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AFAIK, these guys are the closest to winning the X-Prize- go team!!!

A great set of photos (hopefully soon to be mirrored) is available here.

Don't write your sentator, write Burt! Okay so Hubble is about 300 miles higher than the designed limit of Space Ship One, but hey, if we hurry, we can just take it over before it crashes.

Think about it. Private industry bypassing the pork. If the gov't has a problem wellllll let them come up into space and talk man to man.

Boy I wish.

Don't write your sentator, write Burt! Okay so Hubble is about 300 miles higher than the designed limit of Space Ship One, but hey, if we hurry, we can just take it over before it crashes.

Think about it. Private industry bypassing the pork. If the gov't has a problem wellllll let them come up into space and talk man to man.

Boy I wish.

Actually, there are certain "consessions and compromises" that I would've like to have seen in the design. Other posters have pointed out some, but my pet peeve is that I really would've liked to have seen consistent use of metric measurements.

I worked for a company that worked on some of the life support components of the ISS. All measurements were done in English (American, Imperial, whatever you want to call them) measurements. This means that there are not only redundant components of the ISS, but even redundant toolboxes -- metric and English.

I spent my three months at this company having flashbacks to the movie "Apollo 13," then bailed to a different company the first chance I got. My time there was enough to give me a lifetime's worth of "stupid engineer" stories. I suspect most aerospace companies have similar practices. This, in my opinion, is the biggest reason aerospace is so expensive.

Give me private companies (Armadillo Aerospace, Burt Rutan's projects) any day. They're the ones who'll finally get us into space reliably.

Parent was modded funny, but there's an odd truth to this. Consider Burt Rutan's comment that porn will be the driving force behind eliminating business travel. Read it and you'll understand :).

Microsoft Space Agency? Well, not that close, but this company is expected to win the X-prize and it is sponsored by Microsoft money. (Not in the direct way, though..)

Well, maybe, presuming inept bureaucracy didn't manage to create a black hole for the cash. At this stage I'd rather see them hand a mere $100 million into the X-Prize kitty. That seems a more productive use of funds at this stage.

Who wants to bet the X-prize gets claimed this year? Odds are looking pretty good considering Scaled Composties latest rounds of testing.

Jedidiah.

I hope their rocket design is better than their web skilz... Nice site with better than 1/2 the page (at 1024x768) taken up by a cheesy graphic and menu.

I'm too lazy to do the math, but at 2.5-g acceleration it'd take less than a minute to reach 330,000 feet. The engine has been test fired for at least 1 1/2 minutes; there's already very little air at 68,000 feet. Since they simply fall back into the atmosphere, reentry isn't much of a problem (and the feathered configuration avoids the instability problems the X-15 had).

All in all, I'd say they could have reached space the first time, but they're being cautious instead. Sure beats the "Just get it working, then we'll patch it until it's robust" approach.

You wanted photos, here ya go:

photos of KW and SS1

Apparently google doesn't work in your neck of the woods, so here ya go. Oh, and wtf did the jerk doing the mirror of space.com do to deserve a +5 anyway?

Here's their prerss [sic] release.

--Karma whoring as AC since 2000.

My guess is that he is going to light the candle today: 12/17/03 The last publicized flight was 12/4 , we've seen he's had the ability to turn it around in 5 days, he had a 11/14 and 11/19 flight. I'm thinking he had a 12/10 cold flow flight. His website acknowledged in the rocket motor update that they had validated and were ready for the two powered flights.

The only real question is how far up is he gonna go today.

All of this could have happend yesterday to give him time to be in Kittyhawk today. However he is not listed as a speaker at the event.

Scaled is doing leading edge - cheap transport to space. While not a clear 'first', they could be pointed to in the future as having been the first to demonstrate cheap space flight.

The software he used, X-Plane is being used by commercial aircraft and spacecraft companies. Most notably Scaled Composites for simulating SpaceShip One and Carter Copters for simulating their helicopter designs.

Not to mention Jetstream people using it in a full-size Jetstream simulator instead of official replacement components (which are way too expensive) - and that X-Plane is certified for training pilots by the FAA.

Popular Science has a good introductory article about X-Plane.

So yeah, I'd say that for a ballpark simulation - results obtainable in that program are probably damn close to what you'd get in real life. Especially since it's already been used to help design at least one real spacecraft.

