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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."
Go JC go!
1. Build nifty spacecraft for $20,000,000US
2. Maybe win $10,000,000US X-Prize
3. ???
4. Profit!
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
X-Plane v7.0beta has both aircraft (apparently Scaled Composites used it for their simulator)
Memorial day (observed) appears not to be the best time to be serious around here.
That being said, it's nice to see some progress on the X Prize, which is essentially a prize for the first successful civilian reusable space vehicle.
Personally I think the Rutans are going about this the wrong way, but they could still get the prize.
The pluses to the design are the high-altitude launch (elegant), and the low-speed entry (elegant).
The minuses as I see it are the relatively complex design, lack of cargo space, cost, unpowered landing. Oh, and the fact that it is very, very ugly.
A similar re-entry vehicle, but larger with powered maneuverability on re-entry, with a high-altitude balloon as a "first stage" would rock. And be cheaper. I'm not really sure how huge a balloon (hydrogen or helium) would have to be to drag something that big to the requisite altitude, especially if you intended to go beyond 100km. The second stage would be heavier, unless you had a new fuel or more efficient use of the fuel.
Seriously... you go, Burt - and all the other X-Prize teams, too.
On behalf of all of us cubicle-bound geeks looking at the stars, may you all show NASA what teams of dedicated engineers can do if given an environment in which... well, an environment in which dedicated engineers can do what dedicated engineers have always done in such an environment.
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.
Maybe I'm just early here, but it astonishes me that no one has posted a comment, except for trolls and ACs.
It's stuff like this that gives me hope that I'll live long enough to get a trip into space before I die. The government, as it usually does with everything it attempts, seems to have completely screwed up the exploration of space. It's been over 30 years since we sent a human being to another world, for heaven's sake.
I'm writing in Rutan for President in 2004. At least he's actually built something other than a portfolio.
It'll be about private industry until United Spacelines and American Spacelines start losing too much money, and the space-citizens of the United Space-states of Earth have to shell out billions of space-dollars to keep them afloat. I mean, in orbit.
Of course, there's the problem that maybe he can, but nobody else can. This happens. Paul MacReady made human-powered flight work two decades ago. Nobody has done it since. Gregg Williams designed almost all the really small jet aircraft engines - he did his first one in the 1950s, and he designed the engines for cruise missiles, and he's still designing them. One person, Ed Kleinschmidt, designed all the mechanical teletype machines from the 1930s to the last one in the 1970s.
Rutan amazes me.. I mean, he has an interest in aircraft, then goes out and designs builds tons of them, makes a business out of it, sets all sorts of records, and so on. All with sideburns! He rules!
-J
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
Physicsnerd
_______________
"Even logic must give way to physics" - Spock
It's a hybrid: half rocket engine, half rubber band attached to a propeller.
From an article on KMSB-TV This history of space missions has been written with solid- or liquid-fuel rockets. Solid-fuel rockets are simple, reliable and inexpensive, but thrust at only one speed, can't be shut down, and produce toxic exhaust. Liquid-fuel rockets can be throttled to control thrust and turned off and on, but are highly complex and less reliable. Hybrid technology combines the advantages of both types of fuel, but can be made more cheaply and with more environmentally benign materials, said Brad Linenberger, a senior in aerospace and mechanical engineering. "The components themselves are safer, because the solid fuel is basically tire rubber and the liquid fuel is nitrous oxide, which is just laughing gas" liquefied under pressure, Linenberger said. "The stuff they put in solid rockets to keep them burning, you don't want to be inhaling that stuff."
Rutan has a better track record than the rest of the competitors, combined.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
"After experiencing weightlessness at the top of its trajectory, the ship will extend its wings and tail and glide back to the runway that it left 90 minutes earlier."
Okay, so we have a plane with a "spaceship" under it, and we're going to go up real high and then fling it up into what's just barely "space," and watch it fall down. So you'll actually be in "space" for just a few minutes? No orbiting around and trying to see if you can find your house from up there? How much fun is this really, when the majority of your time is spent screaming your head off as you fall back to Earth? Maybe the inflight meal will be really good.
Almost anything will burn if you supply oxygen at a high enough of a concentration/pressure. I remember a college lab were we made a test rocket engine out of a cylinder of acrylic with a hole bored down the center and hooked up to an oxygen tank. I know its sounds odd, but it does work. This seems of be using the same principles with a different fuel/oxidizer.
we need a fuel that can burn more efficently, is lighter and provideds more thrust than current fules out there. that way we can have smallercrafts that might be able to employ an all in one solution with a Ram jet taking it up to high altitueds and speeds then the rocket is lite to take it into orbit...perhaps even a high orbit.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Not quite true: these fuels are used in a hybrid fuel enigine. The benefits are an enigne that isn't very explosive, has easy storage and can be throttled back. Liquid fuel or solid fuel engines don't have both of these properties.
