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Starchaser Rocket Capsule Drop Tests Successful
thaig writes "Starchaser Industries reports that their NOVA 2 rocket capsule has completed two manned drop-tests from an altitude of 10,000 feet. The capsule was put through a number of manoeuvres during its descent to fully validate the steerable ram-air parachute canopy that made it possible to fly the craft like a glider.
Starchaser Industries' Thunderbird project is a contender for the $10 million X-PRIZE.
Here's the earlier story."
The capsule was put through a number of manoeuvres during its descent to fully validate the steerable ram-air parachute canopy that made it possible to fly the craft like a glider.
What maneuvers is it capable of?
What is a steerable ram-air parachute canopy? How does it work?
How is this better than what has been done before?
How does this contribute to the overall goal of winning the X-Prize?
This sad stub for an article leaves me with much more questions than answers. Can't the editors find a fully fleshed out story or wait for one to be published, rather than linking to things like this?
However, there are other more important things that our government should be spending money upon. Education, health care and welfare programs are all vastly more important than space exploration. Space programs are a luxury, and in these tough economic times its a luxury that Americans should do without.
The fact that this program was successful shows that the private sector can shoulder the spaceflight burden. Hopefully our government will recognize this and begin to shift funding to programs that are more worthy.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
1.) You can get insurance for anything, the Premiums may be a little high though.
2.) They aren't going into orbit so there is no way to get stuck. It's a simple projectile trajectory, up and down like a cannon ball.
3.) That's the point of the X-Prize.
4.) We can only hope!
But remember that Britain was very much the declining power at this time and the labour government was cancelling most areospace projects at the time.
Also remember that the early space programmes were the public face of ICBM programmes. It became clear that trident was going to be our nuclear deterent, so there was little point in continuing the rocketry side of things. The deterent we had in the meantime was characteristicly heath-robinson. I'm a huge fan of the 'delta lady' myself - the vulcan, but they have one of each at Duxford
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Oh...
Those incidents you refer to were all several years ago. Starchaser has definitely improved its reputation since then, for its three recent major accomplishments in the last 24 months have all been positive:
37-ft. Nova rocket blasts off!
Churchill liquid engine test success
Nova II capsule test drop success
The next few months will be very exciting. Starchaser plans to integrate all three of the above accomplishments in one project: the manned launch of the Nova rocket -- outfitted with the new Churchill engines -- carrying the Nova II capsule as payload!
Its typically British that we're the only country that developed a launcher then cancelled it after one sucessful flight.
You may not remember, but Russia did the same with their Buran shuttle (and here are some interesting pictures of the jet-powered prototype almost identical to the one that flew to orbit [except, of course, for the propulsion system]). So they still had / have other means of getting into space - but all the same - it was a lot of effort for nothing.
My money is still on the Rutan boys and their Scaled Composites entry.
:-)
They're the only ones who have shown credible progress in respect to actually getting a craft flying towards the heavens. Most of the other X-Prize entrants are either playing with models or dreaming
I think you mean Polaris, and we already had launched HMS Resolution in 1968. The programme was actually cancelled to try and stem a gaping hole in government spending.
Best wishes,
Mike.