Um... sure.

Did you even LOOK at the X-prize site?

Did you count how many teams there are from each country?

Now - while one of the front contenders happens to be American: Scaled Composites, there are some teams that are making good progress that aren't (gasp!) Americans! Perish the thought!

Heck - there are even Canadian teams that have performed successful final engine design tests, and picked final flight crews: Canadian Arrow.

XCOR Aerospace has submitted a launch license application for an intermediate technology demonstration vehicle.

I've been a consultant for an aircraft project for about eight years, and one of the problems we've run into over and over again is funding. Whenever an aerospace idea tries to break the mold or move from traditionally taught ideas, it seems it's generally shunned by the aerospace community. Looking at the pictures shown on their site, they are some fairly fanciful designs -- ones that certainly wouldn't be looked at from the aerospace circles we run in. So who exactly funds these projects, private investors, companies?

Umm, i don't know who told you that, but they were mistaken. When Scaled announced the program to the public on April 18th 2003 they had already flown the White Knight 20 times. The first flight was on August 1st, 2002; several months before the program was announced. In addition there had already been 5 motor test firings. Heck, they even flew White Knight for the unvieling on the 18th and then again on the 26 for "CNN, ABC, PBS, Tech TV, Discovery & National Geographic TV"
Source: http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/index.htm

Scaled hasn't faked a single report. They aren't giving daily reports to their progress; but why whould you want to let your competition know exactly where your at? I think Carmack's making a mistake by issusing the weekly reports. Every X-Prize team knows exactly where Carmack's team is at and how much time they to finish their entry till he launches.

Rumour has it that Paul Allen is backing Rutan and SpaceShipOne...

holy rollercoaster ride, Batman -

Link to Mission Log

Descent rates > 10000 ft/min!! ...they really mean "rock" stable. Look out 6 Flags!

My prediction, whoever wins the X-prize will be all the hell over Jay Lenno for a week, and then we'll hear about how they went out of business 6 months later.

I don't think that Scaled Composites (who have a pretty good chance of winning) is going out of business anytime soon. And Armadillo Aerospace doesn't seem to give a fig about "business" period.

The X-prize is strictly for show and consists of just getting to the edge of space. I haven't seen any competitor that plans to go any further (though I could be wrong).

The video cameras mounted on the spaceship recorded dramatic views particularly during the unique feather maneuver. Observers in the chase Starship were treated to a closeup bizarre view of the spaceship plunging downward in a rock-stable near vertical feathered descent. First public showings of these videos will be on 26 September at the annual SETP symposium in Los Angeles

I've been following the X-Prize competition quite closely. There are two contenders that might win the X-Prize before this year's end: ScaledComposites and CanadianArrow. I belive Burt Rutan has planned the prize's required second flight for this 13th December, just in time to celebrate one century of flight. Rutan's company seems to be the most advanced competitor (I'd bet real money they win the X-Prize), though the canadian team has that cool prospect of extreme skydiving.

Although I'm rooting for Armadillo Aerospace, I visited the Scaled Composites website a few days ago. They seem to be very close to a successful launch. They've been doing all sorts of drop/glide tests of their spaceship, and they've seen a lot of success with those tests. Their crazy shuttle-cock decent seems to work fine. (This is especially amusing after all of the slashdot posts about how a winged successor to the space shuttle is the worst idea ever.) Also, they outsourced their engine construction which, seeing the kind of trouble Armadillo is having with their engines, might turn out to be a winning strategy.

Per their Spaceship One FAQ that their solid-fuel component of the engine will consist of HTPB (basically, rubber) for the fuel and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) for the oxidizer - a very safe combination, because they will not directly combust when in close proximity to each other and that both are fairly easy to handle individually and do not require any real special care in handling beyond the normal care given to N20 bottles. The downside to Hybrid and solid-fuel rockets is the same; there is no provision to "throttle" the engines, so it's either "Full-on" or nothing. The only other difference is that Hybrid engines can be shut-off, since the oxidizer is provided by the N2O and is not imbedded into the solid fuel compound like other solid-fuel rocket engines (think "Estes Model Rockets" or the Shuttle's Solid-Fuel boosters)