Rubber is used because of it's high carbon content, nitrous oxide is used because it stores easier than liquid oxide.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
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.
The whole idea of the X-Prize is great, and I love what it is going to do to the space travel industry.
:)
The only problem I'm having is figuring out who to root for
The Black Armadillo is definitely starting to take shape, it looks a lot better lately than the first time I remember checking it out. Using an environmentally friendly fuel is brilliant, and possibly my favourite thing about the way Carmack and his crew are going about this project.
The White Knight and SS1 look slick. There's no other word for it. I'd expect to find a ship like that in anime, but not real life!
I hope Armadillo takes the prize money, but I wish (eventual) success to all teams involved.
I firmly believe that getting private citizens/companies into space travel is the best way to get the human race to the next level of space exploration, and I can't wait to see the end results!
Congratulations on all the progress so far guys!
Who is everyone else cheering for?
Build boards not bombs
Jerry Pournelle posted some more photos on his web site a couple days ago: http://jerrypournelle.com/view/view258.html#SS1
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
They meant to put flubber.
Rutan still has some nifty defense dept. contracts. Scaled Composites created the airframe for the Boeing X-45 UCAV, and I'd bet they probably have a hand in a lot of the other UCAV's too. They have more experience than anyone else when it comes to lightweight, composite material aircraft construction.
Rutan has read enough books on aerodynamics.
Actually he has the most impressive track record of any living aircraft designer. Only a few dead people like Toupolev and one of the McDonnel-Douglas guys come close in terms of closeness of the design and concept to a working plane (and the lack of rows of pictures dead test pilots in the briefing room).
It is also not about tourists. All space agencies have no research budget to work on new concepts. They can barely operate what they have got with what they are given. So they are entrenched and new things can come only from small private ventures.
A good example is the launch from floating platforms. The idea has been on the table for ages and still no space agency has made it happen. It took an outsider to break the entrenchment.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
um, what do you think solid rocket fuel (i.e. the stuff used in the space shuttle's booster) is? It's basically rubber with an oxider and some metal powders.
The stuff that reacts with the oxygen in most of these rocket engines is a hydrocarbon: rubber, plastics, asphalt, kerosene, etc.
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.
Okay, so I'm sure it'd probably explode or something. But it'd look cool for a few moments.
Or, at least they should not be.
Darwin's are for people who take questionable actions which the person in question should be able to anticipate the result. Like checking the gas tank at night and lighting a match to see better. Darwins should also extend to people who disregard warnings of danger.
The X-Prize people are knowingly taking a big risk, and are aware of the dangers, and have tried to minimize them. The fatalaties are not going to result from monstously absurd ignorance or stupidity. The errors will be a magnitude or two lower.
If X Prize contenstants are viable Darwin Awards, then so should test pilots, infantry soldiers, and car accident fatalaties.
END COMMUNICATION
Physicsnerd
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"Even logic must give way to physics" - Spock
It is possible to stop all thrust with the solid fuel(HTPB in this case) still in the chamber. All you have to do is shut off the oxidizer. The rubber can't burn, even if it's at temperature without the oxidizer. Infact, hybrids can also be restarted.
physicsnerd
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"Even logic must give way to physics" - Spock
but because of X-Prize pressure, they are scraping that plan for now. John Carmack said in one of his diaries, that if someone else got the X-Prize before AA, then they'd go back to a powered landing (true VTVL SSTO).
-Malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
The first is "Space Propulsion Analysis and Design" by Humble, Henry, and Larson. Chapter 7 is all about hybrids and their characteristics.
The second is "Rocket Propulsion Elements" by Sutton, and Biblarz. Chapter 15 is on hybrids.
Physicsnerd
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"Even logic must give way to physics"
Just in the interest of accuracy, it is worth noting that at least one X-prize team thinks that balloon launch platforms will be reusable:
IL Aerospace Technologies
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
After reading on Armadillo's plane for trying to win the X-Prize, I think I'll pass on this idea, too.
What happens if ALL the parachutes fail, something that is not impossible? The resulting landing would kill the pilot and two passengers almost instantly from the impact forces.
At least with Rutan's White Knight/SpaceShip One combination, SpaceShip One will fly a fairly benign flight regime, and the vehicle will glide to a safe horizontal landing between Mojave Aiport and those big dry lake beds at Edwards AFB. And Rutan has carefully studied how the X-15 did its re-entry after its high-altitude flights and designed SpaceShip One to handle safely in the re-entry phase.
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.
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