FAA Grants Sub-Orbital License to SpaceShipOne

abucior writes "The FAA announced today that Scaled Composites has been granted a launch licence for a series of sub-orbital flights over a one-year period for Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. Is X Prize finally entering the end-game? Space.com has more information on the move."

Comments

eek

[iosmart]

While the highest criteria to issue a
license is public safety, applicants
must undergo an extensive pre-
application process, demonstrate
adequate financial responsibility to
cover any potential losses, and meet
strict environmental requirements.</I>

this might put a lot of people outta the runnings

Re:eek

[simcop2387]

only if they launch out of the US (which i believe most of them actually are... correct me if i'm wrong) but i'm betting that if they need to all they have to do is make it to international waters, right where they held the secratariat v. tadum fight anyway

Re:eek

[AndroidCat]

demonstrate adequate financial responsibility to cover any potential losses

Can you imagine the call to the insurance company to get a policy? I don't think "saving a bundle" is one of the options.

Re:eek

[in7ane]

Potential financial liability is likely to be covered by insurance (which will be costly no doubt), which anything that can reasonably be expected to fly and has adequate funding to get it to outer space should be able to afford.

Keep in mind that stuff like this will not be launched form populated areas (deserts, etc. probably) so any liability only comes in if it can make it far enough to hit something, which in itself is a sign that it has potential, and so is more likely to be sufficiently safe. Think of it this way: conditional on it being able to make it as far as a populated area the probability that it will crash it low.

Re:eek

[DerekLyons]

While the highest criteria to issue a license is public safety, applicants must undergo an extensive pre-application process, demonstrate adequate financial responsibility to cover any potential losses, and meet strict environmental requirements.

this might put a lot of people outta the runnings

And frankly, that's a Good Thing. While I applaud and encourage the small company and backyard inventor, they should not be allowed to endanger the public any more than the big companies should. (In theory all are equal before the law, but sadly the size of the bankroll sometimes tips the scales a bit.)

In addition, if the thing isn't safe enough to test without endangering the public, it's nowhere safe enough to fly in actual service. The thousands of homebuilt and homebrewed aircraft flying legally every day shows that safety and experiments are not mutually exclusive requirements.

Re:eek

[Anonymous Coward]

not necessarily - friends of mine got one for a CATs prize launch a few years back (the first one ever for a non-govt launch site.

The paperwork sucks - and you have to calculate how many people you will kill (statistically) and show yopur reasoning - I think in their case it was 0.00000001 people - that's what you have to get insurance on ....

Re:eek

[Anonymous Coward]

The key legal principle is that licenses are only needed if you're doing something that's otherwise illegal. Launching rockets into space isn't illegal, so a license is quite unnecessary. In countries with restricted freedoms (eg. US of A) the opposite might be true, however.. haven't looked into that one.

Good luck to Rutan with getting into orbit :)

Re:eek

[Seahawk91]

I am not sure about definitions of "the public." If a currntt version of a V-2 Rocket explodes at 40k, no one dies. If the nuclear powered rockets (requires other licenses, and friends, than FAA) explodes on take off, maybe a few thousand die. I said the last for effect since the public is definately a few billion.

If we report a few thousand deaths, it is a statistic, but one death is a tragedy. Defining the "Public" has too much sound bite.

Re:eek

[weglian]

The insurance requirement is set by determining the Maximum Probable Loss (MPL). AST (the office of the FAA that licenses the launch) determines what the worst accident that has a 1 in 10,000,000 probability is, and sets the insurance requirement based on that accident. It is capped by Congress at $500M. Most are in the $100M - $250M range. The less likely you are to kill anyone (not associated with the launch - it doesn't include your own people), the less iunsurance you need.

Re:eek

[Anonymous Coward]

The moderators haven't had their coffee yet...
The parent isn't Insightful... it's FUNNY

Awesome

[TheKidWho]

At least the government isnt getting in the way. Im for one am glad to see the X-Prize might actually have a chance of revolutionizing the space industry!

Re:Awesome

[Fuzzy]

My bet is that this is the first of MANY applications that the "government" will approve. Space belongs to those who are willing/able to go there!

The Moon, the planets, and the great unknown beyond should not be 'owned" by a government. Like the unexplored world that existed in the 1400's, they should belong to those willing to make the sacrifices, and devote the resources to explore and colonize the unknown!

My bet is that the "governments" of the world will get out of the way and allow the exploration and colonization of the known and unknown universe. To do otherwise implies a vision and long range planning capability that does currently exist in ANY govenment that I know of.

Space, like the "old West" of the US [my appologies to the Native Americans], belongs to those who are willing to go there!

John [looking for Ringworld] Miller

Re:Awesome

[dspeyer]

Why does everyne think the X-prize will revolutionize space?

Just because someone's doing something for money they will necessarily do it well. Microsoft does stuff for money. It's not like the X-prize will turn space into a real industry -- real industries aren't dependant on private philanthropy.

I'm all for throwing more resources into spaceflight, but having many small teams keeping secrets from eachother doesn't sound like a big improvement on having a few large teams that work together. Having many small teams that work together might be better still, but probably not by much. Remember, improvements in spaceflight will be built by engineers -- no one else. If the engineers are serious about what they do (and any who revolutionize spaceflight would have to be) then they'll concentrate on the problem at hand and ignore where their funding comes from, be it government, corporate, private, academic or bank fraud.

It seems to be an article of faith among many slashdotters that anything the government does it will automatically mess up. It might be worth remembering that all achievements in space flight so far have been government-funded, and that the so-called commercial airlines exist only because of government supsidies.

Re:Awesome

[gfody]

I'm all for throwing more resources into spaceflight, but having many small teams keeping secrets from eachother doesn't sound like a big improvement on having a few large teams that work together.

You don't know much about engineering do you? The more people that work together, the less likely it is that anything gets accomplished. Read up on competitive learning, competition in general and its role in society. Then think about where we would be today if nobody had a competitive spirit and just shared secrets with eachother.

Re:Awesome

[dspeyer]

If everyone shared secrets with eachother....

That's how the internet was built, wasn't it? All the protocols and theory and even source code getting passed freely from person to person. I'd say the internet is one of the greatest engineering achievements of the twentieth century.

Every field of science has journals in which researchers publish results. Do you think those should be abolished?

It's not that there was no competition is these examples, it's just that it took a different form. It recognized that even as we struggle for glory or whatever, we're still ultimately on the same side. So we support eachother, and we try to out-achieve eachother, and so long as everyone plays fair, we get the best of both worlds.

Sorry if this rambles -- I really need sleep.

Re:Awesome

[JesseL]

You actually believe that governments will simly 'get out of the way' of anything just because it's the right thing to do? When was the last time any government failed to attempt to grasp somthing just because it was beyond their competency to to anything with it? Governments exist to perpetuate themselves and are terrified by the idea of people being able to slip comletely beond their reach.

I do believe that ulitimatley space will belong to those who go there, but no government will let them go without a fight.

Re:Awesome

[zero_offset]

Why does everyne think the X-prize will revolutionize space?
Just because someone's doing something for money they will necessarily do it well.

The X-prize itself won't revolutionize space and none of the realistic contenders are doing it just for the X-prize money. The X-prize money is a drop in the bucket compared to the costs of actually winning the prize. The X-prize is useful because it provides a goal for companies and people already interested in doing this.

These people and companies generally are doing it with eventual profit in mind. Because this is such a difficult thing to do, in order to do it at all, let alone make it profitable, they WILL necessarily do it well -- they MUST, otherwise they will fail.

If the engineers are serious about what they do ... then they'll concentrate on the problem at hand and ignore where their funding comes from

How do you know this isn't already the case with the X-prize competitor's engineers?

It seems to be an article of faith among many slashdotters that anything the government does it will automatically mess up. It might be worth remembering that all achievements in space flight so far have been government-funded, and that the so-called commercial airlines exist only because of government supsidies.

Actually, it is an article of faith that the private sector can probably do anything the government does BETTER. That doesn't mean the government messes it up. That also doesn't mean those things are always necessarily worth doing in the private sector.

The expense of getting started in space flight, particularly in the past, practically guarantees it could only be done with the massive financial resources a government is able to muster. The X-prize exists because that is no longer the case -- it is finally realistic to expect private parties to be able to tackle these problems without government funding. Comparing this to government airline subsidies is inaccurate. You should compare it to early aircraft development (which was almost exclusively a government-funded affair) to modern aircraft development (which is now privately addressed by a huge number of companies -- like Rutan's, not surprisingly).

Re:Awesome

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Why does everyne think the X-prize will revolutionize space?

Just because someone's doing something for money they will necessarily do it well. Microsoft does stuff for money.