Per their Spaceship One FAQ that their solid-fuel component of the engine will consist of HTPB (basically, rubber) for the fuel and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) for the oxidizer - a very safe combination, because they will not directly combust when in close proximity to each other and that both are fairly easy to handle individually and do not require any real special care in handling beyond the normal care given to N20 bottles. The downside to Hybrid and solid-fuel rockets is the same; there is no provision to "throttle" the engines, so it's either "Full-on" or nothing. The only other difference is that Hybrid engines can be shut-off, since the oxidizer is provided by the N2O and is not imbedded into the solid fuel compound like other solid-fuel rocket engines (think "Estes Model Rockets" or the Shuttle's Solid-Fuel boosters)

Most hard-core SF was written during and in the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War. All of it escapist, much of it focusing on how humanity carries on after the dawn of the 21st century and presumably civilization as we know it has been destroyed.

For people looking beyond the horrifying news on the television, SF was a ray of hope.

Unfortunately (for SF), the Cold War ended and the world as we know it was utterly changed - but not because of world war or nuclear conflict. It was changed largely by the collapse of Communism (outside China and its satellites), removing the immediate threat, and thus the foundation for much of the SF we've all grown to know and enjoy.

Lacking the need for escape from our current situation into the future, and given the high-tech world that has been thrust upon us in the past decade (as has been noted elsewhere), it seems not unreasonable that Fantasy fiction, especially that espoused by Tolkien and Rowling, would take the fore over hard SF, at least for the moment.

Someone will probably point out that 9-11 and its aftermath are in fact World War III (or IV, depending upon how you count it), and this should be driving us to some sort of outlet that frees us from the daily drumbeat in the news.

But instead of Heinlein and Asimov, we're getting Harry Potter and a fish called Nemo... And it works, because these depict simpler themes of good and evil, courage and fear, and the ability of ordinary people (or young wizards or, well, fish) to overcome incredible obstacles placed before them.

This is not the first time such a thing has happened. During the peak of the Industrial Revolution of the late 1800's, amid motorcars, steam-powered factories, and crazy folk attempting to fly like birds, there was counter-revolution of sorts where people looked for craftsmanship and simplicity in their homes and furnishings, first in England, later in the U.S. It banished the sameness of mass-production and replaced it with objects that had the appearance of being, or were in fact, unique.

We live in similar times - only now the personal computer and the internet are the invading technology. It should come as no surprise that people have had enough and need an escape to simpler, less stressful things.

But I would also predict that this is only temporary. We're taking a breather as the next phase of technological development gathers itself together. When it will happen, I don't know, but when it comes to Sci-Fi, I would suggest that a gentleman and his team working in the Mojave desert of all places may unleash the next wave. Or maybe not. We'll see.

The orbiter itself may not rationally NEED wings, but the launcher should, unless you're talking really massive payloads. Here's why: The typical first-stage rocket booster uses most of its propellant just to get the first few dozen feet of altitude and few dozens of feet per second of velocity. If you use an air-breathing first stage (such as Scaled Composites' X-prize candidate, which uses a turbojet carrier plane as the first stage, or Orbital Science's Pegasus satellite launcher, which is lauched from a jet plane), you eliminate a LOT of mass. An airplane is just LOTS more fuel-efficient than a rocket at 40,000 feet and below. Use an air-breather from zero to 30,000 feet and 250 knots, and a rocket for the rest.

Its interesting how well this picture depicts perfectly the dynamics of geekdom - the clear indictation is located 6 persons from the left.

24 geeks, 2 super duper flying machines, one hot chick.

Scoll down to the bottom to get to the newest pictures. Hope the server doesn't get hammered.

You are mostly likely thinking of the X-20 DynaSoar, which was considered the next step after the X-15 until it got cancelled in favor of Mercury/Gemini/Apollo. However, the X-20 concept did involve launching on top of a rocket - the OSP is very much a rehash of the old X-20 idea.

There's no reason you couldn't design some sort of hybrid air-breather/rocket that could get to altitude via an air-breathing system and then achieve orbit via a rocket system.

No reason aside from the fact that it requires a lot of technology development (i.e. money) to do a hybrid airbreather/rocket engine. OSP is intended to be a "quick and dirty" interrim solution, until a real next gen RLV can be developed. The argument is that it may not be the right "quick and dirty" solution (something more Apollo-like might be better in a lot of ways).

