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The Rutan SpaceShipOne Revealed
smartalix writes "Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, announced that they have been developing a commercial manned space program in secret for the past two years. The system consists of a carrier vehicle called the White Knight and a piggyback (actually underslung) orbital spaceplane called SpaceShipOne. My money is on this effort capturing the X Prize." Well, it's pretty, whatever it is. Space.com has a story with pictures for those of you who weren't quick enough to hit scaled.com before it melted.
Did you miss the fact these ARE full scale?
Essentially Rutan is going 'Look at what I built, we're going to launch this for the X-Prize and none of you can HOPE to catch up'
The only things they have left are flight tests with the rocket suite. The White Knight is working and has flown some test flights... It's the SS1 that need some flight time before the X-Prize attempt.
It'll be interesting to see what XCor does in response to this.
You probably said that nobody could fly around the world on a tank of gas, too.
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
From the XPrize site:
- able to carry three people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles)
- Returns safely to Earth (duh)
- Repeats the launch with the same ship within 2 weeks
While the article notes a higher performance level:a three-person single-stage fully reusable spaceship up to 112 miles (180 kilometers), giving those onboard some five minutes of microgravity. In addition, two-stage expendable boosters could be lobbed skyward from the aircraft, placing micro-satellite payloads of up to 80 pounds (36 kilograms) into low Earth orbit.
So we're talking about a total 700 pound payload including crew, capable of traveling to low earth orbit, where many satellites travel. I wonder if you exchanged a crewman and the microsattelite payload, you might have enough fuel to de-orbit with a satellite (though you'd have to have a bay large enough to take it).
If nothing else, I can see a satellite repair / refueling service come out of this in no time. Seems like the next step is to deploy a ferry to LEO that can truck the payload to GEO and beyond.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Burt's designs have always been a bit bizare looking especial when viewed on the ground. Remember that he designs flying amchine and they fly like a dream. This guy builds machines with little regard for what's conventional, and great regard for what's functional
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
While I realize that a paint job can cover many ills, it does appear that Rutan is significantly farther along in constructing his X-Prize vehicle than Carmack.
Comparing pictures, you see:
Armadillo Aerospace Launch Vehicle
vs.
Scaled Composites aircraft and drop ship
Perhaps one of the issues is that Armadillo publishes their status (and myriad problems) openly (see the latest update for example). No one knows what issues Scaled Composites has had as they worked in secret, but it's easy to feel like Rutan's running a professional company while Carmack is leading a group of (brilliant, talented) hobbyists.
I'd be interested in hearing Armadillo/Carmack's perspective on the competitive landscape, now that this new player has made an announcement.
The 3/4 front view that's posted in the article appears to have a real "not-for-flight" mockup nozzle, but the shape and color are different than the rear-view photos. The rocket nozzles in the rear-view shots have clear cut-and-paste artifacts around them.
It's arguably OK to have a mockup nozzle -- it's a longstanding convention that red "not-for-flight" mockup parts get put on during construction and design, and there's no reason to have the real rocket motor on the device for an aerodynamic flight test. But photoshopping a more realistic nozzle is not OK.
Burt, burt, burt -- don't blow it like that!
Hold on there, skippy.
Overpriced comes from poor cost control, not poor design.
Noisy slow fuel hog comes from poor engine design and selection.
The Starship was a great design that turned into a mediocre aircraft. Burt Rutan has a long history of brilliant, successful aircraft designs.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
You didn't even make a cursory inspection of the article, did you? Neither did your bone-head mods.
The man said that this was "flight hardware". That means it's the actual vehicle that is going to do the mission.
He said he wasn't soliciting money.
It's still undergoing flight tests, but they're full-up hardware in the loop tests. Rutan is not going to make an X-Prize attempt before he's actually done it successfully more than once outside the scrutiny of the public (and the judges).
It's a PR stunt, yes...but for somebody who actually knows something about things that go up in the air (that'd be me) it's pretty fucking impressive.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
In a perfect world, yes.
In the real world, when Congress tells NASA that due to the availability of a $10M launch platform, (as opposed to the $500M Shuttle) that NASA's launch budget is being cut by 98%, NASA cares very much.
In the real real world, when $CONTRACTOR tells $LOBBYIST to tell $CONGRESSMAN that the existence of a $10M launch platform threatens $100M per year of funding for jobs in his district, Rutan has to be very careful. Not so much of NASA, or evil Men-In-Black conspiracy theories, but of the FAA and other legal roadblocks that Congress can put up to stop him in order to keep the pr0k a flowin'.
Canard aircraft are, in principle, more efficient than conventional aircraft.
In a conventional layout, the horizontal tail generates lift in the downward direction, to balance the center of gravity, which for stability reasons is located ahead of the lift vector of the main wing. Therefore, the main wing must generate enough lift to carry the aircraft, and enough lift to offset the downward force from the tail. This extra lift also creates extra induced drag. (Any time you create lift, you also create drag. No getting around it.)
Since the canard locates lifting surfaces at either end of the airplane, with the CG in the middle, both surfaces can generate lift in the upward direction. Less lift overall is required.
Properly designed canard aircraft are also extremely resistant to stalling. Since the canard is typically shorter in chord than the main wing, it will stall first and bring the nose of the airplane down.
Rutan has built two aircraft that have been resounding public successes (the Vari-EX homebuilt and its derivatives and the Voyager), and numerous military prototypes. Just for fun, he designed his personal aircraft (the Boomerang) to be completely asymmetrical.
The thing that I love about aero. engineering is that aircraft that are properly designed also, by virtue of the laws of nature that drive their shape, have an aesthetic sensibility to them. So, in that sense, it IS about the thing being pretty. Obviously, there's more to it than that, but there is a fundamental aesthetic to good aerodynamic design.
Rutan also has a history of extreme lateral thinking when solving aerodynamic problems. Unlike most designers, he throws the history book out the window when he builds a new airplane, and he often comes up with insightful and clever new layouts in the process.
The Pond Racer was another favorite of mine, but its engines were problematic. Unfortunately, it crashed in 1993, killing its pilot. Air racing is dangerous.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!