SpaceShipTwo Design and Pics Released 245
An anonymous reader writes "Designs and photos for Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic's new suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, and its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, have been released." Lots of specs and numbers if you're interested in that sort of thing although nothing hugely detailed.
Pilot (Score:2)
I think I'll wait... (Score:3, Funny)
Great! (Score:2, Funny)
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Not on this rocket: it's designed to come back.
Parallels and Perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/top10/wright-flyer.jpg [aerospaceweb.org] Here is the wrights' "space ship one"
http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/786/506847.JPG [dkimages.com] Here is what the aircraft started looking like 4 years after the Wright's first flight.
It took 30 years for Jet technology to appear, I wonder if it will be a similar amount of time before we get private orbital cabability.
Re:Parallels and Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Why cheer for irrelevance? Cheer for what actually matters.
By the way -- I'm not sure the analogy with early aircraft is the one you're going for. Just ignoring how little capital it took to build an airplane versus what it takes to make an orbital spacecraft, you should realize that early airplanes suffered major crashes at very regular intervals. The pilots typically survived because the performance of said aircraft was so low. The first cross-country flight took weeks and involved dozens of crashes. For the first around-the-world race, the US strategically placed replacement parts and even entire replacement airplanes for its pilots to use.
Even if that was an analogy you wanted to use, you should be comparing early aircraft with early rockets (V2, Redstone, etc), not with SS1 and their "repeat what's done decades ago in a way that we know damn well won't scale to anything". SS1 isn't developing new technology or pushing the envelope; they're making craft that don't advance anything except people's ability to have a joyride.
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It was Curtiss that took the Wrights' ideas and extended them
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But of course, there was a readily-apparent market for aircraft
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Armadillo Aerospace [armadilloaerospace.com]
Masten Space Systems [masten-space.com]
Both are working on smaller vehicles right now, but both have their eyes on orbital space.
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Jet technology was also originally a military technology, but got pushed out to the private sector pretty enthusiastically.
Orbital rocket technology isn't going to see the same level of cooperation. Where you or I might be interested in "cheap access to space" leading in the longer term to "colonizing the solar system", governments tend to reasonably focus on the more shor
First thing that comes to mind re. WhiteKnight II (Score:2)
More pics here (Score:3, Informative)
May the ships be built better than the server was (Score:2)
Have to say (Score:5, Insightful)
FYI, from el Wiki: "More than 65,000 would-be space tourists have applied for the first batch of 100 tickets to be available. The price will initially be US$200,000. However, after the first 100 tickets are sold the price would be dropped to around $100,000. Then deposits after the first year will drop to around $20,000. The duration of the flight will be approximately 2.5 hours, and weekly launches are planned.
In December 2007 Virgin Galactic had 200 paid-up applicants on its books for the early flights, and 95% were passing the necessary 6-8 g centrifuge tests"
Not really (Score:4, Insightful)
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Um, so it's a good thing it's being used for suborbital re-entry, eh? Hello?
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Folks are skeptical because they are looking at the hard numbers, rather than cheerleading because SS2 et al are the 'only way'.
It's not how many people who sign up in advance that matters - it's how many actually show up at the counter and plunk down cold hard cash, and having people continue to do so on
Why not just get it over with (Score:2, Funny)
Article (Score:3, Informative)
PICTURES: Virgin Galactic unveils Dyna-Soar style SpaceShipTwo design and twin-fuselage White Knight II configuration
By Rob Coppinger
Virgin Galactic has unveiled a SpaceShipTwo (SS2) design, created by Scaled Composites, that harks back to the NASA/USAF Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar glider of the 1960s, while Scaled's carrier aircraft, White Knight II (WK2) has been given a twin-fuselage configuration.
To be launched on a Lockheed Martin Titan III rocket, Dyna-Soar was for hypersonic flight research but the programme was cancelled before the first vehicle was completed. Some of its subsystems were used in later X-15 flight research and Dyna-Soar became a testbed for advanced technologies that contributed to projects, including the Space Shuttle.
Above: SpaceShipTwo is carried between the two fuselages of White Knight II
Virgin Galactic's commercial operations will now start from New Mexico's Spaceport America in 2010 and not from Mojave air and space port in California, as originally planned, but the WK2, SS2 launch system will be test flown by Scaled at the Californian port.
At its 23 January press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York city Virgin Galactic described SS2 as using the same basic technology, construction and design as its predecessor SpaceShipOne (SS1), as 100% composite and twice as large as the $10 million X-Prize winning vehicle, SS1.
