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Space

SpaceShipOne and Wild Fire to Go For the Gold 281

Posted by michael from the ken-jennings-is-going-to-win-that-much-anyway dept.
Fizzleboink writes "Space.com reports that with the upcoming January 1, 2005 deadline for the $10 million Ansari X Prize, Rutan and his team have given their official 60 day notice. Brian Feeney, leader of the Canadian da Vinci Project also reported today that his team is rolling out on August 5 with the balloon-lofted Wild Fire rocket."
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SpaceShipOne and Wild Fire to Go For the Gold More

SpaceShipOne and Wild Fire to Go For the Gold

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  • Canadian Content (Score:4, Funny)

    by edwardog ( 731271 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:37PM (#9816144) Journal
    Glad to see that there's some Canadian content! Hope it doesn't turn into another Avro Arrow...

    • Re:Canadian Content (Score:4, Funny)

      by DeeBs ( 755536 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:39PM (#9816162)
      It figures. Rutan et all have a sleek, high tech rubber composite powered spaceship carried by a state of the art high altitude airplane. We have a kerosene powered rocket lifted into the air by a balloon.

      • Re:Canadian Content (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2004 @12:56AM (#9819412) Homepage
        Um, Rutan's dumb choice of oxidizer means that he has a heavy oxidizer tank without getting a worthwhile ISP, and could never scale it up to orbital flight. On the other hand, LOX/Kerosene is a pretty darn good fuel/oxidizer combination.

        I don't know enough about blimp or aircraft operating costs to say which method of lifting the craft aloft is best, but carrying a craft up to altitude is a definite bonus;that whole thing about air resistance being proportional to v^2 on the macroscopic scale is a really big pain. I am surprised to see no tow-launch craft, however.
        • Um, Rutan's dumb choice of oxidizer means that he [...] could never scale it up to orbital flight.

          Who said he wants to scale it up that far?

          Whe Rutan builds a specialized craft, it tends to be excellent at what he designed it for, and pretty much useless for anything else. For instance, Voyager went around the world on one tank of fuel, but you don't see FedEx trying to modify the design for long-distance cargo delivery, do you?

          SS1 is meant to win the X-Prize and demonstrate safe, shirtsleeve suborbital
    • There's very little new information available from their website Da Vinci [davinciproject.com], but you can always look to the X-prize site [xprize.org] for information about the teams. I personally think that the development of many different ways of reaching your goal is the best way to go -- facilitating as much development of future technology as possible! (Which is probably the whole point of this anyway.)

    • Wild Fire Stats (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @05:00PM (#9816340)
      From this story [machinedesign.com]:
      Another Canadian team, the da Vinci Project in Toronto, is also building a rocket. But their rocket won't fire its engines until it's already 80,000 ft off the ground and tethered beneath a reusable, piloted helium balloon. It will hang in an 80 up angle. After starting its engines and cutting the tether, it will fly a 90, straight up profile. This lets the designers reduce the propulsion system to one-fourth of what a ground-launch would require. The craft, weighing 7,200 lb on take off (3,200 lb, empty), uses two kerosene and LOX engines, each generating 5,000 lb of thrust, to take it the rest of the way to 100 km. The engines are newly designed with emphasis on light weight, reliability, and low cost.


      A helium-fueled cold gas-reaction control system (RCS) will give the ship attitude control. The pilot uses two control sticks, one for main-engine gimbals, the other for the RCS, or relies on an autopilot. Like other X-Prize contestants, the da Vinci rocket uses an inflated shuttlecock or ballute to increase drag on descent.

      For something I just heard of today, it sounds quite clever.
      • the da Vinci rocket uses an inflated shuttlecock

        No matter how many times I see the word "shuttlecock" I wonder if I read that right, and then have a good laugh. "inflated shuttlecock" doubly so. (Will that be the next spam subject line? "Inflate your shuttlecock with our all-natural supplements!"
        • the da Vinci rocket uses an inflated shuttlecock

          Maybe this is the thing that is used to mate the Shuttle to the 747 that caries it from Edwards AFB back to Florida on occasion.

