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Armadillo Aero One Step Closer To Space

Posted by timothy on from the junior-birdman dept.

RobertB-DC writes "The folks at Armadillo Aerospace have taken another step toward the X-Prize, dropping their re-entry vehicle from 2000 feet with no major problems noted. As usual, the Armadillo crew documented the event with text, pictures and video, and the story is also covered by Space.com (though without as many cool technical details). It's a bumpy ride, though -- instruments recorded some 10 G's on touchdown."

3 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Something just occurred to me by RocketScientist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    (extremely off-topic reply follows) Governments aren't under pressure to reduce spending. Governments are under presure to increase spending to things like invading other countries, giving money and food to people who don't work, figuring out new and different ways to screw citizens out of natural resources, "saving the environment", and studies to make sure that we're all aware that drinking beer is bad for us. So they have to simultaneously tax the crap out of anybody that makes money and cut a lot of things that are really worthwhile, like pure research and rocket science.

    Private enterprise really is the best way to get to space. I just hope when they colonize mars they remember exactly why a government that that could get to the moon can't even reliably send people into orbit and bring them back anymore, and set up their government with the additional checks and balances to keep from repeating those mistakes.

    I'm not bitter or anything though. Just because it's right after the end of a quarter and all.

  2. Re:You're absolutely right. by RedWizzard · · Score: 4, Insightful
    but no one is going to catch up with Rutan's design
    No one outside of Rutan's organisation really knows how far advanced Rutan's project is, so it's a bit hard to say if he's in the lead or not. Certainly when it was first announced and the website went up there were several pictures that had been doctored to make it look like things where more advanced than they actually were. Rutan lost some credibility in my eyes with that.
  3. as the old saying goes... by SuperBanana · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It could be a very smooth, fast drop.

    As the old saying goes about leaping off a bridge, it's not the trip down that sucks- it's the ending.

    The joke among some pilots, after a hard landing, is the term "unintentional ground contact."

    --
    Please help metamoderate.