Well you've just answered your own question. Like it or not, Microsoft did revolutionize software: they provided a common platform and a consistent interface at a relatively low cost and so enabled businesses the world over to automate.
Whether you like the actual product/quality/lack thereof/ or not is a separate issue.

Re:Awesome

[godefroi]

The government isn't trying to keep you from getting into space or to the moon. They're trying to keep you from crashing your ill-conceived tank full of explosive fuel into MY house!

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

The Moon, the planets, and the great unknown beyond should not be 'owned" by a government. Like the unexplored world that existed in the 1400's, they should belong to those willing to make the sacrifices, and devote the resources to explore and colonize the unknown!

Except... The New World wasn't settled, explored, or conquered by those people. In almost every instance either a govement or a corporation paved the way.

what happens?

[hellmarch]

what happens if i were to build a big rocket and launch myself into space without telling anyone? would i get shot down by the military when they pick me up on radar?

Re:what happens?

[TheKidWho]

Only if the ICBMs could hit you.

Re:what happens?

[Jjeff1]

After reading about the problems Carmack and Armadillo Aerospace encountered trying to get H2O2, I don't think you'd be able to get enough fuel or parts to build anything un-noticed.

Re:what happens?

[OtakuHawk]

well... maybe. but not in any REASONABLE amount of time. And a lot of lieing.

Re:what happens?

[Richthofen80]

No. after you came down, you'd be fined by the FAA.

Remember that story about the guy who rode a lawn chair with weather balloons into the sky? He was fined something like $4000 for his unauthorized flight. I think they'd hardly take military action, and they could hardly intercept in the time the flight would take place. (from what I've read all these X-Prize style trips would be less than thirty minutes, I could be wrong)

Anyways, I'm glad the FAA did this. Go SpaceShipOne!

Re:what happens?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in the USA do they fire an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile at a aircraft.

Re:what happens?

[El Cubano]

No. after you came down, you'd be fined by the FAA.

No disrespect to the FAA, but shouldn't something like this that potentially affects other countries involve the ICAO or another internationally recognized body?

Please, no flames. I am American and am in no way saying that we should subordinate to others. But something that could impact others really should involve those others. Really, anything (especially not military) approaching orbital altitudes should not be done unilaterally.

Re:what happens?

[the pickle]

This happened pretty recently in Colorado, too. Some genius in a hot-air balloon decided it would be fun to try to set an altitude record without bothering to tell the FAA he would be drifting through Denver International Airport restricted airspace.

Assuming you (grandparent poster) *had* a pilot's licence that would make it legal for you to operate a manned rocket, you *wouldn't* have it after you got done with that little stunt.

p

Re:what happens?

[Guppy06]

"Remember that story about the guy who rode a lawn chair with weather balloons into the sky?"

A guy with balloons tied to his lawn chair wouldn't have a ballistic flightpath and wouldn't reach altitudes that would get NORAD's attention.

On the other hand, you should be able to land relatively alright so long as NMD hasn't been finished yet.

Re:what happens?

[voidptr]

We're talking about a flight soley in US airspace, which extends up to the orbital threshold, even if we don't routinely send aircraft that high right now. Why would it be in international jurisdiction?

Re:what happens?

[VikingBrad]

They even made a movie inspired by it

Danny Deckchair

Cheers
VikingBrad

Re:what happens?

[ErikZ]

Well then, the solution is obvious. Don't come down.

Re:what happens?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Depends what you use for fuel. LOX and petrol can be used; and neither are tightly controlled.

Re:what happens?

[Penguinshit]

Uh, I think you mean SAM.

SAM == Surface to Air Missile

ICBM == InterContinential Ballistic Missile

SAMs are used to shoot down aircraft. ICBMs are used to melt down cities.

Re:what happens?

[JesseL]

Scaled Composites is using rubber and nitrous oxide. AFAIK neither of those is controlled at all (nobody ever asked me for i.d. buying N2O).

Re:what happens?

[zero_offset]

and they could hardly intercept in the time the flight would take place

You must have never seen military jets scramble.

When I was a kid, we lived on base only a few hundred yards off (and well below) the end of the runways in Iceland. Every few days the Russians would send Bears towards or into Icelandic airspace to test our response time. My father worked in Air Ops so I heard about this all the time. Once the USAF post at Hofn had a positive ID, it was only about three minutes before a pair of F4's were airborne, and they usually intercepted the bombers well off the eastern cost (the opposite side of Iceland, which is about 220 miles wide) in about 15 minutes.

And that was in 1979. A half-hour would be more than enough time to get planes in the air and take out a target within a few hundred miles of the base in question.

Re:what happens?

[ultranova]

SAMs are used to shoot down aircraft. ICBMs are used to melt down cities.

Acutally, the difference between a SAM and an ICBM is that SAMs fly in atmosphere and ICBM fly outside atmosphere at least part of their journey.

SAMs usually have relatively small warheads, because it would be unwise to launch a nuclear weapon on an aircraft that's passing right above. On the other hand, it would be wastefull to use an ICBM to deliver a small chemical warhead, so they usually carry nuclear weapons.

Anyway, if you want to shoot a spaceship that's in space, you use an ICBM; a SAM will be useless unless the ship descends to atmosphere.

Re:what happens?

[Anti_Climax]

IIRC, he managed to drift into the flight path of commercial air traffic, which is what got him fined.

Re:what happens?

[Omega Leader-(P12)]

Many SAMs from the late 50's (ie. the Bomarc) used nuclear warheads. They were desinged to airburst over soviet bomber formations because the targeting wasn't good enough to ensure a hit.

A nuclear warhead doesn't indicate something is an ICBM. It is the maximum range that determines it.

Re:what happens?

[Jackal82277]

Well, if you were smart enough to get about 100 tons of liquid nitrogen and enough Titanium to build even a small rocket, you would need to also build a ship large enough to carry your rocket out to sea so that you were not in any one countries air space when you took off. If you some how pulled all of these amazing feats off you would be save. But if you tried to make an unscheduled launch from your backyard missile silo, well that might be a little trickier. Once you hit the radar and the satellite pick you up in this country, you will also be picked up by satellites in other countries. And that's when the shit hits the fan. Imagine you are some Russian satellite tech who gets paid $250 a week at most to stair at that computer screen and look at stupid blips. Suddenly you see a blip that is moving fast enough to be a rocket, you look at the schedule and see no launches are scheduled any where in the word today. You shit yourself and pick up the phone and call the general. As you wait for the General to put his pants back on and kick the whore out of his office you decide to calculate the trajectory of the "blip" that made you shit your pants. You see that this blip is moving fast enough to be an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, but you notice that the angle of the blip is one that would place it in space. As you sit down, in shock you suddenly remember you shit your pants for one but that you have to tell some drunk, blue ball'ed general that there is a missile that is heading for space from the United States, which was unannounced and has the trajectory of being in orbit around the planet. (which for all stupid bastards reading this means that "missile" could drop any where on the planter in like a half an hour. So, I don't think you would have to worry about being shot down by our country, but I do think you would have to worry about every other Nuclear Country going to their versions of DEFCON 2, Ya I do. And that shit my friend is not cool.

Re:what happens?

[syukton]

You're assuming that a conventional fuel or launch system would be used.

If you had a way to get into orbit with little to no fuel expenditure, you would barely need to take more fuel with you than you'd need to nudge yourself into a decaying orbit and start falling back to earth. A squirt gun filled with water might be enough for that.

A good thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate and private interest in space is always a good thing. The driving force behind alot of innovation in the last half of the 20th century has been, for better or worse, corporate greed. Innovation in space travel is A GOOD THING, and so this IS A GOOD THING.

Re:A good thing.

[benna]

I do not believe anyone was argueing otherwise.

Re:A good thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

SHUT UP THIS IS A GOOD THING!

Check the approval date!

[RobertB-DC]

Interesting difference in dates:

Press Release
Contact: Henry J. Price
Date Posted: April 7, 2004

But further down:

The license was issued April 1 by the
Federal Aviation Administration's
Office of Commercial Space
Transportation to Scaled Composites of
Mojave, Calif., headed by aviation
record-holder Burt Rutan, for a
sequence of sub-orbital flights
spanning a one-year period.

As fun as it is to slam "the government", somebody was very much on the ball to realize that it would be a bad idea to release this news on April Fool's Day!

Re:Check the approval date!

[Anonymous Coward]

As fun as it is to slam "the government", somebody was very much on the ball to realize that it would be a bad idea to release this news on April Fool's Day!

More likely that the government - working with maximum efficiency on this exciting news - takes 7 days to write, approve and issue a press release.