      • I wonder how they are going to retrieve the piloted balloon (short of venting helium). If their design becomes commercially viable, how much Helium is going to be wasted to get their rocket to launch altitude. While there wouldn't be a problem for small scale implementation, on a global scale of tourism / usage, surely the logisitcs would drive Helium prices / usage up, and supplies down.

        Just a couple of pondering points.

    • CanCon (Score:3)

      by TMB ( 70166 )
      Here's your requisite 30%! ;-)

      "We'll leave a jet-trail across the sky
      Just like Armstrong and the guys
      Vapour trail against the blue
      I'd get off on getting higher
      Is it over the Moon for the frequent flyer?
      Straight to the arms of...

      Jezebel, I hear you well
      Or is it Gabriel? I can never tell

      And the question's growing
      'Cause it's not knowing
      When it's coming, where I'm going"

      -SOTW

      [TMB]

  • I'll put my money on Burt Rutan. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:41PM (#9816180)
    Mostly because the White Knight/SpaceShipOne combination has demonstrated it can fly to 100 km altitude, even though the last flight wasn't perfect.

    Meanwhile, the da Vinci project has yet to prove it can fly to 100 km altitude with its final flight hardware; they probably need to do a couple of test flights before attempting to win the X-Prize.
  • But I wouldn't be surprised if they end up first on fuel usage- since they're using a balloon for the first stage.

  • And James van Allen doesn't get it. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:42PM (#9816189) Journal
    Re-reading the earlier article about James van Allen questioning the validity of human spaceflight, it struck me that his only argument was about scientific knowledge and research.

    No mention of capitalistic exploit, such as mining of minerals; low-G manufacturing; etc.

    He's probably right as far as it goes, but I don't think any of the teams competing for the X-Prize have scientific research as their primary goal.

    If nothing else, just seeing the variety of launch vechile styles and different approaches to the same basic problem is worth the effort.

    • Or for that matter, population pressure. The way livable real estate is going on earth, within the next five centuries for sure and maybe even after just one century, land will be so expensive that it will be a good deal to put bubble cities on Mars to exile people to.
      • I don't buy the population pressure rationale. It will be cheaper to build underground cities than to build space bubbles on Mars.
        • Once we hit 80 billion, those underground cities will be VERY crowded....but hey, if we're lucky, we'll create an environmental disaster long before 2150 and we'll never reach 80 billion to begin with.
          • 80 billion people?! Where in the world are you finding numbers to support the idea that the population will reach 80 billion?! There are only about 7 billion people in the world today, and that number hasn't budged much in 20-30 years! At the current rate of population increase, we should have a problem... errm... lemme see... NEVER!

            • Are you serious? There were roughly 2.5 billion people in 1950 and under a billion in 1900. Now 80 billion is definitely a bit out there, but 12-15 billion by 2150 is definitely possible.

              Here are a few links:
              http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu / PRB/Educ ators/Human_Population/Population_Growth/Populatio n_Growth.htm
              http://www.cmu.org.uk/demography/05p op/pop_index.h tm
              http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec16 /b65 lec16.htm#HUMAN%20POPULATION%20GROWTH
            • I dont know about 80 billion, but IIRC back in grade skool(20 years ago), we were estimated at about 5 to 5.5 billion

              so 1.5 billion in 20 years, at a linear increase(which its definitly not) that puts it about 19 billion at 2150..