Above: SpaceShipTwo transitions into feathering mode for its reentry
The SS2 is 18.3m (60ft) long, has a wingspan of 12.8m, a tail height of 4.5m with a passenger cabin that is 3.66m long and 2.28m in diameter. Despite being so much larger than SS1, SS2 will still use a front nose skid, and not nose gear. Released at 50,000ft (15,200m) by WK2, the rocket glider's apogee is expected to be up to 110km (68 miles).
Above: SpaceShipTwo is under construction at Scaled Composites
The carrier aircraft, WK2, is now 23.7m-long, it still has a wingspan of 42.7m, with a tail height of 7.62m and its integration is now 80% complete - with the assembly of the wing underway in preparation for its mating with the twin fuselages.
The WK2 will have four Pratt and Whitney PW308 engines, as revealed by Flight in September last year. And as Flight has also reported WK2's crew and passenger cabin will be the same; for training purposes.
Above: White Knight II under construction with its twin fuselages being fitted with their tail fins at Scaled Composites
Virgin Galactic also announced that the SS2 simulator is now operational, ahead of the previous March 2008 date that had been given. It is already being used for pilot training.
Above: Brian Binnie, Scaled Composites pilot, sits in the SpaceShipTwo simulator
Nose Skid (Score:2)
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a skid just keeps the nose off the ground and is probably replaced after each flight.
if you need to turn or adjust course on landing, you would probably use differencial braking or flight controls.
Re:Nose Skid (Score:4, Informative)
It's simpler and more lightweight. Less moving parts. Also probably a lot easier to package.
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This flies directly in the face of the early poster that claims SS2 doesn't push the state of the art. SOA applies not only to new materials or designs that have never been seen before. It also applies to using old techniques in new ways, or in places that they weren't used before. It's no
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
But, really, if private space travel is to become commonplace, what we want is boring and un-sexy technology -- not exciting and cutting edge.
What we need is the equivalent of a Buick station wagon with wood-grain trim. Boring as hell, but a reliable vehicle which focuses on doing the task instead of pushing the envelope. Once you have that, then this stuff can start to become routine based on available technology.
Cheers
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Interesting)
As to my understanding of rocket science, well, for starters, maybe you should learn manners before you return to the discussion. You're not going to convince people to agree with your opinion if you insult them first. You only come across as an idiot when you do it; regardless of how smart you may be. You also might try opening your mind to ideas that don't fit with your own narrow view of the world.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Informative)
**quote**
As I mentioned before, I was in error about how much delta v it takes, including gravity losses, to get in orbit, 9500 m/s instead of 11km/s. So about a quarter of the necessary delta v was provided by the motor and a further 300 or so m/s by the plane. Given that SpaceShipTwo goes a bit higher and has more downrange than SpaceShipOne, it probably has a little more delta v. So you're too low by at least a factor of 2 in your delta v estimate. And there's still higher ISP fuels. For example, they can use liquid oxygen in their hybrid to boost ISP. And higher mass ratios will obviously be needed. But I see no reason orbital delta v can't be reached.
****
Twice the thrust is probably attainable with more engines(check) and a little more fuel that has a higher energy output(I hate acronyms - a pet peeve of mine). The ship itself that launches them can also without a doubt be made to go faster, especially not IF, but WHEN we get scramjets and similar technologies working. 4000m/sec from the module and 1-2000m/sec from the booster/plane/etc is suddenly not so far off the mark.
IME, when you start talking about engineering problems and the difference between making it happen and the prototypes is a matter of 2-3x the test results, it's a matter of figuring it out more than being in the realm of "not possible". I don't think Scaled Composites second design can get into orbit, but it's a good step in the right direction, make no mistake about it.
I have to give them props for trying at least. Their goal is to get into space and not just give joy-rides, after all.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:4, Informative)
1) It's not "twice"; it's level of performance is a tenth that of what is needed for orbit.
2) Thrust is not the problem; it's ISP and staging.
and a little more fuel
Try a hundred times more fuel and a craft equivalently large enough to manage it. See OTRAG for details.
that has a higher energy output(I hate acronyms - a pet peeve of mine).
Nobody who discusses rocketry any relevant amount will spell out the words "specific impulse" every time. It's just "ISP". Insisting on spelling everything out marks you as a novice as much as I'd come across as an internet novice by constantly spelling out www as "world-wide web".
The ship itself that launches them can also without a doubt be made to go faster, especially not IF, but WHEN we get scramjets and similar technologies working.