:)

License Requirements

[mauthbaux]

I was kinda wondering; what are the requirements for a launch licence for a series of sub-orbital flights over a one-year period? Other than the obvious: being able to get it up that high, and promising not to mess with anything on the way there and back.

Re:License Requirements

[Lazyhound]

You have to be able to sing "Rocket Man" from memory.

Re:License Requirements

[fucksl4shd0t]

You have to be able to sing "Rocket Man" from memory.

So does William Shatner have such a license, then?

Re:License Requirements

[sjb21043]

Actually, I had the same thought, but from the other angle...

Is there really a law somewhere that says "thou shalt not boost anything into sub-orbital flight without a license"? And who enforces it? And what's the penalty for sub-orbital flight without a license?

Re:License Requirements

[No. 24601]

So does William Shatner have such a license, then?

The man says you gotta be able to sing... what part of that do you not understand?

Re:License Requirements

[fucksl4shd0t]

The man says you gotta be able to sing... what part of that do you not understand?

William Shatner did sing Rocket Man! The best he could, mind you. I didn't say it was any good.... I wonder if whoever gave me a +1, Funny saw the same tape I saw. ;)

Re:License Requirements

[zero_offset]

Yes, the FAA enforces it, and the penalty is a big juicy fine. The reason is to ensure you know the rules and that you can afford the consequences if you do something dumb like (to oversimplify it) take out an airliner on the way up, or crash land into something expensive on the way down.

Re:License Requirements

[weglian]

There are many requirements, but it boils down to a few big parts: You must be able to complete the launch through landing with a risk to the uninvolved public (you can kill yourself) of less than or equal to 30 in a million. You must have financial responsibility (e.g. insurance) in an amount set by the FAA (AST - Commercial Space Transportation) based on the worst accident with a 1 in 10 million chance of occurring (capped at $500M) You must undergo an environmental review since the license is a "Major Federal Action" and therefore subject to NEPA. This takes a long time and costs a lot of money. For an RLV (Reusable Launch Vehicle), you must use a "System Safety Process" to ensure safety. And you have to convince AST that it is sufficient. Expendable Launch Vehicle (ELVs) typically have to be able to blow up the vehicle if it goes off course, but vehilces with pilots don't really want to do that for some reason...

Re:License Requirements

[RobertB-DC]

You have to be able to sing "Rocket Man" from memory.

I would have thought that "Major Tom" would have been more apropos...

Ground control to Major Tom:
Your circuit's dead, there's something wong.
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you ... Here am I floating round my tin can, far above the moon
Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do...

Re:License Requirements

[Thing 1]

One of the most obscure lyrics of all time: "Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone."

Re:License Requirements

[cybercuzco]

I always thought that lyric was "burning out his fuse at perihelion" which woudl make more sense, what with him being a rocketman and all

Re:License Requirements

[Thing 1]

Too many syllables. Anyway I *never* figured it out; I got it from googling "lyrics elton john rocket man", and it seems to fit.

Re:Crock of Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah anybody should be able to fly wherever they want. It's our air, too. Who cares if a few they cross through flight paths. What's a few near misses amongst friends.

Dumbass.

Kinda Disappointed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of all the current XPrize real entries, I was kinda hoping some of the others (like Armordillo Aerospace, or the Canadians with the improved V2) had made it this far first...

Lets face it Scaled Composites and Burt Rutan have got a TONNE of cash and resources, unlike most companies competing...

Re:Kinda Disappointed...

[codegen]

There are. There was a recent slashdot story about the da vinci group. They are about to announce thier launch date and are in the final stages of approval from Transport Canada. The launch site is only a couple of hundred miles from where I grew up (very close in Canadian terms).

Come on

[seanmcelroy]

I heard this story on NPR driving home just a few hours ago. They headlined it as "bringing space flight into the reach of ordinary Americans". Come on... considering raw costs alone, it'll be decades before 'ordinary Americans' can afford this kind of luxury travel.

(Especially if they're all out of work because their jobs went overseas! ;P jk)

Re:Come on

[Coryoth]

I heard this story on NPR driving home just a few hours ago. They headlined it as "bringing space flight into the reach of ordinary Americans". Come on... considering raw costs alone, it'll be decades before 'ordinary Americans' can afford this kind of luxury travel.

You might be surprised. One of the main points of the X-Prize is not that it is done by private companies instead of the government, but rather that the craft be highly reusable. You can only change 10% of the non fuel mass of the craft between the 2 launches required to claim the X-Prize, and those 2 launches have to have a quick turnaround time (matter of weeks).

Basically that means once you've built a winning X-Prize craft, the only real relaunch costs are fuel. Compare that to the massive cost of each shuttle launch (between 3 and 5 hundred million dollars per launch), and you're talking about reduing launch costs by a factor of 100 or more.

If they can pull that off, I suspect they can quickly get plenty of funding to push the technology further and make it more efficient. I really do believe basic space travel could be affordable by ordinary Americans (expensive, yes, but affordable) inside of a decade - 2 at the most.

Don't underestimate what a leap an efficiency the X-Prize represents.

Jedidiah.

Re:Come on

[fucksl4shd0t]

Don't underestimate what a leap an efficiency the X-Prize represents.

Not that I disagree with you, just keep one foot in the part of reality that remembers that X-prize isn't going to LEO, and isn't even getting close to LEO. Unless you hit LEO, your reusable spacecraft is just a great ride. :)

Don't get me wrong, though. After they've hit the low target they've set with the reusable requirements they've got I expect the design to be pushed to LEO pretty quickly, pretty much as soon as it gets covered up with funding from both the X-prize itself and all the VCs and other investors that learn by virtue of the X-prize that you have a viable technology.

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

Basically that means once you've built a winning X-Prize craft, the only real relaunch costs are fuel. Compare that to the massive cost of each shuttle launch (between 3 and 5 hundred million dollars per launch), and you're talking about reduing launch costs by a factor of 100 or more.

You are also reducing the capabilities you get for your money by a thousand times or more. The Shuttle is orbital (with all the problems that all orbital craft have), an X-prize vehicle is suborbital. The Shuttle has 60,000lbs of cargo capacity and up to 9 passengers/crew, an X-prize vehicle has essentially no cargo capacity and up to 4 passengers/crew.

Not to mention the fact that the Shuttle launch costs you note covers more than fuel, it also covers all the maintenance, prepation, testing, etc. that a craft in service must have, while a vehicle that only has to fly twice can get away with far, far less infrastructure. (The key to reducing costs isn't reducing vehicle costs as many believe, but in flying the hell out of the vehicle and spreading the costs across many vehicles and flights. Ask the airlines.)

Don't underestimate what a leap an efficiency the X-Prize represents.

Don't overestimate it either. The X-Prize vehicles are highly specialized test and experimental vehicles, it's a long leap from there to vehicles capable of routine operations. (Not just in general concept, but in raw performance.) Consider the long step between the Wright Flyer and the Ford Tri-Motor or the DC-3. That's how far the X-prize vehicles are from useful and cheap space transports.

Re:Come on

[extra the woos]

"Consider the long step between the Wright Flyer and the Ford Tri-Motor or the DC-3. That's how far the X-prize vehicles are from useful and cheap space transports."

That's what excites me. Look at how cheap and safe air travel is now. Wright brother's flight was in 1903, right? In less than 20 years you had airplanes EVERYWHERE. In less than 40 years there were jets. (July '42 for the first real jet fighter, yes yes I know there were actually jet engines in the 30's but come on).

Today, 100 years later, I can buy an airplane ticket for a couple day's worth of barely-better-than minimum wage barely-part-time college work.

If this is like the Wright brother's flight, then we're in for one hell of a century, and it's gonna be a good one.

Re:Come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider the long step between the Wright Flyer and the Ford Tri-Motor or the DC-3

Also consider what we would be looking at without the push from the X-Prize. I'd take the 30 or so years between the Wright Flyer and the Dc-3 over what we would have had before any day.

Re:Come on

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yeah, but the Shuttle is a crappy design. The ceramic tiles are widely recognised to be a big mistake.

That's how far the X-prize vehicles are from useful and cheap space transports.

I think the X-prize vehicles are about 1/3 of the way to orbit. Not in terms of delta-v; but in terms of sheer mind share. It opens people's eyes to the fact that this rocketry stuff really isn't that hard; that the underlying costs are potentially pretty low, and that businesses really can sensibly tackle it, not just governments.