              but who knows, gotta have a good poplulation decrease by that time anyway :)
            • 30 years ago the world population was 4.014B, 20 years ago it was 4.77B, 10 years 5.615M You are right though, the 80 billion number is bunk.
        • I don't buy it either, for a different reason: I don't think shipping people into space could overcome the growth rate. Right now there's over 25000 new people on the earth every day, even accounting for deaths. You might get that many people moving with multiple space elevators, but with current techniques, I don't think we could produce fuel, vehicles, platforms, and launches fast enough.
      • Alternatively, give people the option between fronteer life on Mars/Asteroids/etc. where you can have as many kids as you can support, and a 2 kid max on Earth (although preferebly not enforced the way they do in China).
      • You've never driven across the US, have you? "livable real estate" is by no means scarse. Sure, buying a house in Seattle is tough these days, but that's a choice I make to live here.
        • Most of the US is basically desert or high mountainous regions- if the lack of water doesn't get you, the winters will. There's a REASON why all that land is empty.
        • You've never heard of exponential population growth [ttu.edu], have you? Every 36 years [prb.org], the world will have half as much space per person as we do now. In 72 years, a quarter. In two centuries, a 47th as much free space. In three centuries, one 322nd as much free space. In four centuries, 2200 times less space per person as we do now. Does the earth have enough space for that?
        • That population isn't evenly distributed. Places like India and China are intensely crowded already, while vast areas of Canada, the US, and Russia are sparesely settled if at all. Additionally, if not for immigration then the population of the US would actually be declining. China's population still has a while to go before theirs starts to decline-- gotta wait for the elderly to start dying in droves. India's, I have no idea what the growth rate (current or projected) looks like. Unless a better trea
          • The problem isn't leibenschraum (apologies to German readers if I spelled that wrong). It's scarcity of resources.

            Yes. And resources will become more scarce in decades to come. Just think, when oil reserves give out, no more plastic (let alone fuel). My prediction when this happens - massive wars, and starvation. Today's high ag output is supported by chemical fertilizers and pesticides, made from petroleum, remember. Ever heard the history behind Easter Island? My advice: think about the world your

        • Don't take it personally, but I am always amazed when I hear someone say something like this. And that is entirely too often. I can only assume that a person who says this is a "city boy", who thinks that food comes from a store, and water comes from a faucet, and gas comes from a gas station, and electricity comes from a power outlet...

          I'm not real sure what your definition of "livable" is, but I think you will find that the environment will undergo total collapse long before all that space is filled with

      • Is there any real evidence to support the notion that our population growth is out of control? Now that it looks like the more "advanced" nations are having a problem with population decline (e.g. Japan and USA), what does this mean for other nations. Might the growth just appear to be explosive now and once technology and culture catch up, it might slow down to a sustainable level?
        Land is a scarce commodity through unnatural reasons. If we allowed humans to live every that was not used for farming, the
      • Humans are never going to 'run out of land' such that it makes sense to build in space or on mars. Walk to the east coast of the US and look east. See that massive blue thing out there? That is 2/3 of the world's surface and there is absolutely nothing on it. Now consider that there is plenty of room under the ocean and plenty of room both above and below all the land we currently inhabit. Hell, look at Canada. The population could easily grow ten times and there would still be enough room for everyon
      • That's hogwash.

        Remember the dire population growth warnings from the 60's and 70's? No neither do I because they were just wrong. Population growth has already slowed considerably. Once countries like India develope more, their birthrates will fall as well.

    • Re:And James van Allen doesn't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Sgt York ( 591446 ) <jvolm@earthli[ ]net ['nk.' in gap]> on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:55PM (#9816299)
      No mention of capitalistic exploit, such as mining of minerals; low-G manufacturing; etc.

      I was talking with a friend a while back, who brought up a good point for Rutan's concept having a real commercial application : travel. Not tourist travel, but actual travel to other places.

      Rutan apparently has an orbital vehicle on the drawing board that is a scaled up version of SS1 (rumor only, AFAIK). If something like this could be set up, it's about 2hr to anywhere in the world. Even for $10k, there are a lot of business travellers whose time is worth that much.

      Think two hours from NYC to Sydney or Tokyo, compared to 17+ by passenger jet. It's a niche market, but there are people that travel very long distances like that who would like to be able to do it much faster, and are willing to pay a lot for the ability. They already purchase day-of-travel prices with first class tickets; how much is that from NYC to Tokyo?

      The niche is small, but probably big enough to sustain a company or two. And that sounds kind of like the start of the airline industry, minus the government subsidy.

      • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @05:00PM (#9816341)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:And James van Allen doesn't get it. (Score:5, Informative)

          by grozzie2 ( 698656 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @06:34PM (#9817210)
          It's not as small a niche as you think. Picture a factory that's down at a cost of $1M/hour,

          There's already a whole industry built around this. One of the mainstays of income for the air taxi business, is moving parts on a rush order because equipment is down in the field. I did a job a few weeks ago where we were delivering parts into the field, as they came out of the machine shop from fabrication. We would dispatch an airplane the moment the part arrived. Each piece weighed about 200 pounds. There's 4 flights a day by airline to the destination, it would have cost about 100 dollars each to ship on the airline. The private air taxi cost about $5000 per trip. Each delivery brought another machine back online, and the downtime estimate was on the order of $5000 a minute in cost (per machine). Nobody blinked at the price of the charters, they were only interested in 'how fast can we get it there'. Nobody was interested in holding the parts till the next scheduled airline departure to save 4800 on shipping costs.

          These types of jobs are not at all unusual for air taxi operators.

        • That would be the crappiest job though, you'd be flown everywhere at a moments notice and then have to take the slow way back.

      • Re:And James van Allen doesn't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @05:01PM (#9816349)
        I'm not so sure its niche. If I could fly to europe in 2 hrs, I could make it a weekend trip. As it is now, it'd have to be a week vacation. I'd definitely be buying some tickets.
        • The "niche" comes in when you look at the price. Probably in the realm of $10k each way at first. Cost would come down, of course, but at first it would be niche.

          The technician scenario above certainly makes sense, though. Hadn't thought of that one. I will now go seek markets where that scenario would apply, and become a highly skilled technician in that field.

      • >> Rutan apparently has an orbital vehicle on the drawing board that is a scaled up version of SS1

        Not exactly a rumor. SpaceShipTwo and SpaceShipThree are on the boards, the latter being orbital IIRC.

        There was an information page on their timelines, but its seeminly vanished...

        NeoThermic
      • I was talking with a friend a while back, who brought up a good point for Rutan's concept having a real commercial application : travel. Not tourist travel, but actual travel to other places.

        Out of curiousity, I had been exploring these ideas recently. The problem is there's really no free launch, er lunch. SS1 can go pretty well straight up, but in current configuration have a heck of a time if it was also required to go horizontally. I think I remember reading that it's ballistics could send it 26 mi
        • You're right, SS1 probably isn't cut out for the task. It doesn't have the range to get any travel done; all the input it makes isn't enough to get "over the hump" to the orbital horizontal payoff. The White Knight would be able to give more downrange ability. However, according to rumor (and NeoThermic), there are SS2 & SS3 in the works, and SS3 at least will be orbital-capable. There's the payoff. NeoThermic put up the confirmation (thanks!)
      • Hmm, 2 hours to anywhere in the world would mean the plane would have to travel at 6000 miles an hour (mach 8.5) Are any of these planes/spacecraft designed to go that fast? And that's not even taking into account takeoff and landing times. Spaceship one goes up to mach 3 right now, it looks like.
    • ...low-G manufacturing...

      More budget-bloating propaganda from your friends at NASA.

      No one has ever shown the viability, or the necessity, of low-G manufacturing.

      Search the American Physical Society for the "What's New" newsletter archives. Bob Park and other renown scientists can give you plenty to chew on regarding the utility [aps.org] of low-G manufacturing.

  • The Da Vinci project looks to only have a couple of tests to date, and none carrying a passenger to any notable altitude. The most information I could find is here. Have they done the testing that SpaceShipOne has, or are they just making a hasty attempt to try beating the SpaceShipOne team? Hopefully it's been tested enough that nobody gets hurt.

  • YAY (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:42PM (#9816194)
    something to take my mind off of the perils of society. A good ol' boomin' rocket shitfest. Competition = good.

  • Time to Space (Score:4, Interesting)

    by usefool ( 798755 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:44PM (#9816209) Homepage
    Did X Prize specify the maximum time allowed from launch to reaching the space?