Lol. Just, lol.
4000m/sec from the module and 1-2000m/sec from the booster/plane/etc is suddenly not so far off the mark.
What is off the mark is that Scaled is going to go from polybut and nitrous to an as-of-yet in-development technology that requires carbon-carbon panels and an extensive regenerative cooling system with typically hydrogen fuel, without completely starting from scratch to boot.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:4, Informative)
Further, the team isn't even *trying* to advance the state of the art in any fundamental science.
But that's why it's interesting. This is a low-tech engineering approach, with as close to commodity parts as they can manage. They're still a long long way from anyhting useful, but if they ever do get there they will have knocked a couple of 0s off the price, and significantly reduced the engineering complexity.
Naturally that provokes hostility from real rocket scientists - hey, the next thing you know, rocket science will be simple enough to outsource to India.
And the Penske team did famously win an Indy-car race with a very low-tech Buick-like engine once (pushrods for the win!), but that's a different story.
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I think that the aerospace community has been way too fixated on making the perfect machine. It's just not possible in one go. Look at what happened to Venturestar. Instead of doing some intermediate, *flying* prototypes it was a big bang approach and they sunk how many billions into it? With *nothing* to show.
SS2 won't make it to orbit. And, many of the technologies in
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You forgot one very important word:
*Manned* spaceflight.
SpaceX might have launched, but not a manned mission, yet. Virgin Galactic in that regard is quite a ways ahead.
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Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
Then making 'space flight' available to more of the public helps create more awareness.
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Progressively" implies continuity. There is no "progressive" approach to orbit from their current design.
This is the source of your error. Repeatedly, you make two observations. Namely that you need more delta v and that you need considerable TPS for reentry. These are known problems with various solutions. I don't see the vehicle requiring a major redesign, after all delta v is fixable by better ISP engines and a larger mass ratio. Maybe the resulting vehicle will be too heavy for a plane to carry it economically, but I doubt they'd have gone this far without figuring that out. And TPS systems are pretty we
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Infrastructure and corporate organization comes first.
Here's a good analogy. It's the early days of aviation, and you want a plane that can cross the Atlantic in 8 hours. No plane can cross the Atlantic at all at that point in time. What do you do? If you are bound by economic reality, you realize that if you build a functioning route structure with existing tech, and build it with future development in mind, it will be less of a jump from that than simply magically building a plane.
Continental a
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On a technical level you're right. But SS2 addresses a different problem. Once joyrides into space are sold, space tourism will be established as a market. Right now space tourism is a single-segment market: for several million dollars the Russians will sell you one of their spots on the space station. Aside from that, no one knows for sure how many people will pay how much money to go into space. If SpaceShipTwo is a commercial success, that decreases the risk and proves the potential return of investing i
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If they can even get 100Kg up into orbit for under a hundred thousand dollars per launch, it's an astounding level of economy that we've never seen before. SS2 looks to be lead
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It didn't get to orbit. It didn't even come remotely close to orbit. And it's design cannot be scaled to come close to orbit.
. No booster rockets the size of an apartment building. No heat shielding to fail
That's because it needed those things about as much as your car does, because it doesn't come even close to getting in orbit
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It's amazing in any case, and to be honest, I'll leave the determination as to whether it can be scaled up or not to the real sci
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Remember the Mercury and Gemini programs? You know, the ones we used to help us learn what it would take to get men to the moon and back, safely? They're taking STEPS, and you're complaining because they aren't jumping right to a space shuttle clone.
SeaLaunch, Orbital Sciences, and SpaceX require extensive launch infrastructure. T
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Right. Because Mercury and Gemini were simply copying what people did half a century earlier except getting worse performance despite greatly improved technology at their disposal, in a method that's completely unscaleable to orbit.
Right?
SeaLaunch, Orbital Scie
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A capsule carrying people is just a payload. The cost and challenge is in the launch vehicle.
(and let's not get into the term "man-rated", which nobody can seem to define outside of a few general concepts that most rockets can easily be designed to meet, such as limited Gs and not blowing up every other flight)
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WTF do all those acronyms stand for? Totally irrelavent to me.
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TPS is probably "thermal protection system," but it could also be the reports that need to be filed with the new cover, did you get the memo?
Although it is generally considered unprofessional to include acronyms without definition, in this case, the author was clearly intending to convey that he's so familiar with those terms that he considers them such basic knowledg
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I said almost exactly the same thing to my mum when she wanted to get on 'this internet thing'..
She called me a twat. And she was right.