A cheaper hybrid airbreather/rocket system (and perhaps this was what you were actually referring to) would be one that didn't combine both engines into one (ala the Pegasus launch vehicle). In fact, this is the approach that Burt Rutan is taking with his White Knight/SpaceShipOne X-prize entry. However, that design is, at least at this point, only good for suborbital hops. Is this really the best answer? I don't know. But I think that one of the nice things about the X-prize is that we get to see a bunch of different concepts actually perform, and from there we can pick the best ones. Much like the early evolution of aircraft design.

Can anyone tell me what type the chase plane is in this pic?</trainee geek>

I have to wonder how it could possibly handle the heat and stresses of atmospheric re-entry.

Re-entry from orbit involves hitting the atmosphere at almost-orbital speeds - about 17,000+ mph.

SSO is designed to fly SUB-orbital. Its re-entry will be MUCH slower. Scaled Composites' website quotes a maximum speed of about 2,500 mph. Kinetic heating shouldn't be a major problem at that sort of speed.

Progress like the message on their frontpage ?

When I read about this and saw the picture, I immediately thought of Scaled Composites' entry Space Ship One and jumping from it at apogee. Space Ship One returns to earth in a high drag configuration to minimize aerodynamic heating (which would be important for a parachutist).

As for the technology being available, this was first done in 1962 by USAF Capt. Joe Kittinger.

The only element required now is to find somebody stupid enough to try it.

myke

Yes, dynamic modelling is better than static tables. Not only is the performance more in line with reality, but it allows people to design airfoils and aircraft with the included software, and test their performance before any parts are fabricated. No guess work. Real engineering.

It's a hackers dream, because ALL of the flight controls and flight data can be imported/exported over a network. It also has a very sensible plugin system, and the author encourages people to come up with new and cool tools without any licensing restrictions. It might not be open source, but the architecture is very open.

X-Plane is the flight simulator of choice for many companies, including Scaled Composites, the builders of Spaceship One. It's also FAA approved for training towards commercial, transport, and instrument certificates.

Not only is the flight model incredibly accurate, but you also have to deal with differences in traction between tires on a wet runway, damaged windscreens from hail, and more equipment failures than you can shake a stick at.

It's amazingly beautiful with a reasonable graphics card and the latest scenery plugins, and it can use real-time weather information from NOAA.

It's not a toy or a game, even though it may be fun. It's as close to flying as you can get on your PC. I could go on and on, but it's probably better that you head to the web site. :)

http://www.x-plane.com/

I thought I might point out the following webpage: http://www.hobbyspace.com/Links/RLVNews.html
I recently discovered this page, and it is really up-to-date with all sorts of initiatives with reusable launch vehicles, including a lot of promising commercial ones.
The enthousiasts there also seem to have given up on NASA. I share their opinion that to do it "Faster, better, cheaper", you need to steer clear of the good old NASA. I am especially interested in the Burt Rutan initiative, and the SpaceX rocket, which should fly beginning next year.

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

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

It seems that most voters at XPrize believe that the SCALED COMPOSITES, LLC have a better chance to take home the XPrize than Armadillo Aerospace.

attached in flight

The first ones were definitely doctored, but that doesn't mean they don't have the goods. See picture of the two planes attached and in flight. There are more on the site.

I for one hope their aircraft holds up to the rigors of space flight better than their site holds up to a slashdotting.
I suppose they're spending all their money on the project and not their website though :)

Anyway, my money is on Burt Ratan and the crew at Scaled Composites. They seem to have a solid idea and enough backing to actually get this done. Not to mention they have a cooler name (who ever heard of a flying armadillo?).

Do you think this could boost payloads delivered from small non-NASA suborbitals like Rutan's:

SpaceShipOne?

It would be great if you could just fly up to the edge of space, chuck your payload up, have a tether catch it and then land. Very cheap compared to rockets.

Also I wonder if the tether guys are working with: Carbon Fiber 60% stonger than steel

If the AC is out of a job, it's likely to be at least in part the fault of a greedy coorporation or two that hogged resources and fought destructively and dirty instead of co-operatively and clean. Greedy corporations (like SCO at present) are almost always driven by one or a few greedy individuals. They should not be able to use any corporation as a moral facade that they can hide behind.