Re:Come on

[GileadGreene]

The Shuttle has 60,000lbs of cargo capacity and up to 9 passengers/crew

The shuttle's 60,000 lb cargo capacity is wasteful and useless. It costs more per pound (even accounting for inflation) to launch on the shuttle than it did to launch on the Saturn V. It'd be fine if the shuttle provided an economical way to launch bulk cargo, but it doesn't. Better to stick with unmanned expendables for that kind of stuff - at least for the time being. As for the 9 passengers/crew, they cost so much per person to launch that only a small elite are permitted to fly. The 4 passengers on an X-Prize vehicle may only be going suborbital (for now), but at least they're going.

The key to reducing costs isn't reducing vehicle costs as many believe, but in flying the hell out of the vehicle and spreading the costs across many vehicles and flights.

True. But that's part of the point of the X-Prize. The shuttle design simply cannot support a flight rate sufficient to make its costs reasonable. Plus it requires a standing army of several thousand just to operate it. The shuttle is not capable of operating in an airline mode. The X-Prize is encouraging designs that are capable of rapid turn-around (and thus high flight rate), and require minimal infrastructure. The X-Prize designs will (hopefully) be capable of airline-like operations.

Consider the long step between the Wright Flyer and the Ford Tri-Motor or the DC-3. That's how far the X-prize vehicles are from useful and cheap space transports.

The first flight of the Wright Flyer involved a mere 12 seconds of flying time (the third and longest flight of the day attained a whopping 59 seconds). Only 10 years later the airplane was a major player in the Great War. Ok, the world had to wait another ~20 years for the DC-3. But commercial aviation was already well-established before the DC-3 came along. Useful and cheap are relative terms. The X-Prize vehicles may be closer to both of them than you think.

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

That's what excites me. Look at how cheap and safe air travel is now. Wright brother's flight was in 1903, right? In less than 20 years you had airplanes EVERYWHERE.

Certainly you had airplanes 'everywhere', but great deal of them were barnstormers or air mail. Travel by air was limited to major cities and wealthy individuals. Air travel for the masses didn't become common until the mid-late 1960's and didn't really become affordable until deregulation in the 1980's.

Today, 100 years later, I can buy an airplane ticket for a couple day's worth of barely-better-than minimum wage barely-part-time college work.

That's because of the great demand, intense competition, and decades of the air lines honing and polishing their operations. And it's only in the last few years that prices have really dropped.

If this is like the Wright brother's flight, then we're in for one hell of a century, and it's gonna be a good one.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that. It took WWI and II to push technological development, and decades of engineering experience after, and some fairly unique economic circumstances for air travel to become as cheap and ubiquitous as it is today. (Not to mention the fact that air travel is popular because it links *places*, which space travel does not.)

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

Yeah, but the Shuttle is a crappy design. The ceramic tiles are widely recognised to be a big mistake.

Not by professionals in the field. For re-useables the only other option is metallic TPS, which is not without significant problems.

I think the X-prize vehicles are about 1/3 of the way to orbit. Not in terms of delta-v; but in terms of sheer mind share. It opens people's eyes to the fact that this rocketry stuff really isn't that hard; that the underlying costs are potentially pretty low, and that businesses really can sensibly tackle it, not just governments.

Well, when you are going to orbit, delta-V matters, as do many other things. Between the X-prize and orbit are a lot of significant technical and operational problems. The X-prize proves little about the expense of orbital flight because it doesn't adress any of the real problems, for the same reason it proves little about the cost of orbital flight.

The X-Prize provides hope, but thats a long from reality.

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

The shuttle's 60,000 lb cargo capacity is wasteful and useless. It costs more per pound (even accounting for inflation) to launch on the shuttle than it did to launch on the Saturn V.

Frankly, that depends on what set of numbers you use. If you use the same numbers, the Shuttle comes out considerably cheaper. (Most S-V costings don't account for the overhead and infrastructure cost, while every Shuttle one does.) The reality is that the marginal cost for a Shuttle flight is around 150 million a flight, but the overhead kills it when spread across so few flights.

The 4 passengers on an X-Prize vehicle may only be going suborbital (for now), but at least they're going.

The passengers on an X-Prize vehicle are no more going somewhere than are the riders of a roller coaster.

The key to reducing costs isn't reducing vehicle costs as many believe, but in flying the hell out of the vehicle and spreading the costs across many vehicles and flights.

True. But that's part of the point of the X-Prize. The X-Prize is encouraging designs that are capable of rapid turn-around (and thus high flight rate), and require minimal infrastructure. The X-Prize designs will (hopefully) be capable of airline-like operations.

Not even remotely. Like every aviation prize before it, the X-prize is encouraging vehicles designed specifically to win the prize. Don't get me wrong, that does develop useful technology, but as the aviation prizes of the 30's clearly show, it's a long leap from technology to operational vehicle. Nobody with any knowledge expects the X-prize craft to operate anything like airlines. It took the airlines and manufacturers decades to achieve those levels. (Among other things you have to design producability and maintainability in right from the start. The X-Prize contenders are very blatantly not doing that.)

Re:Come on

[GileadGreene]

Most S-V costings don't account for the overhead and infrastructure cost, while every Shuttle one does.

I'd be willing to debate both of those assertions. However, I do agree that it depends a lot on what you include in your launch cost roll-up (and what you define as "overhead" and "infrastructure cost")

The reality is that the marginal cost for a Shuttle flight is around 150 million a flight, but the overhead kills it when spread across so few flights.

The reality is that the shuttle cannot support a higher flight rate, so the marginal cost is somewhat meaningless (and is dominated by the fixed costs anyway).

The passengers on an X-Prize vehicle are no more going somewhere than are the riders of a roller coaster.

Cute analogy. But you are conveniently missing the point. The X-Prize passengers will be going into space, a realm that has, until now, been restricted to hand-picked astronauts, self-made multi-millionaires, and congressmen on junkets. So what if it's only sub-orbital for now. That at least puts them on a par with the early Mercury flights. The Wright Flyer flew only a few hundred feet to begin with. That doesn't detract from the fact that it flew.

Like every aviation prize before it, the X-prize is encouraging vehicles designed specifically to win the prize.

And the prize is specifically designed to encourage vehicles that support fast-turnaround with minimal infrastructure. Those two features are essentially what the launch vehicle community is referring to when they talk about "airline-like" operations (and relative to the way launch vehicles are currently operated they do represent something much more like the way an airline operates). Ok, so you won't be using an X-Prize competitor like an actual modern airliner. But as you say "It took the airlines and manufacturers decades to achieve those levels." They did it by trying lots of different stuff, discarding what failed, and keeping what worked. The beauty of the X-Prize is that we're finally getting away from NASA's stale "one true way" of doing manned launch, and experimenting with a variety of approaches. All of these approaches must, as a result of the competition rules, give at least some consideration to reusability and operability. Some will work. Some will fail. We'll learn from them all, and probably learn a lot more than we would from the endless paper studies that characterize NASA's attempts at manned launch. The current crop of X-Prize contenders may not be the equivalent of a space-going DC-3, but they sow the seeds from which such a craft can eventually emerge.

Re:Come on

[AGMW]

The shuttle's 60,000 lb cargo capacity is wasteful and useless.

In my book we'd be looking at two distinct types of craft. Lets build something specifically for shifting stuff into orbit as cheaply as possible, and then lets build something else for shifting people.

I'd wondered about a massive rail gun that could fire small-ish canisters into orbit, where they could be caught by a space station somehow. This setup could potentially fire a canister every few minutes containing unbreakable commodities - oxygen, water, pies, that sort of thing - and do so very cheaply (once you've build the rail gun!). The bodies of the canisters would also be a source of raw material for orbital construction projects.

Re:Come on

[adamofgreyskull]

Certainly you had airplanes 'everywhere', but great deal of them were barnstormers or air mail. Travel by air was limited to major cities and wealthy individuals.

So..what...on our space-travel timeline, the Wright brothers is 50s/60s progressing to 20-30 years later when it's limited to governments and wealthy individuals..
It's short-sighted to rule out the possibility that space-travel can't progress in the same way as flight.

That's because of the great demand, intense competition, and decades of the air lines honing and polishing their operations. And it's only in the last few years that prices have really dropped.

What do you think the X-Prize is doing? Private individuals/companies are competing with one another for this prize.Are they going to stop the second someone wins? Or so you think maybe they'll continue developing the tech and try and sell passenger seats on flights? The latter may be a little off the mark, but I'll bet it's a metric shit load closer than the former.

Your closing argument that "air travel is popular because it links *places*" is just fucking stupid. You don't think that people consider space to be a place? This may not be reaching LEO just yet..but you can bet your bottom dollar that if they ever do, people will want to go. Why do you think rich businessmen will pay through the kazoo to go up in those russki crates?