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I certainly cheer for SpaceX and other private companies doing what you insist on referring to as "real" space flight like it's the only kind that matters. They're doing amazing things. But their focus is - quite naturally - on bringing costs down in the market that exists today
Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheer for the rocketry not matters, not the irrelevant joyrides.
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As for meaningful rocketry and the beleaguered state of other systems, their two Falcon 1 launches thus far have failed to reach orbit.
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For the second failure when the engine and telemetry cut off as it was
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Cheer for the rocketry not matters, not the irrelevant joyrides.
Not to be rude, but you need to get a clue here. Joyrides mean more money in a growing space economy. SpaceShipTwo is a critical test of space tourism. Will it get enough business to cover development costs or help fund an orbital vehicle? Sure SpaceX's $2-3k/kg is very sexy especially since they're close to a demonstration launch, but SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in private manned space. Further, SpaceX has yet to successfully launch anything while Scaled Composites has three successful launches (with
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Successful joyrides mean more money thrown at joyrides. Soyuz (and later Dragon) are a test of orbital space tourism.
but SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in private manned space
SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in rocketplanes that go ~850 m/s instead of the 7,800 m/s needed for orbital rocketry (and remember, it's an exponential challenge to get more veloci
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Before we go on, read this post [slashdot.org]. It's tangential to the topics here, but it is by far the best reply to your posts and discusses why SpaceShipTwo is important and does extend the state of the art.
Successful joyrides mean more money thrown at joyrides. Soyuz (and later Dragon) are a test of orbital space tourism.
Let us not forget that the point of SpaceShipTwo is ultimately to put people in orbit. That's not "joyrides".
SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in rocketplanes that go ~850 m/s instead of the 7,800 m/s needed for orbital rocketry (and remember, it's an exponential challenge to get more velocity, not a linear one).
SpaceShipOne, the predecessor to SpaceShipTwo delivered around 2250 m/s of delta v out of roughly 9500 m/s needed to get to LEO (including gravity losses). In a nasaspaceflight.com thread, I calculate [nasaspaceflight.com]
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Of course SS10 will also be 30 years down the line. they will need the funding to get their first. So Suborbital flights, and then deliveries will help pay for it.
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Their Falcon 9, a rocket whose heavy version will carry as much payload as NASA's beleagured (and possibly dead in the water) Ares, including its own spacecraft that can dock with the ISS, will be launching this June.
1. Yes, the Falcon 9 has
Don't Be a Party Pooper (Score:3, Informative)
It's not the joyrides that are most relevant (Score:2)
SpaceX is starting with designs that already have enough performance to reach orbit, with a goal of later incrementally improving the reusability and turnaround time/cost in order to make those designs more reliable and affordable. Scaled Composites is starting with designs that are already completely cheaply reusable and easy to test, with the possibility of incrementally improving their performance until they can reach orbit. Coming at the design space fr
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I wouldn't bet large sums of money on it. SpaceX doesn't have a good track record of meeting it's goals - and they haven't been able to get the much simpler Falcon I flying regularly and reliably.
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That's because it doesn't go fast enough to need one. It peaked out at Mach 2.5 (and this was in the upper atmosphere, meaning it was getting far less heating than a jet moving at this speed), not Mach 18 or so (and remember that energy is proportional to the velocity *squared*). This is not "state of the art". It's "state of the art fifty years ago". It's not contributing a damn thing.
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Um, why?
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To say Scaled Composites is not "contributing" is incorrect. Who do you think came up with and has built and flown a throttleable solid rocket engine? (I'll give you a hint, It wasn't SpaceX.) They've also come up with some interesting canopy (window
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~300km/~5000m/s is "barely off the pad"? In what universe? It'd have easily been 7,800 m/s if they just had an upper stage baffle.
Who do you think came up with and has built and flown a throttleable solid rocket engine? (I'll give you a hint, It wasn't SpaceX.)
I'll give you a hint: It wasn't Scaled. They flew a hybrid rocket. One that got them a mere 3% of the energy of an equivalent mass in orbit and cannot scale to orbit.
They've also c
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Plus, why does something need to advance the state of the art to be cool or worth doing? Making something that's already proven to be possible cheaper and more accesible is a noble goal too (see also: the personal computer revolu
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Re:Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)
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Get to orbit on a pogo stick, then.