    The da Vinci Project Team is using helium balloon to lift its rocket for the first part of its journey, and SpaceOne is using WhiteKnight which goes round and round until it reaches a certain altitude.
    • I don't remember ever seeing any time limit for the launch itself, just the turnaround time, which I suppose is from the first launch to the second landing? Or second launch? Either way, unless they take a week to get from ground to orbit, they should be ok.
    • Did X Prize specify the maximum time allowed from launch to reaching the space?

      Well, indirectly. Since the second flight must be completed within two weeks of the first, you'ld have up to two weeks to reach space from launch, assuming zero turnaround time.

  • Check out some SpaceShipOne hardware. (Score:5, Informative)

    by funny-jack ( 741994 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:46PM (#9816222) Homepage
    For anyone who is interested, check out the Dynon EFIS-D10 [dynonavionics.com], a basically home-brew electronic flight information system that went up in SpaceShipOne [dynonavionics.com].

  • Aargh (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1 - Being a Canadian, I should be cheering for da Vinci. But Rutan is my hero.

    2 - There's nothing on the da Vinci site about launching on Aug. 5. It looks like the site was last updated on July 10.

    3 - The X Prize site looks like it has an interesting story, but you need a password to get at it.

    4 - Similar to at least one other poster, I am seriously worried that da Vinci is not sufficiently tested.

    Aargh, aargh, aargh, aargh!
    • They're actually just 'rolling out' the craft on august 5th, which I believe means it's finished, not that they're going to actually launch it that day.

  • Interesting Numbers (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grozzie2 ( 698656 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:56PM (#9816306)
    The interesting thing comparing Da Vinci project to the effort at Scaled Composites. There's more than enough rumors within industry, and outside it, that peg the Spaceship One project price tag in the 20 million dollar range, one can probably assume there's some basis behind that number. There's another article on the Da Vinci stuff here [canada.com] that pegs numbers on the Da Vinci expenses. They are quoted at $337,000, doesn't specifically say cdn dollars, but every other number in the article is tagged as $us. It's a canadian paper, the figure is likely $cdn, which puts it around 1/4 million us dollars.

    It's NOT a given that Spaceship One will walk away with the X-prize. A lot of folks seem to think it is, but, those same folks thought shuttle flights were routine, uneventful, and safe. Flying into space is HARD. SS1 has a good chance at it, but this craft will be ready to give it a shot.

    It would certainly go with the spririt of the X-Prize to see this true 'backyard' effort pull it out of the blue, and beat SS1 to the X-Prize finish line. Nothing against Rutan and his team, but, X-Prize was meant to spark the real backyard innovation. Da Vinci project is just that. I think it would be great to see them scoop the prize out from under the noses of the foks that spent 20 million to achieve the same goal.

    • Re:Interesting Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @05:21PM (#9816506) Homepage Journal
      You do realize that, as far as designing reusable space faring vehicles goes, $20 million is practically nothing and qualifies as a "true 'backyard' effort" as far as the aerospace industry is concerned?

      I agree that it would be nice to see the Da Vinci Project do well, but as it stands it's pretty much untested. It's worth noting that Scaled was doing test flights over a year ago. Da Vinci could work, but I have yet to be convinced. It will certainly be interesting to see how it pans out.

      Don't write Scaled off just because they have some cash behind them - in aerospace terms they have hardly any cash behind them (it costs way more just to buy a 747 than they've spent on the entire design, construction and testing of their project so far).

      Jedidiah.

      • Re:Interesting Numbers (Score:5, Interesting)

        by grozzie2 ( 698656 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @06:09PM (#9816974)
        I'm well aware of how the aerospace industry burns money, I've been involved in it for the last 28 years. The point is, it doesn't have to be that way.

        If you take a look at the methodologies used by NASA and thier contractors, and present them with a requirement for a man rated design, from scratch, to exit the atmosphere, the project would have to be cut to the teeth to achieve flight hardware by the time they burned thru 2 billion dollars. Scaled composites did it for 20 million, that's 2 orders of magnitude less. Along comes Da Vinci, and they did it for another 2 orders of magnitude less, with the caveat it has not been flight tested yet. Even if they use 100 dollar bills for fuel on the flights, they'll still end up an order of magnitude cheaper than Scaled.