Re:Come on

[zero_offset]

I'd wondered about a massive rail gun that could fire small-ish canisters into orbit

Unfortunately the details don't come to mind immediately (hopefully somebody else will have a link), but there are several plans on the table to do this, mostly involving really long ramp/rail arrangements in the mountains of South America. Useful Google search terms are "mass driver" and "linear accelerator".

here is one example that even takes a stab at the math and concludes that a reasonably-sized linear accelerator would result in 60 g's of acceleration!

Re:Come on

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yeah, but the Shuttle is a crappy design. The ceramic tiles are widely recognised to be a big mistake.

Not by professionals in the field. For re-useables the only other option is metallic TPS, which is not without significant problems.

The point is that the Shuttle was designed to be big and heavy with huge crossrange. It has never needed the big crossrange; and the extra weight from the wings and so forth pushed it into a flight regime where the thermals really start to be difficult. What they should have done is make the vehicle light (low ballistic coefficient), and then most of the slowing occurs at high altitude where the air is thin, and the heat load is much reduced. Then metallic TPS starts to really shine.

The X-prize proves little about the expense of orbital flight because it doesn't adress any of the real problems, for the same reason it proves little about the cost of orbital flight.

Of course it doesn't prove anything about orbital flight. But it does strongly suggest that it can be tackled by businesses. Heck, it has already been tackled by businesses. Look at Orbital sciences.

I think the really big point is that the amount of real investigation into spaceflight done by governments is small. They mostly just grabbed whatever seemed to work at the time. There's also the point that has been made, that in any business, the really smart people usually work for someone else. That's going to be the same for Government too. The more businesses address the issues of spaceflight, the more chance there is that the problems and costs will be avoided.

Look, at the end of the day, getting to orbit is easy. You just build a big rocket, with multiple stages, light it, and keep it pointed in the right directions at the right time. It makes orbit all by itself.

:-)

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

The point is that the Shuttle was designed to be big and heavy with huge crossrange. It has never needed the big crossrange;

The Shuttle has used it's cross range capabilities on almost every flight. From as little as 5-10 miles to as much as 750 miles, and pretty well evenly covering the whole range in between. Without significant cross range, your ability to operate is severely limited because you must wait for your landing site to be directly beneath your orbital track. Sometimes you can go days without this happening.

What they should have done is make the vehicle light (low ballistic coefficient), and then most of the slowing occurs at high altitude where the air is thin, and the heat load is much reduced. Then metallic TPS starts to really shine.

Which doesn't change the fact that metallic TPS is almost as maintenance intensive as the tiles, and far more structurally complex. Nor is it really much stronger than the tiles. The only thing it really is, is lighter than the tiles, and that comes at a price.

The X-prize proves little about the expense of orbital flight because it doesn't adress any of the real problems, for the same reason it proves little about the cost of orbital flight.

Of course it doesn't prove anything about orbital flight. But it does strongly suggest that it can be tackled by businesses. Heck, it has already been tackled by businesses. Look at Orbital sciences.

The suggestion that th X-Prize was linked to orbital flight was yours, not mine. Orbital flight has long been done by businesses, (Lockheed, Boeing, Arianespace....). Orbital Science is an interesting case because they end up costing not much less than the 'big guys' and their reliability isn't much better either.

Re:Come on

[WolfWithoutAClause]

The point is that the Shuttle was designed to be big and heavy with huge crossrange. It has never needed the big crossrange;

The Shuttle has used it's cross range capabilities on almost every flight. From as little as 5-10 miles to as much as 750 miles, and pretty well evenly covering the whole range in between.

There's a difference between used, and needed. Sure, if you have it, you're going to use it. But the crossrange of the Apollo capsule was about 250 miles (IRC); and I'd bet anything you like the Shuttle could have kept within that crossrange limit if it had had to.

The suggestion that th X-Prize was linked to orbital flight was yours, not mine. Orbital flight has long been done by businesses, (Lockheed, Boeing, Arianespace....).

Yeah, but the specifications for the launch vehicles generally come from government; not exactly a market place. The biggest market place, the geosat market is perverse too- they don't care about low costs, only high reliability; and even that was heavily distorted by the government regulations until recently.

Orbital Science is an interesting case because they end up costing not much less than the 'big guys' and their reliability isn't much better either.

They fscked up their vehicle design; it's solids with lots of stages. Ugggh. Since when does a single example prove that it can't be done? Fouling something up is easy.

Re:Come on

[Anti_Climax]

For re-useables the only other option is metallic TPS

Yeah... I was going to read a report on that, but someone forgot the coversheet...

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

The Shuttle has used it's cross range capabilities on almost every flight. From as little as 5-10 miles to as much as 750 miles, and pretty well evenly covering the whole range in between.

There's a difference between used, and needed. Sure, if you have it, you're going to use it. But the crossrange of the Apollo capsule was about 250 miles (IRC); and I'd bet anything you like the Shuttle could have kept within that crossrange limit if it had had to.

During Apollo you could also move the landing point (as they did on several flights), a luxury the Shuttle does not have. Certainly, the Shuttle could stay within that limit if it had to, but at great cost in operational flexibility and safety. Orbital mechanics dicates that your landing site will only be under your ground track every 36-48 hours with that little crossrange. With the Shuttle's full cross range, a landing site comes under it's ground track every 8-12 hours.

In fact, one of the big marketing points for Roton and Kistler was that their cross range *exceeded* that of the Shuttle. That the two most serious startups of the last decade considered crossrange important for routine operations should tell you something. That NASA went to great lengths to increase the crossrange on Apollo when it turned out to have 150 miles of cross range vice the specification of 350 should tell you much.

Cross range isn't a luxury. The only people who think so are people more interested in criticizing the Shuttle than in what is actually required for routine operations.

The suggestion that th X-Prize was linked to orbital flight was yours, not mine. Orbital flight has long been done by businesses, (Lockheed, Boeing, Arianespace....).

Yeah, but the specifications for the launch vehicles generally come from government; not exactly a market place.

The last launch vehicle designed to goverment specs was the Titan IV, and before that the Shuttle itself. The goverment has had nothing to do with setting the specs for the last 2-3 generations (20+ years) of the Delta and Atlas families, which are the most common launchers and have been for decades.

Orbital Science is an interesting case because they end up costing not much less than the 'big guys' and their reliability isn't much better either.

They fscked up their vehicle design; it's solids with lots of stages. Ugggh. Since when does a single example prove that it can't be done?

Sigh.. *You* brought up Orbital Sciences as a shining example of corporations who a doing orbital work. It's not my fault that your examples don't prove what you think they do.

Re:Come on

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Which doesn't change the fact that metallic TPS is almost as maintenance intensive as the tiles, and far more structurally complex. Nor is it really much stronger than the tiles. The only thing it really is, is lighter than the tiles, and that comes at a price.

Yeah, right. You've looked at all metallic TPS systems, for all possible launch vehicles, and established this I suppose. You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical. Or perhaps you won't. Either way I don't care, and I don't believe you.

Re:Come on

[WolfWithoutAClause]

In fact, one of the big marketing points for Roton and Kistler was that their cross range *exceeded* that of the Shuttle.

But we were talking about the Shuttle and what it needed; and it is a very different animal. The point is that the reentry interface it sees is considerably different to either of these two vehicles.

*You* brought up Orbital Sciences as a shining example of corporations who a doing orbital work.

No, I didn't.

It's not my fault that your examples don't prove what you think they do.

No, as you didn't understand my example when I was clear enough; that makes it your fault.

Re:Come on

[Carnildo]

That's what excites me. Look at how cheap and safe air travel is now. Wright brother's flight was in 1903, right? In less than 20 years you had airplanes EVERYWHERE. In less than 40 years there were jets. (July '42 for the first real jet fighter, yes yes I know there were actually jet engines in the 30's but come on).

Much faster than that. The first flight of a jet airplane was December 16, 1910.

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

Yeah, right. You've looked at all metallic TPS systems, for all possible launch vehicles, and established this I suppose. You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical. Or perhaps you won't. Either way I don't care, and I don't believe you.

No, I haven't examined all possible systems, but I have bothered to educate myself as to the issues and engineering involved rather than mindlessly repeat anti-Shuttle anti-NASA propaganda. The bone simple fact is that the bulk of that propaganda is utterly wrong. (That's not to say the Shuttle is any bargain, but that many of it's detractors and boosters/fans of other systems haven't really studied the issue and latch onto anything thats Not The Shuttle without understanding the issues.)

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

In fact, one of the big marketing points for Roton and Kistler was that their cross range *exceeded* that of the Shuttle.

But we were talking about the Shuttle and what it needed; and it is a very different animal. The point is that the reentry interface it sees is considerably different to either of these two vehicles.

