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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?

I didn't know you could use swiss cheese as a reusable space launch vehicle. Check out more photos.

I didn't know you could use swiss cheese as a reusable space launch vehicle. Check out more photos.

The specifications of such a device are as follows:

* It has to travel 62 miles - straight up.
* It has to travel 62 miles down and land in a controlled fashion so it can be re-used.
* It must not kill any passengers (of which it should be capable of carrying 3).

A $1000 motor scooter is a self-powered device that can easily go 62 miles there and back with a passenger - provided it's along the ground. For ten thousand times as much you ought to be able to come up with something nifty that'll go straight up. On the face of it, it is a simple problem.

One of the goals of the X-Prize is to reduce the cost of space travel. Private ventures may very well have to invent entirely new ways of solving technical spaceship problems.

90% of space projects so far are sponsored by governments, and as such they rarely innovate - they're too busy trying to satisfy a design commitee than to solve the problem with an elegant engineering solution.

I mean, come on. Look at what some of the X-Prize competitors have been up to:

Armadillo Aerospace - Powered manned lander working prototype that can hover and land safely. Look me in the eye and tell me that cost $10 million. In theory (assuming infinite onboard fuel and life-support) this thing could jet anywhere in the solar system - today. When they scale up the design it'll be capable of going to space with all the fuel it needs onboard.

Scaled Composites - The cockpit of their spaceship has a battery-powered digital kitchen timer clock glued to the control panel - a logical and practical cost-cutting measure that would never be seen in a US government program. It wouldn't suprise me if this spacecraft cost around $5 million to fabricate (especially since Scaled are an aircraft design and manufacturing company and could do it for cost). But it definitely did not cost $300 million.

Overpriced government projects have managed to convince you (and most of the public) that space travel needs to be expensive. The X-Prize will (with a bit of luck) end that myth.

The specifications of such a device are as follows:

* It has to travel 62 miles - straight up.
* It has to travel 62 miles down and land in a controlled fashion so it can be re-used.
* It must not kill any passengers (of which it should be capable of carrying 3).

A $1000 motor scooter is a self-powered device that can easily go 62 miles there and back with a passenger - provided it's along the ground. For ten thousand times as much you ought to be able to come up with something nifty that'll go straight up. On the face of it, it is a simple problem.

One of the goals of the X-Prize is to reduce the cost of space travel. Private ventures may very well have to invent entirely new ways of solving technical spaceship problems.

90% of space projects so far are sponsored by governments, and as such they rarely innovate - they're too busy trying to satisfy a design commitee than to solve the problem with an elegant engineering solution.

I mean, come on. Look at what some of the X-Prize competitors have been up to:

Armadillo Aerospace - Powered manned lander working prototype that can hover and land safely. Look me in the eye and tell me that cost $10 million. In theory (assuming infinite onboard fuel and life-support) this thing could jet anywhere in the solar system - today. When they scale up the design it'll be capable of going to space with all the fuel it needs onboard.

Scaled Composites - The cockpit of their spaceship has a battery-powered digital kitchen timer clock glued to the control panel - a logical and practical cost-cutting measure that would never be seen in a US government program. It wouldn't suprise me if this spacecraft cost around $5 million to fabricate (especially since Scaled are an aircraft design and manufacturing company and could do it for cost). But it definitely did not cost $300 million.

Overpriced government projects have managed to convince you (and most of the public) that space travel needs to be expensive. The X-Prize will (with a bit of luck) end that myth.

I am not yet convinced that the technology exists to make space travel inexpensive enough for any organization that does not have the capability to spend hundreds of millions without seeing a return

Consider that there are multiple private organizations, on a relatively shoestring budgets, in the USA alone, who are doing their own stuff in this area. Check for Microcosm, Flometrics, even a department of a university, not to mention John Carmack's company, XCOR, Burt Rutan's Scaled, all regularly mentioned on the Slashdot. Add other countries - in Europe, for example - in short, a lot of guys are thinking different than you do.

