM (#8809843)
    Although this team have spent more than the prize money, it seems incredible that they have designed, built and flight tested a prototype for less than the cost of any off-the-shelf space-launch I have ever heard of.

    Is this 'cos they're good, or is it the case that the two tasks (suborbital flight, orbital flight) really don't bear any comparison? Five years from now, will Slashdot be covering the Y prize (orbital flight) or ultimately even the Z-prize (presumably an amateur moonshot)

    • There is a very logical upgrade path from a suborbital to an orbital vehicle.

      A manned suborbital vehicle going to 100km altitude needs a reaction control system to orient itself in a vacuum. It needs to be pressurized. And it needs a (small) heat shield.

      So it really is a space craft that just does not have enough delta-v to make orbit.

      By increasing the available delta-v incrementally you can work out the bugs much easier than if you had to do it all in one big step like they did with the shuttle.

      A suborbital craft is also very interesting as a reusable first stage for a microsattelite launch vehicle. For example with the payload of the spaceship one and an expendable upper stage it should be possible to get about 10kg into low earth orbit. This would be very interesting for universities and radio amateurs that can not affor d a large launch vehicle.

      The DOD has also shown some interest in microsattelites. This is a nice way to make some money while developing a real reusable orbital space craft.
      • I have to respectfully disagree. Your statement:

        So it really is a space craft that just does not have enough delta-v to make orbit.

        ...Has to be the understatement of the year. Yes, sub-orbital spaceflight addresses many of the technical challenges of orbital spaceflight, however it doesn't address the only hard one. Reaction control and the aerodynamics are really rather straight forward. This project does not address the thermal control issues of orbital flight, as the heat loads are no where near wh

        • > Moreover, they are using a solid propellant
          > rocket motor. They would have to switch to
          > liquid engine to go suborbital, and that
          > implies a heck of a lot more mass

          Why a liquid propellant engine is necessary for (sub?)orbital flight? From their webpages, I understand that their engine uses "hybrid" solid/liquid propellants and is restartable a certain number of times...

          Are there other things I should know regarding liquid engines features but I don't because I'm not a rocket engineer? :-)

          Ci
          • The Shuttle SRB's, the only man-rated solid rocket ever made, is indeed a rocket that once fired must get fully used, and ejected if you need to quit using it.

            Another benefit of using liquid fuels is that you can throttle (I.E. change the flow rate) of the rocket engine as it is fired.

            Think about it this way: When you are firing a rocket you are also throwing away mass (Newton's F=ma equation). At the same time, when you are using a typical rocket engine, the actual amount of energy being send out the n
            • Thenks for the reply! :-)

              From the FAQ on Scaled website, they state that the engine can be stopped and restarted many times (even if it's not all that useful since the max burn is about 90 seconds IIRC).

              On SpaceShipOne however there's no provision for engine throttling. They don't state if this is because it has been considered not useful for SpaceShipOne mission profile, or if it can't be done with their tecnology.

              Their engine works (from their site) mixing liquid N2O with HTPB rubber at high temperatur
    • it's not really comparable suborbit flight is all going straight up and then you just fall down, no big problems with heat shielding, etc, etc (even if they apparently got some shielding). To go orbital you not only doesn't need to get up high, but also very, very fast sideways (around mach 25 IIRC) so you go into orbit. the speed and the stress on the craft are far higher than a suborbital flight.
      but hey, it's a very good step in the right direction!

    • Although this team have spent more than the prize money, it seems incredible that they have designed, built and flight tested a prototype for less than the cost of any off-the-shelf space-launch I have ever heard of.

      That's not surprising when you consider that SpaceShip One isn't a space launch system. If the Shuttle is an 18 wheeler, SS1 is somewhere around a Segway. Impressive as hell in it's own right, but decidely at the precise bottom of the scale.

      Is this 'cos they're good, or is it the case that

      • Better analogy: The shuttle is an 18 wheeler built by Ferrari. The SS1 is a custom touring motorcycle made out of fancy materials.