Contrast insert-random-company-here with (say) Scaled Composites. Burt Rutan may well make more megabucks as a consequence of his venture, but he doesn't need to and he knows it. If I had anything to bet you, it would be down on this premise: Rutan is doing it primarily for the challenge and to see if he can, not in the hope of earning squillions. Notice that even his domain has a wordplay in it: SCALED.COMposites. Anything that will encourage fair, competent and happy players like him and discourage the greedy has to be a good thing!

"This isn't very educated. You're suggesting that since the US promotes some form of freedom, that other governments cannot possibly produce people that feel they're pursuing a dream by going into space?"

I don't think space is a dream. It is just a place. I don't believe any government directed effort can accomplish that which needs to be accomplished to bring people to the stars. There are just too many variables, too much risk, too much uncertainty.

"Some ventures are just too risky with little chance for return. Investors don't like that, and that's why we have government sponsoring these programs. I don't see that changing in the near future."

Agreed. That is why I believe that NASA has a funding role towards basic science and engineering and even sponsering expeditions. Since I don't think capital would ever flow to pioneers or adventurers until after they have proven themselves, but look at what NASA has shown investors. They have defined space as someplace that costs billions of dollars to go to. Yes, the fuel costs and materials cost money, but billions? No, hopefully people like Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites can succeed at launching their vehicle just to prove that it is reasonable to expect costs to come down into the reach of individuals and smaller corporations.

But do you really think that the management and political backers of NASA want to see others launching satellites or people into space at a fraction of the cost that NASA has? Sure there are many good people at NASA that probably applaud any human endevour into space, but there is too much turf protecting and not enough exploring.

As with much of the safety debate (throughout much of human history in fact) it is about politcal power and not about safety.

For every safety regulation that NASA puts into place or for that matter safety regulations that apply to any of the big industries, it means that it raises the barriers to entry for innovation and invention. The new and unknown always bring with them unknown dangers.

Solar has a large energy investment and the panels, batteries etc are hard to recycle. Oil and coal are environmentally devastating in production as well as use (our largest local (Muja) coal station burns 12 tonnes a year of uranium, to say nothing of releasing radon etc); gas is better but shipping all of those big bombs around the country's just gotta have a sudden, loud environmental impact one day, hopefully not near any serious population. Wave and tidal generators muck around with the local ecosystem something chronic (as does Ocean Geothermal, but if you integrate fish-farms you at least get roughly twice the industry for the same amount of intervention). Nukes are quiet, clean, low-profile and produce small amounts of straightforward-to-manage waste.

If we were allowed to build proper nuclear rockets as well (get Burt Rutan to design them, not NASA), we could fling hundred-tonne loads of waste into the sun (or better still store it in a safe place (orbit/moon etc) for later re-processing) for an extremely low environmental cost. This is a question which has been studied to death, the answers are all to hand.

Stand by for a flock of "-1, Outrageous" mods from people who call themselves "green" but never actually think about the issues. They drive old, cheap, smoky, polluting cars and track dieback through the native forests they claim to protect. Here's a better way of approaching these things.

I forgot one major fluke in those two (1, 2) pictures.

Check out the black exhaust on the big plane (and the lack of it in the other picture)!

DoH!

I forgot one major fluke in those two (1, 2) pictures.

Check out the black exhaust on the big plane (and the lack of it in the other picture)!

DoH!

Got to love those journalists that start the article with a picture of a rival company's craft without specifically mentioning that this craft has nothing to do with Mr Bezos.

On top of that, the picture is Photoshopped (whoops, I mean "Gimped" :-)

Compare the bottom of this picture closely to this image. Both are from Scaled Composites own site. Scaled Composites is one of the competitors for the X-price.

Note the following fakes:
1) The attachment of the crafts is a Photoshop job. They removed the wheels (look closely at the spot on the small plane that suposedly holds the wheels) and note that they forgot to remove the shadow of the front stand. Also, the shadow on the attachement between the planes is (nicely) faked. For that matter, so is the whole attachment.
2) The small plane does not actually have an exhaust (the red thingy). In all the pictures this thing looks a little different. Note how it is awkwardly in and out of shadow in the above pictures.

Why?

Do investors know about this? Is this common practice for a startup (ok, forget I asked that ;-)? If I photoshop a cool plane, will you give me 1 Gazillion $$ too?