And you won't believe how unsophisticated by today's standards is the technology of the first rockets. Just imagine, they were made out of steel, with almost no computers in the whole lifecycle of devices! It's literally a technology of times half a century back. It's not a technological issues anymore, you just use off-the-shelf components, well, for most of things you need. And you have tons of knowledge for what and how and why to do and not to do. Having all this in, one can wonder, why we still don't fly economically :) .

There's quite a bit going on with regard to private space. Just check out The X Prize for information on Carmack, Rutan and others. The most recent story about Rutan's work is attracting quite a bit of attention.

Personally, I think the next crewed orbital vehicle will be coming out of one of these startups, not out of NASA. Of course, NASA could get back into the picture if they decided to help independents rather than try to run the whole damned show.

What's with the blue tinge around WK1 in this pic?

In fact the first picture seems to be an altered version of the second picture. What's different:

• The rocket nozzle.
• In the first pic SpaceShipOne is mated to the launcher, in the second pic SpaceShipOne is resting on it's own landing gear.
• In the second pic the launcher does not have it's jet engines installed (in fact those jet engines are not installed in any of the ground based pictures I've seen except the first pic).

• The shadows are in exactly the same positions (so the pictures where taken at the same time of day, to within a few minutes).
• The cracks in the ground are exactly the same so the vehicles have been places in the same position, despite major work having been performed (the jet engines, the mating superstructure).
• The backgrounds are identical, right down to another vehicle on the tarmac obscured in exactly the same way by the landing gear on the right. All the other planes in the background are also in the same locations.

In fact the first picture seems to be an altered version of the second picture. What's different:

• The rocket nozzle.
• In the first pic SpaceShipOne is mated to the launcher, in the second pic SpaceShipOne is resting on it's own landing gear.
• In the second pic the launcher does not have it's jet engines installed (in fact those jet engines are not installed in any of the ground based pictures I've seen except the first pic).

• The shadows are in exactly the same positions (so the pictures where taken at the same time of day, to within a few minutes).
• The cracks in the ground are exactly the same so the vehicles have been places in the same position, despite major work having been performed (the jet engines, the mating superstructure).
• The backgrounds are identical, right down to another vehicle on the tarmac obscured in exactly the same way by the landing gear on the right. All the other planes in the background are also in the same locations.

Well, sounds like someone might actually build a spacecraft. Scaled Composites has designed a sub-orbital spacecraft launched from the belly of the plane. It is in testing now. They're trying to win the $10 million X-prize, by builing a re-usable spacecraft that can send three people to space (100km) and return them safely. Looks like a neat design, and these guys are for real. Passengers would have a 5-minute micro-gravity environment during the flight. Sounds really cool. Space.com has an excellent write-up.

In other news, the Columbia investigation continues, and Space Daily has a real good (but long) write-up.

But NASA soldiers on. They have 2 Mars missions scheduled for this summer, plus the launch of SIRTF (infra-red telescope), which was recently delayed. Check out Spaceflight Now for details, and the best space coverage, in general.

Oh hell, almost missed this one. Apparently, the founder of PayPal is trying to get into the "microsatellite" launch business, although 1000 pounds is a bit bigger than micro. The company, SpaceX, is based in El Segundo. But, I think these guys are biting off more than they can chew, essentially trying to compete with Boeing, Lockheed, and everyone else. I think Scaled Composites is for real, though; they might pull it off.

... this image appears to have been fiddled with. Look at the red engine exhaust nozzle. Clearly been image-manip'ed.

indigo asserts:

[Bounty for private space flight] not worth it to any single company right now. Only boeing has the resources,

Not true, first off, if such bounties were available, companies (or consoritums of companies) will be coming out of the woodwork to try for them. Secondly, there are companies other than Boeing there right now that are in a position to start working on this, big ones like Lockheed Martin, to little ones like Scaled Composites and XCOR. A bounty for successful milestones would make VC funds more accessible to companies with good ideas.