No. You claimed the Shuttle didn't need the crossrange, even though it has used the cross range. I provided examples of how cross range was used in service and how others felt it important as well.

*You* brought up Orbital Sciences as a shining example of corporations who a doing orbital work.

No, I didn't.

Then why *did* you bring them into the discussion other than as an example of corporations who are doing orbital launches?

It's not my fault that your examples don't prove what you think they do.

No, as you didn't understand my example when I was clear enough; that makes it your fault.

Well, your example wasn't clear. You claimed that the X-Prize showed that businesses should tackle orbital work, and that Orbital was an example of them already doing so. Frankly, that's not a good example and has nothing to do with the X-Prize. The X-Prize is about cheap and routine acess to space, and Pegasus is niether.

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

The passengers on an X-Prize vehicle are no more going somewhere than are the riders of a roller coaster.

Cute analogy. But you are conveniently missing the point.

No, I'm not missing the point, you are evading thinking about the point. I'm valuing accomplishment and substance over symbolism. The X-Prize craft get into 'space' only by virtue of a bureaucratic decision over forty years ago by the USAF and accepted without much thought by pretty much everyone else. By setting the boundary of 'space' at 100km, they could claim to have gone into 'space', without having to actually build an orbital craft with all the expense and bother that entails. (Plus doing so meant coming in direct confrontation with the goals of the then current Adminstration, which was *civilian* space flight, and the then current Secretary of Defense who was not of a mind to ask Congress to pay for frippery.)

You can fly a thousand X-flights, and the passengers won't have done anything but hold on tight and experienced a helluva thrill ride. It isn't space, and those who think it is are mostly folks so starved for anything that isn't govermental that they'll glady swallow whatever pill they are offered. It matters little to them that they are buying into the very "space"=="stunt" mentality that lead the public to become bored with NASA when they could no longer top themselves with a new spectacular.

Re:Come on

[DerekLyons]

It's short-sighted to rule out the possibility that space-travel can't progress in the same way as flight.

No, it's an honest appreciation of reality. Air travel linked places and filled an economic need, space travel does niether of those things.

Your closing argument that "air travel is popular because it links *places*" is just fucking stupid. You don't think that people consider space to be a place?

Fanboys consider space to be a place. The John Q. Public that the launch companies will depend on to pay the bills doesn't. Look at vacation travel today, do see advertisements for anything that isn't either a destination, or a trip filled with contrived entertainment? (Look at what cruise ships have to do to and provide entice passengers aboard.) The 'travel with us just so you can experience the travel' sector is a vast minority.

Why do you think rich businessmen will pay through the kazoo to go up in those russki crates?

For the same reason the rich went via train in the 1870's by the thousands to slaughter buffalo. For the same reason the same rich traveled via luxury liner rather than the more pedestrian liners during the first half of the last century. It's a status stunt.

Re:Come on

[WolfWithoutAClause]

No, I haven't examined all possible systems, but I have bothered to educate myself as to the issues and engineering involved rather than mindlessly repeat anti-Shuttle anti-NASA propaganda. The bone simple fact is that the bulk of that propaganda is utterly wrong. (That's not to say the Shuttle is any bargain, but that many of it's detractors and boosters/fans of other systems haven't really studied the issue and latch onto anything thats Not The Shuttle without understanding the issues.)

Got any more trite platitudes where this one came from? I'd certainly love to hear them.

Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[j_cavera]

> what happens if i were to build a big rocket and launch myself into space without telling anyone? would i get shot down by the military when they pick me up on radar?

Yes. Having worked with a (unmanned) launch services firm, getting permission can be the most difficult part of the process. Building the rocket and payload is just rocket science. Getting permission is *legal-stuff* .

Six years ago, we had estimated that launching a satellite required permits, lawyers and insurance in excess of twice the cost of the launch vehicle. The gov't is truly being kind to Mr. Rutan.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[ckaminski]

And what exactly are they going to use to shoot down your rocket travelling at hypersonic speeds?

</pendantry>

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep the rocket, launch the lawyers.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't need to shoot you down, the'll just be waiting for you when you get back.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[DerekLyons]

Six years ago, we had estimated that launching a satellite required permits, lawyers and insurance in excess of twice the cost of the launch vehicle. The gov't is truly being kind to Mr. Rutan.

No, the goverment is changing the rules slightly to allow for easier acess to licensing for smaller organizations. The X-prize and lobbying work is slowly but surely starting to change and level the playing field.

Some links:

• Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/DOT)
• Office of Space Commercialization (Department of Commerce)

There's also been a variety of Congressional acts supporting space commercialization and competiveness.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[Kenshin]

Of course, in alot of cases, it may just be easier to launch from a country that isn't so uptight.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's what the US Missile Defense Shield (former SDI) is for :)

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[WolfWithoutAClause]

If you're an American, it doesn't actually matter. The US government claims jurisdiction over you; wherever you launch from; and that means the FAA (unless you are part of a government department.)

The underlying reason is, is that under international law the country that you are a citizen of is responsible for any damage you do; irrespective of your launch site.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[morcheeba]

Either way you still have to deal with the BXA. The main advantage of other countries is to get closer to the equator so it'll take less energy to get into geosynchronous orbit.

That, and ocean and Siberian launches let you get really far away from people for safety.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedantry.

Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally.

[ColaMan]

That's for THEM to know , and you to find out, milliseconds before your vehicle is disintegrated due to...
[official explanation]unforseen clear air turbulence[/official explanation]

Re:Mis-read

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else read this as:
GNAA Grants Sub-Orbital License to SpaceShipOne

[looks around] No, just you.

More paper mass to lift than payload!

[qualico]

An extensive pre-application process sounds like they are drowning applicants with bureaucracy.

Isn't the idea behind the X-prize, "cheap" flight?

Why is it we need to bury everything in a mountain of paper?
There is more paper mass to lift than payload.

I like the idea of Niven's Ringworld plants that blow off into the sky. Can't we create some genetically modified plant to do the same?
Then they can grant seasonal licenses for all those pretty annuals.

Re:More paper mass to lift than payload!

[LWATCDR]

Cheap as in a Piper Meridian is cheap compaired to an F18

Re:More paper mass to lift than payload!

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Well, normal aircraft can't fly until the mass of paper outweighs the aircraft. What makes you think rockets are any different? :-)

Actually, I think that the FAA regulatory process for suborbitals is very lightweight compared to aircraft. It's not like the general public can just step on board; and they are currently cutting them some slack.

The problem is that if they don't do this, then spaceflight can never, ever get going. Reliability of entirely new classes of vehicles is simply not going to be like a 777. The regulatory authorities (particularly the FAA people who work on suborbitals, and whose jobs depend on it succeeding), know this and are actually on the side of the embryonic industry.

Re:More paper mass to lift than payload!

[Narkov]

> Isn't the idea behind the X-prize, "cheap" flight?

> Why is it we need to bury everything in a mountain of paper?
> There is more paper mass to lift than payload.

To keep you and I alive. Whats the point of a "cheap" flight if no one has checked that we will be alive at the other end?

Re:More paper mass to lift than payload!

[Thagg]

Actually, according to this week's Aviation Weke, Burt is lobbying the FAA to allow him to carry passengers. There would be a list of disclaimers a mile long, but if the passengers sign a waiver that "Yes, I fully expect this rocket to blow up and kill me", they'd be allowed to fly.

Apparently the FAA is looking favorably on this proposal, as a way to stimulate private space travel. It's amazing to see government working for innovation, for a change.

Burt Rutan, in some ways, has the same kind of reality distortion field that Steve Jobs is legendary for. The thing is, it's not a joke -- reality is different after these guys get done.

Thad

Re:More paper mass to lift than payload!

[qualico]

Fair enough, but lets *not* go overboard.
Look at the risk involved with the Shuttle and its level of safety checking doesn't seem to do much good.

KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid

When systems become too complicated you inherit more risk.

Vanity plates?

[falken0905]

Gee, i wonder if the FAA issues 'vanity plates'? I also wonder if the license plate will be made of low-drag material. Do they have to display inspection stickers on the windshield? So many questions come to mind. Ponderous.

Re:Vanity plates?

[voidptr]

Yes, they do.

Re:Vanity plates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, i wonder if the FAA issues 'vanity plates'? I also wonder if the license plate will be made of low-drag material. Do they have to display inspection stickers on the windshield? So many questions come to mind. Ponderous.

Imagine trying to pass the emissions testing!

Re:Vanity plates?

[zero_offset]

Not only that, they're cheaper (only ten bucks per year) than a vanity plate for a car.