        The real difference between scaled and da vinci is in methodology. Scaled is a group of professional engineers, working on a budget with a benefactor. It's a full time job, and everybody is collecting a salary. Da Vinci is driven by professional engineers, working in thier spare time, and collecting satisfaction for thier efforts. Has anybody seen this contrast in methodologies before ? It's kind of ironic that the 'big budget' x-prize vehicle is funded by Microsoft money, and the long shot contender is a volunteer collaborative effort.

        The real point is, the aerospace industry as we know it is carrying a LOT of fat, mostly due to the fact it's driven by government contracts. the job can be done 2 orders of magnitude cheaper, Rutan and crowd have proven it. Collaboration and co-operation works, and it would be great to see the Da Vinci folks prove that too, in a field other than software.

        At this point in time, scaled is the odds on favorite to grab the prize. Da Vinci has yet to fly hardware. that doesn't mean it's not gonna fly, or it's incapable of flying, it means it hasn't been tested in full flight configuration yet.

        August could well be a very interesting month. If the Da Vinci folks can scrape up the cash they need to get thier hardware out to the launch site, and into the air, and get a couple good test results immediately, there may well be a race for the prize.

        As an engineer, I have to have great respect for what the Scaled team has done, it's outstanding. As an individual, I still want to sit back and cheer for the 'back yard' guys. However small a chance they have, it would be great to see them succeed.

  • $10M is a lot of money. What do these guys plan to do with it? Either team? I haven't heard much about that. Is there somone I should be rooting for? Is one team planning to live off the money and pass it on to their kids and the other planning to feed the hungry? Or what?
    • Well since Rutan's vehicle cost Paul Allen between 20-25million to build, maybe the money will go to Paul. But I doubt he cares much either way.

      Haven't heard what either teams plans to do with the cash if they win. Given that one is a volunteer effort, and the other spend more than 2x the prize money already, it is likely neither team cares much about the money.
    • I doubt it's really about the money, just the title. SS1's already cost $20 million, so it's not going to make a profit from the prize. However, a few years down the road, when they have an improved model built that can be used for actual commercial venture (passenger/cargo flight, or just taking rich people up so they can see what its like to get motion sickness in zero-g), the "Winner of the X-Prize for Private Spaceflight" will look pretty nifty on the ads.

  • Armadillo concedes (Score:5, Informative)

    by LMCBoy ( 185365 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @05:06PM (#9816388) Homepage Journal
    After seeing this story, I wondered about the status of Armadillo Aerospace [armadilloaerospace.com]'s effort. At their website, I found this news item [armadilloaerospace.com], posted last month:

    The Scaled Composites team deserves huge congratulations for the 100km flight of Space Ship One on Monday. They probably have the X-Prize in the bag now, but just in case, I did go ahead and place orders for all the long lead time items we still need. If their flight had been flawless, I probably wouldn't have bothered. We can still have our final vehicle assembled this year, but it isn't clear that we have time to recover from the inevitable setbacks during testing.


    Too bad. I hope they are able to keep going, even if they don't win the X-Prize.

  • If you're going (Score:5, Informative)

    by jmichaelg ( 148257 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @06:31PM (#9817186) Journal
    Several points:

    If you're going to go watch the first shot and you want to party, hang out at the airport the night before. Mojave proper is dead.

    Secondly, when the wind kicks up the night before, don't go home discouraged. It was gusting up to 70 mph around 3 am the last time around and when the sun came up, the gusts completely died off.

    Don't expect to have a great view of what's happening. The spaceship is tiny when it's 200 feet away and invisible when it's 10 miles away. Maybe this time around, they'll turn on a smoke generator just before they launch so you know where to look but then again, they may not. Last time, the craft was almost directly in the sun and it was awfully hard to see until it was spewing smoke.

    While you're there, be sure to check out the Aloha Air [aloha.net] plane that peeled its skin in midflight. It's next to the two rightmost 747s that are parked half a mile northeast of the viewing area.

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