Rocketry is subject to the constraints of physics, and the constraints of physics say that their system (low-ISP air launched) simply cannot scale. Which means starting from scratch. Not like they've addressed any of the most serious rocketry challenges to begin with (like, say, a TPS)
Manufactuering line (Score:2)
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The fact is that only a few countries have been able to afford the hundred million dollars a launch. Spaceship 2 is working on getting there for a hell of a lot less than that. sure it will take a while, but at least they are trying, unlike NASA, Russia, ESA, or Japan.
The Answer to regular space travel isn't shoving a stick of dynamite up your arse and lighting it, which is currently how
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It has been pointed out that the private industry side of this is the exciting part, which does have some value, but I think the "joyride" part actually has more. Sure this is just for the very rich, right now. Airplanes used to be only for the very rich as well. Virgin Galactic will make space accessible to the public. Right now space is only something cold and functional, for the military and billion dollar businesses. This makes space fun and exciting, not for the lucky Air F
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Oooh, yeay. Another joyride that contributes absolutely nothing to space exploration.
If you disagree with this statement, go ahead -- explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art.
No, because the reason to disagree with your statement is that it implies that advancing the state of the art is absolutely everything to space exploration.
This will contribute to establishing a routine of space exploration. They're expecting weekly launches. Who else is capable of weekly launches?
When the R&D team has passed this project onto the exploit and maintain team, they can start working on weekly orbital launches. They can offer a 'round the world trip in a single day. Take THAT, Jules Verne!
A LOT to see here (Score:5, Informative)
They are learning how to build an infrastructure that could take paying customers to orbit.
They are gaining experience carrying passengers and a spaceship up to the edge of space.
They are gaining experience dealing with novice 'astronauts' and what it takes to prepare them and what they should expect from them in a weightless environment.
They are gaining experience designing and building and flying carrier aircraft.
I would imagine that the next generation will use a different rocket design, go significantly faster, and start using heat shielding, with yet a bigger carrier aircraft.
Once they have that in place, the next generation can upgrade the 'spaceship' to something with serious rockets that have the capability of reaching orbital speeds.
Or should they have gone for orbit first and hope everything else works at the same time?
Why do think... (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to get more serious cutting edge space science done, then you need to make the whole concept popular again. That is why I think this whole Virgin Venture is worthwhile, not because it's an eccentric joyride for the rich.
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So a private citizen designs, builds and tests his own SPACECRAFT, and all you have to say is it isn't technologically advanced enough for you. I suppose the one in your garage is ultra L33T, right.
Made by private citizens to be used by private citizens, I don't remember there even
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Agreed - it doesn't add anything except a toy for people with more money than sense.
Worse, it's hype causes more important projects to be overlooked. There is almost a media conspiracy to make the phrase 'private spaceflight' mean 'corporate spaceflight'. In my opinion, the following two projects were of far more importance to mankind and to private spaceflight than SpacShipOne:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_1 [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Space_eXploration_Team [wikipedia.org]
Yet they have been large
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Re:Nothing to see here (Score:4, Insightful)
Other than contributions like feathered reentry I agree that it does very little to advance the state of the art.
But that is precisely the point. The state of the art does not need much advancing. Everything we really need know in order to get into space has been known for a couple of decades and has advanced very little even with much bigger budgets thrown at it by governments around the world. What we need to advance is the state of practice and Scaled/Virgin is doing exactly that.
Just one small example: an aircraft capable of carrying with proper ground clearance and safely dropping this size of load did not exist until now. It can be useful for many other applications like this one [airlaunchllc.com]. Does this advance the state of the art? Of course not. We've known such an aircraft can be built for well over half a century. But having this kind of aircraft actually available shaves many millions and a lot of risk from the budget of projects that need it. We all know these projects are facing lots of risks and are always underbudgeted so every little bit of help they can get really counts.
So it has been funded by joyriders. Anything wrong with that? Would you rather fund such development with your tax dollars?
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Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
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I can think of the odd oil baron who would be genuinely surprised to find it's round...
Come to think of it, perhaps a bit of perspective wouldn't hurt those on the rich list: I sometimes think that some people really need to be reminded that no matter how much money they have, they're still inconsequential bugs destined to be squashed on the windscreen of time.
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I believe that the corkscrew problem of the first of the two X-Prize flights might have been due to pilot error or something easily correctable.
The second flight, by the ex-Navy pilot, didn't have the problem. In fact, the pilot broke the unofficial altitude record held by an X15.
(Of course, on an earlier test flight if my memory is right, the same pilot landed SS2 a bit hard, causing the landing skid to collapse. Embarassing, but not a disaster. But that is what doing test flights is about.)