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Flight Testing Of Burt Rutan's X Prize Entry
evenprime writes "The X Prize website is reporting that
Burt Rutan's company Scaled Composites did some
flight testing on their SpaceShipOne/White Knight launch platform on May 19, 2003. Next up:
drop tests. There's also a nice
write-up at the BBC website."
You forgot the details:
3a) Take passengers for $50k rides.
3b) Licence technology
3c) Sell space planes for $5m.
-aiabx
Just this guy, you know?
What a great thing, the X-Prize. Space flight will eventually be dominated by private enterprise anyway, and this accelerates it. I think it's important as a way to get younger generations excited about the future in the same way past generations were in the early days of space programs.
If not the Darwin Award the runner-ups will surely get worse, Aviation (or space travel depending on how you look at it) obscurity. Who remember's, without googling, other aviators that were competing against Linberg for the first non stop transatlantic flight.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Rutan has a better track record than the rest of the competitors, combined.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Complex design? Airborne launch is well-proven technology. The spacecraft is very cleverly and elegantly designed. The vehicle has enough "cargo" space to carry three people. Or two people and 200lbs of cargo. It carries a lot more than my Miata, and my Miata is a damn useful vehicle. Although I don't want to hold up the Shuttle as a great design, it obviously does fine with unpowered landing. Carrying fuel for re-entry and landing is insanely expensive in terms of weight and vehicle size. Unless there's something mission critical that requires fuel during the landing evolution, you /really/ don't want to waste weight with it.
What do you base your cost estimates on?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The Darwin awards are about people killing themselves in a manner of utter stupidity and negligence to their own lives. The assumtion being that in doing so they better the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool. Those competing for the X Prize are far different, taking the utmost precaution in ensure the safty of the test pilots. This also isn't a life or death game. It's a race, and though more dangerous than most everyone still has the ability to cross the finish line, only the one to does it first wins the prize.
Besides, the White Night is also the trainer for the spacecraft. Yep, you heard me, they load a profile on computer in the WN and it flies the same as the spacecraft! Double duty saving lots of money.
Big. The math isn't that hard for a rough but trust me, big. and expensive. And non-reusable. And a hazard afterwords. Yeah, well now that you've pretty much trashed all the other engineering now you want, what, super rockets? Sure, we'll just use the ones off your Voltron doll...How about just come out with it and admit you want Star Trek teleporters, forget this nasty uncomfortable dangerous test vehicle stuff? Hell I bet the thing doesn't even have in-flight service with a decent bar cart!
Frankly you come off as the the exact sort of useless US holiday poster you mention. Lots of inane second guessing, apparently no homework before reading one article, coming up with ridiculous requirements: Cargo? For a test vehicle? Meeting X-Prize criteria? Have you EVER been around ANY sort of engineering project?
Score you -3 for silly whiner.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
--
Power to the Peaceful
To be fair, it does have a parachute as well, it's just that even with a parachute you tend to be going at a reasonable speed (say, 20mph or so) when you land. This is why all the Apollo space capsules landed down in water.
I think the crushable nose is a good idea to soften the landing, if you're going to be landing on land.
That is called proof of concept silly.
And the interesting bit conceptually is not the spaceship. It is the White Knight.
Multiple attempts have been made in the past to use planes as a launch platform. Most have gone nowhere because a general purpose plane cannot reach altitude and or speed to replace a proper stage 1 rocket.
Only exemption seemed to be a project to use russian backfire class supersonic bombers and the second stage of some american missile (forgot which one). Unfortunately it died off due to lack of funding, agreement, etc. Otherwise it had a chance as the backfire has both the thrust and operating ceiling to do this.
Anyway, the backfire project is apparently dead. So this seems to be the only game in town in terms of proving that the 60 years old "rocket on top of a rocket" design can now be abandoned in favour of something more environmentally and economically sound.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
My only disagreement is with "Rutan for president". It's an insult to this great man to lump him in with an organization, government, whose whole existence is predicated on force and which can only fund itself by theft.
To the contrary it's the efforts of Mr Rutan and others like him which will finally put our species out of the reach of government.
And pounds you put in for aero engines is that much less weight you can carry to orbit (or edge of space, as is the case here). For small craft, putting in a single aero engine would mean ditching the crew and all their luggage entirely.
-
What happens if the wings break off?
It's always possible to have a mission-failure point in a design. Good engineers identify those points, and design redundancies and fail-safes. That's why we pay engineers lots of money.
I hope. Anybody want to hire me? : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!