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No mention of what their thermal protection system involves, but there's a picture that is labelled as such. Here's another shot showing the wing coating. Look for the pinkish material on the nose/chin and leading edges. Does that give anyone additional clues as to the material involved?

No mention of what their thermal protection system involves, but there's a picture that is labelled as such. Here's another shot showing the wing coating. Look for the pinkish material on the nose/chin and leading edges. Does that give anyone additional clues as to the material involved?

CNN is reporting in a developing story that SpaceShipOne attained an altitude of over 62.5 miles (100 km) in its historic flight earlier today, making it the first privately built craft to fly in space. More information can be found courtesy of Scaled Composites here and Space.com also has a story.

"Space flight is not only for governments to do," Rutan said. "Clearly, there's an enormous pent-up hunger to fly into space and not just dream about it." "We are heading to orbit sooner than you think," he said. "We do not intend to stay in low-earth orbit for decades. The next 25 years will be a wild ride. ... One that history will note was done for the benefit of everyone."

CNN is reporting in a developing story that SpaceShipOne attained an altitude of over 62.5 miles (100 km) in its historic flight earlier today, making it the first privately built craft to fly in space. More information can be found courtesy of Scaled Composites here and Space.com also has a story.

"Space flight is not only for governments to do," Rutan said. "Clearly, there's an enormous pent-up hunger to fly into space and not just dream about it." "We are heading to orbit sooner than you think," he said. "We do not intend to stay in low-earth orbit for decades. The next 25 years will be a wild ride. ... One that history will note was done for the benefit of everyone."

Best part, Rutan has admitted that SS1 is scalable, meaning it could become an orbital launch vehicle. Sweet.

Maybe there's something in all the naming - the project's called Tier One, the spacecraft module is called SpaceShipTwo...

What's Tier Two going to be?

.the craft doesn't have enough (any?) shielding for re-entry heat,

Any specific source for this info? About the only thing I can find is on SC's photo gallery. One of the captions reads "SpaceShipOne with its airframe Thermal Protection System installed".

So there's at least some protection.

From the Launch Event FAQ:

Q: Can we fly a commercial flight to Mojave?
A: No, Mojave has no commercial airline service.

Doh.

It's appropriate to view this attempt win the X Prize with a full perspective of who Scaled Composites are, and where they came from.

Burt Rutan has been thinking outside the box, from the halcyon days of the Vari-Eze & Long-Eze to the innovative Ares and the 'appear-to-thumb-your-nose-at-physics' Boomerang.

His company; Scaled Composites, have not only survived the drastic slump of the light aircraft market in the 80's and 90' but made innovation their tradition - no small feat.

IMHO, they deserve to succeed with this attempt of Spaceship One.

There doesn't appear to be much eye-sight wise through the small portals of space-ship one anyways. I find it interesting none-the-less.

There doesn't appear to be much eye-sight wise through the small portals of space-ship one anyways. I find it interesting none-the-less.

<a href="http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/photo s/images/video/14p_1b.jpg">200k ft</a>

According to the FAQ there with be live coverage on CNN.

I just passed through Mojave very early Friday morning; I wish I could have stayed to watch the launch, but I had to get back to San Jose.

From the various articles about the x-prize and spaceshipone one could be forgiven for wondering whether these guys are really going into 'space', because relative to NASA's exploits they aren't exactly going that high. However, pictures like this and this from earlier test flights give a practical idea of just how high they are going to get... awesome! I wish there was some sort of webcast... anyone know of anything live?

From the various articles about the x-prize and spaceshipone one could be forgiven for wondering whether these guys are really going into 'space', because relative to NASA's exploits they aren't exactly going that high. However, pictures like this and this from earlier test flights give a practical idea of just how high they are going to get... awesome! I wish there was some sort of webcast... anyone know of anything live?

Yes ...

The link you provided took me to "seeq.com", which appears to be a search engine/web portal of some kind.

On the good side, whoever designed the page had both functioning color vision and basic understanding of style, making it a pretty pleasant page to look at. On the bad side, it doesn't appear to have anything to do with space exploration.

The Scaled Composites web side can be found here.

I have been following Carmack's progress since almost day one, but will they make it? Unless something horrific goes wrong with the Scaled Composites airplane, they will win the prize. They have already made a couple of high-altitude flights and are working towards a launch in THREE DAYS!