The problem I see with this is: a bounty for successful milestones would also make VC funds more accessible to companies with bad ideas. Companies working with a focus on the bottom line cut corners; in space travel, corners cut cost lives. Seven astronauts who knew the risks was bad enough; I don't want to see some moron going up on a half designed rocket, having a guidance failure and crashing in a crowded city center, taking out people who were just trying to go to work.

Burt Rutan has said that he would have claimed the X prize by now, but he wasn't going to persue it further until the US$10M prize was real. They've never gotten the sponsors to put up the money.

Rutan's already flying Proteus is the launch vehicle he plans to use. He's keeping the capsule part secret.

Burt Rutan has said that he would have claimed the X prize by now, but he wasn't going to persue it further until the US$10M prize was real. They've never gotten the sponsors to put up the money.

Rutan's already flying Proteus is the launch vehicle he plans to use. He's keeping the capsule part secret.

Burt Rutan envisons a Space Tourism venture that works partly as a raffle. The company would create three new astronauts every week. One of those will have paid big money. The other two will have paid a reasonable $x,000 (it was $5000 in 1996).

The spacecraft has three seats. You can guarantee a seat by paying $100,000+ for a ticket. Otherwise you pay $5,000 for a chance. For a chance for a seat on each flight 10 people pay $5,000.

For each weekly flight all eleven go the training site in the Carribean. They are instructed in the three crew positions on the spacecraft. At the end of the fourth day of training the 10 candidates draw straws. Two of them get seats in the spacecraft. The other 8 have gotten a very nice Carribean vacation for $5,000.

The two and the $100,000 passenger get seats on the spacecraft launched on the Proteus for an Alan Shepard style 15 minute sub-orbital flight that lands in the same Carribean. The flight includes ten minutes of free weightlessness.

Rutan's vision was the commercial application of his entry for the X-Prize. The X-Prize competition is dormant because it never got a sponsor for the $1 Million prize.

By using a canard airfoil that stalled before the main wing, they designed an aircraft whose nose would remain high during a stall. (There was a Scientific American article years ago that described all this)

After the £7m prize was announced for the first non-commercial person to get into space, it seems there are now several people aiming to win it. Cool.

You make it seem like a new prize... this article is just talking about the same old X-Prize, which has been around since 1996. In fact, almost a year ago there was an article in the BBC discussing several of the contenders, and Bennett was generally talked about as being a crazy risk-taker, and least likely to win. Another (closer to home) competitor is toy-inventor Brian Walker (aka Rocket Guy, about whom there was a Slashdot article, but I can't find it as Slashdot's search is down), as well as famous aircraft designer Bert Rutan and his company Scaled Composites.

There are several other contenders, and lots of cool animations and info to be found at the X-Prize homepage.

No amount of disclaimers and click-through agreements can keep these lawsuits from getting started, and once started they are incredible money-sinks.

Exactly this kind of thing happened to Burt Rutan, the designer of almost every interesting airplane over the last 20 years. His VariEze, and follow-on LongEZ were spectacular designs, but a few people built them poorly, died, and Burt was sued. He defended four of five of these lawsuits, and won every one, but decided that there were better ways to spend one's life, and pulled the plans off the market. In something parallel to what will happen here; there are xeroxed versions of the LongEZ plans out there if you really want them, in a samizdat kind of operation. Burt's current company, Scaled Composits continues to build exciting airplanes, but only for the corporate market.

thad

Some Links to DC-X:

• NASA's DC-X history page
• Video of DC-X flights
• The DC-X fuselage builder's page on DC-X

The really sad thing is, we'd likely almost be at the operational SSTO stage now, if we hadn't killed DC-X. . ..

At the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh in 1999 they had the Rutan Proteus aircraft circling the airfield at high altitude and sending near-live video images to a laptop in the NASA exhibit. It wasn't quite high enough resolution to see yourself waving up at the plane, but you could see the larger display aircraft moving around on the ground.