Re:Vanity plates?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spaceshipone itself has just that: N328KFT, referring to the 328,000 foot launch goal.

Re:Crock of Shit

[Tatarize]

The Department of Energy banned larger bowled toilets so frankly we need government approval for more than the skies.

In a practical sense, you don't need there stupid aircraft hitting another aircraft, so it really is best to check. Without governement regulation on the sky it might be a little more difficult to get from point A to point B, because idiot C has a hot air balloon, near an airport and causes plane D to be flameball E.

but Salvage One

[www.sorehands.com]

I thought that Salvage 1 already had a license to launch. Oh, SpaceShipOne.....oooppps.

The Man Who Sold the Moon

[e9th]

Who would have thought that the real Delos D. Harriman would turn out to be Paul Allen?

Re:The Man Who Sold the Moon

[Monx]

Paul might fund the first private space launch, but Darl's IP strategy reminds me more of Harriman's style. Remember "we own the moon because it passes over us?" Does that remind you of anyone's definition of derivative works? Canopy is even structured like Harriman's corporations.

Re:The Man Who Sold the Moon

[fucksl4shd0t]

Um, sorry to burst your bubble, but this has absolutely no comparison to DD Harriman and company. See, DD Harriman was the guy at the top of the power conglomerate, and as such had much more power than the government itself. Be thankful we don't have that kind of world--yet. He was also an idealist, so I have a real hard time believing he got to be where he was in the story in any fashion that resembles real life corporate politics. ;)

Re:The Man Who Sold the Moon

[haraldrbassi]

Re: DD Harriman and the power syndicate...

He wasn't the person at the top of the power syndicate. In fact, he made his money with silly hair brained ideas to make life easier/ more affordable for the masses especially including building houses. The person at the top of the power syndicate is the one he was forced to sell his soul to in order to fund the last stage of the moon trip. Losing that final bit of control is what kept him out of space until his last days when he bribed some down and out rocket jockeys to drag him to the moon.

His story is actually spread across several books and short stories including oblique references in "To sail beyond the sunset" that refer to his business partner, George Armstrong.

As for the other reply to the parent, he was playing several ways and covering all his bases, he tried to option the air space of every country on the equator in order to ensure that no other single superpower country could stake a claim and refute commercial claims; yet at the same time he was seeding the idea that the moon belongs to everyone.

Re:The Man Who Sold the Moon

[fucksl4shd0t]

Ok, I think you missed a few details. DD gave up his position when he needed more cash than he expected and had to take a loan from Dixon, using his insurance policies as collateral. He was a director of the power syndicate, and the power syndicate itself consisted of the "top" men in certain industries, and none of the directorates interlocked, at least not on paper. Harriman and Strong owned a big chunk of it, a controlling chunk, together. Strong followed Harriman on all his hairbrained schemes and constantly criticized DD for it.

In any case, the fate of the world was more or less decided by these men, these men who built the roadtowns, made semi-ballistic international travel. I think they built the Beanstalk, too, that gets bombed by terrorists in Friday. And yes, this story gets talked around in quite a few stories. Lazarus Long was the relief pilot, in fact. ;)

But the trip to the moon also includes a fundamental shift in power from DD Harriman to Dixon, because of that last-minute soul-selling that had to be done to keep the operation on the ground, er, in the air, er, whatever. And the very next story (I forget what it's called) is about DD funding yet another hair-brained trip to the moon, makes it, and then dies. But he did finally get there. ;)

One thing's for certain, if I were a tycoon funding a moonshot, after reading about Harriman, ain't a snowball's chance in hell I'm gonna let some suit talk me out of going and spending the rest of my days landlocked. No way.

Re:Crock of Shit

[benna]

Shouldn't that be near hit? Near miss sounds like they hit. "Look those two planes nearly missed."

Fiction: "Net Assets"

[Mad Man]

A fictional novel of a privately built launch vehicle, and what the government does to stop it.

Available for free at http://netassetsbook.com/. I'd suggest the PDF version (1 MB), since some of the formatting in the HTML version is screwed up, and makes reading some parts difficult (mainly forgetting /I tags).

"Once upon a time, there was an agency of the American government called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA was tasked with the exploration and development of space. Being a government agency, it was very bad at the job. But also, being a government agency, NASA made damned sure that no one else would do a better job.

"And then the bureacrats' world came to an end."

Lloyd's of London

[Chmcginn]

would probably be the underwriter of choice, not Geico. They have insured almost anything. For instance, some examples .

Re:Lloyd's of London

[Anonymous Coward]

Bet their (both the individuals you mention that Lloyds covered, and Scaled Composites) rates would be higher if they add a Love of the Game clause in their contract with the insurance company. :)

Re:Lloyd's of London

[Fnkmaster]

So they say. However, I have a friend (also a Slashdot reader) who recently started a business in New York, and Lloyds actually refused to provide him with liability insurance for his business. Mind you, this business is somewhat risky, but it is a legitimate business, and he's making quite a bit of money now.

The thing is that Lloyds is actually a marketplace of "syndicates", not exactly a monolithic institution (at least, this is how he explained it to me). So you have to have a broker who really knows Lloyd's to figure out who the right people to approach are. And as far as I can tell, they may like taking fairly crazy sounding but actually low risk bets on actresses thighs or singer's voices, but they don't like taking higher stake bets on businesses that are hard to assess or known to be risky.

Re:Lloyd's of London

[RobertB-DC]

The thing is that Lloyds is actually a marketplace of "syndicates", not exactly a monolithic institution (at least, this is how he explained it to me).

Here in Texas, Farmers Insurance recently cancelled thousands of homeowners insurance insurance policies in the wake of unfavorable court decisions, a spate of bad weather, and (unofficially) the bath they took in the stock market. We were among those who ended up with a "surplus line" Lloyd's policy that's not subject to state regulation.

Anyway... on my insurance documents, I recall that there was a page that listed the syndicates that were the actual underwriters for our house. There were more than a dozen, with varying percentages (none over 15%, IIRC). Most looked to be individuals, I think, but some of the names looked like companies or partnerships.

It was cool, in a way, to think that some dude in London had a personal stake in keeping my home from burning down.

Side note: I'd have probably kept some sort of real insurance if my agent had followed through. His father was great, but when Dad retired, things went into the crapper. If you're in Dallas, I'd avoid this agency -- but YMMV, of course. I've moved to a new house, and a new Farmers agent.

Re:Lloyd's of London

[Chmcginn]

Wouldn't that be a "love of sub-orbital flights" clause? ;)

FAA authority

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a team that did request FAA approval (i.e., get a license) would be recognising the authority of the FAA.

Legally, a case could be made that the FAA has no authority to regulate any team that did not specifically get a certificate from the FAA.

As a bureaucracy, the FAA does not automatically get to make its own rules binding on everyone in the U.S. (Only Congress can do that!)

Re:FAA authority

[Sergeant Beavis]

No, Congress have them the authority late last year. If they are flying in US airspace, they can be regulated by the feds.

Re:FAA authority

[jovlinger]

soo.

what is us airspace? How far up? radial or linear spokes?

Re:FAA authority

[falcon5768]

now THAT would be a good question.. since we have pretty much made the case that while a US craft would be "US territory" space is not owned by any country.. my guess is once you pass what nasa considers the threshhold of space.. your not under US authority

Re:FAA authority

[jonwil]

At least one of the treaties covering Outer Space covers this.
Specificly, it says that space vessels (government or otherwise) are under the juristiction of the country they are launched from (or in some cases the country that they were built in/that the owners are from/whatever)

Re:Crock of Shit

[Lazyhound]

Shouldn't that be near hit? Near miss sounds like they hit. "Look those two planes nearly missed."

Near is an adjective describing "miss", as in "the miss was near".

Re:Crock of Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

And that was supposed to be an AC post. Oh well.

Re:Fiction: "Net Assets"

[Mad Man]

re: Fiction: "Net Assets"

I should also have added that the "Net" in the title is not only a business term, but (I believe) a reference to the Internet. The "Assets" are space enthusiasts. Much of the design work for the spaceship in the novel is "open source" in order to keep costs down. The Launcher Company solicited help on its web site, where the merits were openly debated on the forums. The comany's engineers would read the forums, looking for good ideas. Anyone whose idea was used was paid some type of fee.

Which let him mesh well with Hank. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," he orated. "Neville's got the idea that this started on the 'Net, and oughta stay there. Wants us to.... opensource everything we do, put it on the Internet for continuous peer review, as it were. Idea's that with millions of people all over the world looking over our shoulders and making suggestions, we're bound to pick up sporadic good ideas. And it's bound to be cheaper than putting several hundred more engineers and techs on the payroll," he finished cynically.