I never mentioned White Knight in my description of a 2-stage system because White Knight is a launch PLATFORM, not a booster or a stage. I was referring specifically to SS1, which could be scaled up and have a second stage added.

If it helps the vehicle gain altitude, it amounts to a stage. Feel free to brush it off as semantics if you like, reality will take care of itself. :)

Besides, I don't think that Scaled sees WK as just a launch platform. They've always referred to this whole thing as an integrated system. Remember that WK and SS1 have all their avionics in common, and it looks as if their crew cabins are all but identical. I know they can flight-qualify components and pilots for SS1 on WK, and that's a Big Deal in terms of safety and operational costs.

It looks to me that Scaled's goal is to sell what amounts to a turnkey suborbital space tourism operation, with everything you'd need but a business plan. Simulator, fueling truck, test stand, vehicles... the works. Check out this photo, and especially its title: Space Program Elements. That's all there is, that's the whole program in five neat packages. I think they hope to make a small production run of these systems for companies that want to do suborbital space tourism on the barnstorming model.

Now, I might be wrong about that... but if I'm not, then Rutan optimized this design for that very purpose. He surely optimized it heavily for some purpose; he always does with his designs. (That's his real genius as an engineer, I think... he is the world's greatest aeronautical optimizer.)

Any other use of the vehicle is likely to be very sub-optimal. Sure, maybe you could strap a huge rocket on the ass of SS1, launch it from a bigger aircraft, and get it into orbit. But since, in the process, you'd replace about 90% of the equipment involved (by mass), why not design a whole new aircraft instead of modifying SS1 to handle re-entry from orbit?

It was all about payload and lift

If you want to colonize up the gravity well, that's what you need most.

I am being quite realistic.

Excellent! I look forward to reading about your entry into the X-Prize 2 contest.

Why pay the Russians when you've got Scaled Composites going up there anyway?

Seriously, this sort of thing looks like a better revenue stream than prizes and 'space tourism' for Scaled to be aiming at, long term.

I'd look to the major news networks for live video coverage, and Scaled Composites will certainly put pictures of the burn up on their website.

http://www.scaled.com/

Jon Acheson

Make a modern space-plane like the shuttle, and strap it to the back of a modified large commercial jet-aircraft like a 747, as seen here. Then use the concept used by Scaled Composits for SpaceShipOne, to bring the space plane up to a high altitude and release it there. It then continues into orbit using rocket power.

The trick is that because the shuttle is attached to the TOP of the 747, and not underneath, you have to do a roll and fly upside down for a bit when releasing the shuttle. But that's no problem. Planes can do that; even 747s :)

From scaled.com, We look to the future, hopefully within ten years, when ordinary people, for the cost of a luxury cruise, can experience a rocket flight into the black sky above the earth's atmosphere, enjoy a few minutes of weightless excitement, then feel the thunderous deceleration of the aerodynamic drag on entry.
-Burt Rutan April 18th 2003

I thought I saw him say on the site somewhere he expected it to cost 5-10k per a ticket, which would get you 5 minutes of weightlessness, but I can not find that quote anymore. For some reason some of the people replying seem to think you are asking about the cost of the craft. I think the whole SpaceShip One project has been estimated to cost less than $30 Million, so mass produced it would cost less than that.

Check out this pic. Message to Burt Rutan: Wanna offset some costs? Start selling those shirts and hats with that logo on it baby. There's gotta be one ride's worth of hydrazine in that market at least.

GREAT job Scaled Folks - next stop is 100 Kilometers up! ;-)

P.S. While they are up there, can you take some more some pictures of my house! ;-)

GREAT job Scaled Folks - next stop is 100 Kilometers up! ;-)

P.S. While they are up there, can you take some more some pictures of my house! ;-)

Their success has driven them mad; here's the pilot afterwards explaining that "I saw a woman up there with huge breasts!"

Are those leeches!?

yes. Look at this one

Why would they use "witnesses" when Scaled has it in their journal at 211,400 feet?

Scale'd launch journal puts it at 211,400 feet at apogee. I would imagine this is from the craft, not from "witnesses". Why the original story didn't link to this and use this number, is beyond me...

Are you sure these are photos from the lates flight? Check out the directory where the jpeg's are . The files are from 19.April.2004.