        Neither one's going to be practical for dropping off a cake at grandma's, but they are both neat toys. It's just that the touring motorcycle is a lot cheaper to take out for a joyride.
    • SpaceX [spacex.com] is probably the most advanced of the new low-cost launchers. Interestingly, the man behind SpaceX is the founder of PayPal, who got out while the getting was good.

      SpaceX is dedicated to creating a pair of low-cost extremely simple launchers. They've created their own engines based on a very simple design, and their own turbopump. The engines are LOX/RP1 (basically kerosene) engines, which are extremely well known, inexpensive and available.

      There was a nice writeup on SpaceX in Aviation Week two

  • Okay, you guys... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:01PM (#8809865) Homepage
    Enough with the "I'll believe it when I see them fly at xxxx feet" or "Rutan's an aviator, not an aerospace engineer" or "Only 15 seconds? Bah!' comments. Just suppress the generalizations and childishness for a little while... and watch Burt Rutan, Scaled Composites, and SpaceShipOne. Watch them as if you were waiting for the curtain to be raised for an opening act, because that's exactly what this is. This is rocket plane history unfolding.

    Rutan and his company aren't doing this for the prize. They're doing it to make a point about certain types of aviation and engineering that have been long derided by NASA and other naysayers as being unrealistic, impossible, et cetera.

    Look at Rutan's track record, which includes the development of composites--an absolute breakthrough that the FAA is just now getting around to accepting--and the Long-EZ craft. Look at everything the guy has done, and the company he has, and tell me he doesn't have one hell of a chance at making this thing work.
    • I'm not doubting that they'll pull it off. But can someone remind me how this gets us closer to affordable access to space? After all, isn't this pretty much the same technology as the X-15 that first flew in 1959? Just scaled up a bit to hold three passengers.

      Reaching 100km at no particular speed is a loooong way from attaining orbit.

      How about someone funding a space elevator competition? Be the first to demonstrate a 100km cable of a certain strength and win $XX million.

      • Re:Okay, you guys... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by SB9876 ( 723368 )
        True, 100 km is old stuff for NASA but it's still quite useful. There's the whole space tourism for 1/10th the cost angle which does have appeal. The Russians are building a space plane (another X Prize contestant, BTW) for that very purpose. I don't know what the maximum downrange for SpaceShipOne is but it has great potential for moving small numbers of people and freight at high speeds. Need to send someone or something from LA to New York in 1.5 hours for $100K a pop? There's a solid, profitable bu

      • Re:Okay, you guys... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ckaminski ( 82854 )
        I wish you people would shut up about the damn space elevator already. Please tell me how you're going to build a 20,000km space tether out of unobtanium WITHOUT FUCKING CHEAP ACCESS TO SPACE?!

        Thank you. ;-)

        • Re:Okay, you guys... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by bluGill ( 862 )

          Why do I need cheap access to space? If you gave me a cable that worked for a space elevator, but the only material that would work resulted in a cable that required something with twice the power of the Saturn V, I'd jump at it despite having to hire rocket scientists to design and build the thing. (Assume that the plan of dropping a small cable to pull the big one up turns out not to work for whatever reason).

          Once I get a cable in place, all launches are cheap. I can undercut anyone with a conventio

    • Ruttans record is sectacular. The nay sayers here forget that all the supposed experts thought he couldn't fly aroubd the world non-stop and without refueling. He succeeded, with a good team that won't believe you can't do it.

      Remember Alan Shepards Mercury flight was about the same as this one.

  • how long now? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bwy ( 726112 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:06PM (#8809917)
    Something is getting ready to happen real soon. Days after an FAA launch permit, a second powered test all the way to over 100K feet. The burning question is, how many more test launches before they go the distance? Surely, the history of test piloting experimental aircraft can yield a little input? What are the things left to verify and confirm before going the full 300K+ feet? I'm guessing not a whole lot if performance was good on the spacecraft and the engine burn went well. Is the cabin of SpaceShipOne fully pressurized, or do they depend exclusively on the pilot wearing a pressure suit?

    This is very exciting to watch. I wish these guys all the luck and safety in the world.