The secret to making it work is the genius of airplane designer Burt Rutan. The Proteus is a bizarre, ungainly looking beast built optimally for long endurance at high altitude. It uses a couple of small, super efficient jet engines from Williams International to power it. Compared to something like a 747, fuel consumption is miniscule.

The mission time is expected to be anywhere from 10 to 14 hours. Two pilots take turns to fly and sleep during the mission. I guess they'll will need some smart software to execute the transmission handover when an aircraft is replaced on station by the next mission. I think they are proposing 6 aircraft per station to maintain continuous coverage.

I'm not sure about the electronics/radio side of things but I guess that the frequency band will need to be one where directional antennas are not required. Having to track a moving aircraft to maintain a connection would be impractical. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't.
But I certainly do not think it is a hoax.

Check It Out!

Burt Rutan, aerodynamics god, of Scaled Composites was talking about this back in 1998. Apparently, Angel Technologies will be using his Proteus reconfigurable aircraft, which apparently designed with the telecomm purpose in mind long before Angel came along.

Sorry about no direct line to Proteus. The site's all gussied up with frames.

Kinda like a jet engine, huh? I wonder why they don't just use those on the shuttle...

The same goes for fully composite aircraft.
Case in point - the Aerotek / Atlas developed 'ACE' all composite turboprop trainer
(very similar to the Pilatus PC9), had an effectively unlimited fatigue life.
Not too common, though, because very few aerospace mfgs are willing to commit to
pure composite airframes - they merely use composite panels on conventional structures
or complete composite components, such as fins, ailerons, etc.
The only others around are homebuilts, and (with all due respect to their builders),
these are not always the best designed or built structures around!

Ah! there is one notable exception I almost missed: See here

Looks almost like they're beating swords into plowshares.

Generally a good thing, IMO.

The RPV is called the "Egret" and was a piece part for a highly sophisticated signal intelligence system that was being developed for NATO during the last part of the Cold War by E-Systems (Now, Raytheon, go figure...) Greenville Division. Since much of that is bust, I could see where they'd like to attempt the use of the non-classified pieces (namely the RPV and the massive wireless communications infrastructure that went with it...) to civillian usages so they can see some of the R&D funds out of the thing.

Well, it's nice to know we got something from all that other than a legacy of fear.

Only drawback to this system that I see is that you'd have to have a fleet of the planes for a given area that are cycling in and out along with several backups.

The plane has flown already, and flew from the US to the Paris Air Show (an 11 hour flight). The idea is that a set of 3 planes can service a metropoliton area in shifts. They fly far above the commercial flight paths, and have enough range that they can use smaller airports on the outskirts of a city. In that, it helps that this plane has been designed by Burt Rutan, the man who designed the first non-stop around the world plane...he knows a few things about saving fuel.

I don't see how practical this would be compared to Iridium or it's competitors- while it'd be cheaper, it's not without it's problems itself.

Well, compared to the expense and hassles of a huge number of rocket launches, sending up one airplane at a time above a major US city is hardly difficult or expensive.

The main advantages of this system compared to LEO:

• 10 to 1000 times closer to the user - less lag.
• Massive amounts of electricity generated by the jet engines allowing very strong signal strength.
• The planes land every 10 to 12 hours, allowing easy repairs and upgrades.
• Service does not require completion of the entire system in order to be useful.

The principle advantage of LEO sats over Angel Halo have not proven to be all that valuable - global coverage. Global in this case means "the 30 or so most heavily populated cities". That is enough for anyone who needs to pop open a laptop and get 2.5 megabit internet access. Because they are most likely to do so in some airport lounge or in an office in some large city.

Iridium failed because some doofus forgot to look at a globe and notice that the Earth is mostly covered with water, and most of the land is empty. Humans are generally huddled in small areas, and fish and penguins don't really need phone service.