Two

Two

Here is the actual information release from Scaled:
"Launch conditions were 46,000 feet and 120 knots. Motor light off occurred 10 seconds after release and the vehicle boosted smoothly to 150,000 feet and Mach 2.5. Subsequent coast to apogee of 211,400 feet. During a portion of the boost, the flight director display was inoperative, however the pilot continued the planned trajectory referencing the external horizon. Reaction control authority was as predicted and the vehicle recovered in feather experiencing 1.9M and 3.5G's. Feather oscillations were actively damped by the pilot and the wing was de-feathered starting at 55,000 feet. The onboard avionics was re-booted and a smooth and uneventful landing made to Mojave." - Scaled Composites LLC

So it looks like it went to 211,400 ft. Those witnesses knew what they were talking about.

Here are links to the photos from the flight directly off their servers. Shot of earch in background... Apogee

Here are links to the photos from the flight directly off their servers. Shot of earch in background... Apogee

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/f light_data/flt_data.htm

Teams competing for the X-Prize ARE starting out small. The spaceship required to win the competition only needs to carry 3 people. The competition can be won by a ship carrying only one pilot and ballast representing the other two passengers.

As far as I know, Scaled Composites is the only team carrying out manned tests of their vehicle so far. They're following a careful test program, slowly expanding their flight envelope, and are taking no unnecessary risks.

For another team's perspective, check Armadillo's website for a great log of all the testing and refining they've been doing while developing their rocket.

Bottom line: The teams with a shot at winning are not jumping into rocketry without careful attention to safety. No one wants to see fatalities or explosions of any kind - they're bad for business.

I'm not sure how the "Exposition" and "Cup" events relate to the actual X-Prize, but I was under the impression that the X-Prize would be won before 2005.

Scaled Composites seems to be doing quite well and I was expecting a good college try from them sometime this summer or fall. Would these events be a post-prize scenario, or is 2005/2006 a more realistice time-frame for the first sub-orbital flight?

Not true. Check out these tests . They have a 40 second manned burn under their belts and could probably win the X-prize tomorrow if the paperwork were squared away.

Why don't you look for yourself?

They might be closer to that than you think. From Scaled's web site (describing unpowered test flight on 11 March):

The twelfth flight of SpaceShipOne. Objectives included: pilot proficiency, reaction control system functionality check and stability and control and performance of the vehicle with the airframe thermal protection system installed. This was an unpowered glide test.
Results:

Launch conditions were 48,500 feet and 125 knots. All systems performed as expected and the vehicle landed successfully while demonstrating the maximum cross wind landing capability.

WYIAARS.

Debrief or not, one would have expected some mention on the Scaled Composites homepage 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.

The X-Prize is like the Orteig prize that inspired Charles Lindberg to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. The X-Prize Cup is like the annual air races (Thompson Cup, Bendix Cup, etc.) that fostered competition and quickly led to commercial aircraft industries.

The X-Prize competition will happen wherever the teams want to launch. BTW - Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, will be winning the X-Prize very soon. They're in Mojave California. Lots of info including pictures here.

And, please, no more references to "orbit". The X-Prize competition is for suborbital flight, which is essentially up and down, similar to the Redstone missions in NASA's early days. There is no requirement for a large horizontal component of velocity as would be needed to achieve orbit.

I found it interesting that New Mexico has a department responsible for space development. Finally, some government is actually looking to the future instead of being dragged kicking and screaming into it.

Guess what else Paul Allen funds .

Actually, Scaled Composites did reveal that it is Paul Allen that is funding it.
http://scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/news/ Paul%20G%20%20Allen%20and%20SpaceShipOne.pdf

This isn't quite correct. Here's a picture of SpaceShipOne feathered while descending. The fuselage is more or less parallel to the ground, with the wings and tail trailing above/behind to provide stability. I believe the wings are not used as an air brake but rather the fuselage is.

This makes sense because it allows for a wing design that is much lighter than it would otherwise have to be, and hence they can make the ship into a pretty good glider (unlike for example the space shuttle or X15) for the same take-off weight.

While you are there check out the Global Flyer It is just as cool in my book. The similarity in the designs of the craft are interesting. The idea of flying around the world on one tank of gas is pretty wild.