    • Re:how long now? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SB9876 ( 723368 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:19PM (#8810060)
      As another poster pointed out, 100K feet is about the maximum altitude where flaps still give aerodynamic control. Above that, they're going to have to depend upon the attitude control system. My guess is that the next flight will go to slightly over 100K feet and test those systems out.

      After that, there will probably be a series of flights progressively going higher and faster to test out the high speed handling of the craft. Rutan is known for being very methodical about testing new designs.

      After that, they'll probably start doing a few flights to 300K+ feet to make sure that everything works correctly. After that, they'll load on the two extra passengers and prepare to make the two flights in one week necessary to get the prize. (just hitting the altitude doesn't get you the prize) Knowing Rutan, he'll probably throw in a couple more flights in that first week just to show off.
      • Keep in mind that the X-Prize requirements are that you only have to carry "ballast" equivalent of two extra passengers... not the passengers themselves. Still, it would be a nice "plus" if they could do a full commercial-capable flight of three people, two passengers + pilot.

        I would have to agree that Rutan does follow a very methodical and incremental testing regime... indeed this is exactly the benefit of going the route that he has been taking. Carmack has been struggling with engine design, but it a
    • Oh yeah, almost forgot, the cabin is pressurized. So no pressure suits are required.

    • Re:how long now? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:32PM (#8810186) Journal
      Actually, SpaceShip One is a shirtsleeve environment. The pilots don't wear pressure suits. I believe all the windows are double-paned, each of which would hold pressure by themselves. The environmental controls on the ship are pretty simple, there are scrubbers to remove CO2 and water vapor, and they have an oxygen bottle to bleed some oxygen into the cabin.

      Pressure suits are a real pain, and they restrict the pilot's vision, hearing, and motion so much that it's really good if you can avoid them. SpaceShip One is no walk in the park to fly, the pilot really needs all the help he can get to fly it.

      Godspeed, Burt.

      thad

  • sub-orbital != orbital (Score:5, Informative)

    by close_wait ( 697035 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:20PM (#8810074)
    I'd just like to remind everyone that putting an object into a low-earth orbit requires about 25 times the energy of just raising it vertically to that height and letting it fall back to earth. That's why the commercial rockets that put satellites into orbit will continue to be big expensive beasts, X-prize or no X-Prize.

    • Re:sub-orbital != orbital (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mrright ( 301778 ) <{rudi} {at} {lambda-computing.com}> on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:38PM (#8810242) Homepage
      The X-Price vehicles itself will not compete with orbital launch vehicles. But they are a good way to learn how to build a real reusable space vehicle instead of just converted ICBMs like we have been doing for the last 50 years.

      And there is a commercial rocket in production [spacex.com] that is small compared to its competitors and has a reusable first stage. It will be used to launch satellites for the DOD, among others.

      There are already plans to scale this vehicle up to a much larger size. And the first stage will still be reusable.

    • Re:sub-orbital != orbital (Score:5, Informative)

      by SB9876 ( 723368 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:46PM (#8810320)
      I'd seen figures closer to 12 times as much energy but the difference is largely academic. Either way, geting to LEO is expensive. However, I'd expect to see an X2 prize being offered to get to LEO after this. Remember that a lot of the high costs of LEO launchers are artificial. The fuel is usually about 2% of the total launch cost. The rest is all those launch technicians and the cost of all those non-reusable rocket parts.

      Boeing has managed to capitalize on reducing the launch technician side of things along with using cheaper Ukranian parts to get launch costs down to about $5000/kg to LEO with Sea Launch. That's half the cost of their own Delta launchers. The DC-X several years ago had real promise of beinga practical SSTO, massively cutting launch costs. Unfortunately, NASA axed it, seeing it as a competitor. The hope is that the rise of private companies that aren't tied to NASA politics will be able to eventually replicate the work done on the DC-X and actually get some real progress on cheap orbital launches rather than the technology of the month approach NASA's been dumping money down the last 20 years.
      • However, I'd expect to see an X2 prize being offered to get to LEO after this.

        Actually, the next project Peter Diamandis is working on related to this is called the X-Prize Cup [xprize.org], i.e., the Rocket Races. Every year there will be an airshow (spaceshow?) in a yet-to-be-determined city where people who have built X-Prize-style suborbital craft can compete. Prizes will likely be in several categories, like Most Altitude, Longest Downrange Distance, Most Velocity, Largest Payload to 100km, etc. And since the co

  • IS This Design A Dead End? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Thursday April 08, 2004 @07:50PM (#8810375)
    My understanding is that the Rutan craft will accelerate to a few times the speed of sound and then coast to 60 kilometers.

    Remembering that achieving orbit is a matter of velocity, not altitude, is the Rutan design a dead end? I.e., could this design achieve orbit with the addition of a more powerful engine? (I know the easy answer is "Yes", but I'm asking if this particular design is capable of orbital flight.) If so, would the Rutan's rather unusual reentry approach work in a return from orbit?
    • Getting SpaceShipOne up to LEO just requires a larger carrier arcraft and more powerful, higher Isp boosters. (About 12 times bigger but at least that's something that can be attacked with standard aerospace engineering) The reentry is where the problem is at. 17,000 mph is a lot of speed to bleed off. The current SpaceShipOne design isn't capable of mounting the heat shielding necessary to survive those kinds of thermal loads.

    • Re:IS This Design A Dead End? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mrright ( 301778 ) <{rudi} {at} {lambda-computing.com}> on Thursday April 08, 2004 @08:09PM (#8810536) Homepage
      It will coast to 100km, which is the official edge of space. And the design is not a dead end. It does exactly what it is designed to do: fly to 100km.

      The overall concept which rutan is using is staging at high altitude and low speed with a more or less conventional aircraft as a first stage.

      This is most definitely not a dead end. There are existing launchers such as pegasus that do it that way, and there are also some very serious proposals for orbital two stage space transports with a large, rocket assisted transport aircraft as a first stage.

      Give rutan a price of 100 million $ and he will come up with a concept for an orbital two stage space transport. It will probably look completely different (no two rutan aircraft look alike), but I would bet that it will use subsonic staging at high altitude.
  • I'd like to see what this thing could do for distance travel. I know that it's really only designed to go up and down in a very narrow parabola, but being at 300K feet means there is very little atmosphere. You should be able to really book with relatively little fuel cost.

    How long until the first business jet/rocket appears?

    I could just see Paul Allen going to shareholder meetings in one of these (or the business jet equivalent).

  • First FAA license (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) * on Thursday April 08, 2004 @08:29PM (#8810681) Homepage Journal
    received a license from the FAA, the first license for a suborbital rocket."
    No, it's the first commercial license issued for a MANNED suborbital rocket, which is much more significant.


  • I pick July 4, 2004 as the first private suborbital spaceflight date. Anyone else got a historically significant date they might pick?

    • The actual flight will take place on July 2nd, 2004, but they will wait to release that information until July 4th.

      For those outside the US: the U.S decleration of independance [wikipedia.org] was adopted on July 2nd, 1776, but not actually ratified until the 4th. (It is slightly more complex than that, read the link)

  • CEV Vs. SpaceShipOne (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nixcha ( 769853 )
    I recently read an article in the UK magasine "Focus" which outlined NASA's ditching of the shuttle over more Apollo style rocket+capsule launch systems. After all the effort they've put into the shuttle it looks like NASA has decided that "space plane" style vehicles just simply isn't economically feasible, and will never become the cheaply reusable vehicle they had hoped for.

    Yet at the same time the private sector is clearly getting close to achieving success at the 100km mark. I realise this is very dif

  • Don't forget us brits ! (Score:2, Informative)

    by mcraig ( 757818 )
    Well as you obviously haven't noticed I thought I'd point out that us brits have a good contender in Steve Bennet who founded starchaser industries they've had lots of succesful launches and I would say they are a lot further along than Carmack though perhaps not quite as far as Rutan. Check it out www.starchaser.co.uk I believe they are scheduled to make an x-prize attempt this year.

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