Re:Crock of Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Nearly: 1. Almost but not quite: The coat nearly fits.

Near: 1. To, at, or within a short distance or interval in space or time.

YHL. HAND.

This is how space will become cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how space will become cheap.. Check this out, boys, creative engineering at work:
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_ Index/p hotos/images/800/wind_tunnel_800.jpg

Re:This is how space will become cheap

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone get a mirror for the picture that was at that link? It has been slashdotted. It was a pic of some of the engineers at Scaled Composites putting the tail of one of their aircraft on the hood of a truck and driving it as a wind tunnel. Very clever and funny at the same time.

Bush doesn't want us on the moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush doesn't want us on the moon. Why? Think of the evening news stories: "Today, Apollo 59 landed on the moon again, costing taxpayers $155 trillion dollars, drilled some tiny holes in rocks, took several pictures, discovered NO WEAPONS of mass distruction and found 6 more votes for Al Gore."

Re:Bush doesn't want us on the moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the fuck modded this as funny?

Re:Bush doesn't want us on the moon

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasnt me, but had I modpoints, I sure would have.

Even if you are a hardcore republican, you have to be able to laugh at yourself. Even bush made a joke about looking for WMD's under a couch cushion in the white house during a speech he was giving a few weeks ago.

Smiiiiiiiiile.

Re:Bush doesn't want us on the moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the f[s]ck modded this as funny?

I did. There was no option for "+1, Tragic"

Burt Rutan

[Anonymous Coward]

I first noticed Burt Rutan because of a homebuilt plane that he designed. It was composite construction (fiberglass and foam) and extremely strong. It was a canard (it had a lifting surface on the nose) and therefore very stable. Some time later he built the first plane to fly around the world without refueling.

The guy is a genius and an innovator in a field that does its best to discourage innovation.

If I have understood correctly, lawsuits have basically killed innovation in general aviation. Check it out the next time you are airside: most of the designs of small aircraft are fifty years old. I wonder if we will be saying the same thing about software in fifty years.

www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/GENERAL_AVIATIO N/ rutan/GA15.htm

Re:Burt Rutan

[Anonymous Coward]

This url gives some details of Rutan's problems:

http://www.dailyobjectivist.com/
Heroes/BurtRut an.asp

"In 1972, he founded Rutan Aircraft Factory, which sold plans and kits for Rutan-designed aircraft. His science-fiction-like aircraft designs were considered "risky" by established aircraft manufacturers, who made sure that the regulators of the Federal Aviation Administration were aware of their "concerns."

He successfully sold a number of different unique designs. Then, frustrated by the litigious regulatory environment and absurd liability claims which had put many private aircraft manufacturers out of business, Rutan chose to leave the homebuilt industry and do larger-scale designs for companies. His new firm, founded in 1982, was Scaled Composites.

One of Rutan's new contracts called for him to build a business jet for Beechcraft. Though the performance of the Beech Starship far excelled anything yet seen in business jets, Rutan came under fire from regulators. FAA regulations have focused on conventional designs, and are mind-deadeningly specific: an aluminum spar here, a certain number of rivets there. The Starship, on the other hand, was an all-composite aircraft that used neither rivets nor spars. Non-regulation. Rutan tried to explain this to regulators, but without luck. So the Starship was freighted with conventional design features that hampered its performance, making it little better than conventional aircraft.

This url shows some of the governments efforts to fix the problem. A lot of people think all the suing is killing the economy. This link is from 1997 and I'm not sure if these hearings have actually had any effect.

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/h ju 42154.000/hju42154_0.htm

Re:Burt Rutan

[bwy]

Yeah, you're exactly right. Cessna almost went out of business because of law suits and if you see a Cessna today chances are probably 9 out of 10 that its a 152 or 172 that is decades old.

And it is truely a god-damned shame. The fact that all these aircraft are around today and flying after 50 years ought to say something. I mean, you don't see a lot of Ford Pintos on the road anymore, do you? It amazes me how long something can last when it is designed correctly and cared for by professionals. Look at the fleet of B-52s... Anyway, now you can't pick up a new single engine Cessna for less than 158K

Re:Burt Rutan

[IpSo_]

People who drive ford pintos aren't required by LAW to do full engine/body checkups after 1000 hours, and complete engine overhauls after 5000hours of driving.

The maintenance that goes in to airplanes is pretty crazy, and expensive. The engine overhauls for a small single engine Piper can cost upwards of $20,000 CDN.

Agree....

[vwjeff]

We are at the beginning of a new revolution. Space travel for the average person is now within reason. Sadly I will never have the opportunity to travel to a distant planet but I may get to experience space travel :)

What about Canada?

[temporalillusion]

Since there's no FAA up here, I wonder what licenses the Canadian entries will have to get.. if any! Considering our government hasn't launched its own rocket into space... Do they go to the CSA? Transport Canada? Do Canadian Content Laws apply in space? ;-)

Cool, private citizens might get into space before their government does!

They should clearly call it...

[Stopmotioncleaverman]

Cloudbase. The guy even looks like something you might see in Captain Scarlet. :P

Deja vu all over again...

[jemenake]

Is X Prize finally entering the end-game?

Well, seeing as how we're also trying to recruit people who talk like chimps, the "payload" is being taken care of as we speak.

Of course, the American chimp-speakers will undoubtedly demand too high of a salary, so they'll probably just teach someone from an Indian call center how to speak chimp as well as they speak English and save a bundle.

license for 312,000 ft?

[kevlar]

My understanding is that anything above 60,000 ft the FAA doesn't care about (nor should they even be bothered with).

I wonder how much money they dished out for a license that they never needed in the first place...

Re:license for 312,000 ft?

[voidptr]

How do you get to 60,001 feet without climbing through the first sixty thousand? If we could just magically apear above restricted (and everything from 1200 feet to 60,000 is restricted to some degree) airspace, it'd be kind of a moot contest.

Re:license for 312,000 ft?

[thomasdelbert]

Teleportation, my friend. Teleportation.

-Thomas;

Re:license for 312,000 ft?

[ravenspear]

SpaceShipOne has already been to 60,000 feet though. Did they not need a license for that flight?

Re:license for 312,000 ft?

[Simple-Simmian]

Not all that up on this however after reading this. Government Licenses First Private Rocket. I believe that the Xprize rules require the permit as one of the qualifers.

Re:license for 312,000 ft?

[voidptr]

He would have needed an experimental aircraft registration on the vehicle, or a waiver to conduct flight tests on an unregistered craft.

Re:license for 312,000 ft?

[kevlar]

The question is: Why do they need a license to go above 60,000 feet?

Getting to 60,000 feet they'd obviously need to deal with the FAA, which I think is so f'ing routine that its not even worth mentioning. Above 60,000 feet is of no concern to the FAA and they shouldn't be allowed to stick their grubby beaurocratic fingers into it.

Re:license for 312,000 ft?

[red floyd]

I recall seeing some warnings in some old Artillery software... If you fired some shells on a high angle trajectory, you sometimes got a message "NOTIFY NASA".

Ah yes...

[fireman sam]

... but is it compatible with the GPL, if not, we cannot support it.

Re:Ah yes...

[WolfWithoutAClause]

You may laugh, but there is an open source rocketry repository.

Range Safety

[Detritus]

A critical part of any effort to launch rockets is range safety. This ensures that the rocket either follows a safe trajectory or the flight is terminated (boom). Part of getting a license is convincing the government that your launch operations are not going to be a hazard to your fellow human beings. The more powerful the rocket, the more danger it poses to other people.

X-Prize and space

[robert.broome]

Remember though that the X-Prize is for suborbital flight. The height isn't important-it is the speed. Spaceship 1 won't have to deal with reentry temperatures, making it MUCH simpler to build and fly. If X-Prize was for an orbital flight, or any Mach 25 flight, there wouldn't be any entries. Is it the first step to cheap flight or just a cheap flight? Only a real reentry system will tell.

Lawsuits, was: Re:Burt Rutan

[lenski]

The lawsuit problem is slowly becoming less problematic. The new problem is "security". After 9/11/2001, general aviatioon simply got more difficult to get past government authorities. But general aviation is still present: A co-worker of mine flies a homebuilt aircraft. It's a fabulous hobby, but like anyone whose life is on the line, he takes safety way seriously. (paraphrasing his commentary) Airplanes, even the "little ones" in general aviation, balance many variables. Get one or a few wrong, and you become a Darwin award winner. That's an important reason designs tend to be 50+ years old: They are proven.

Burt Rutan is an amazing engineer surrounded by amazing engineers, and is that rare person who has a demonstrated ability to think outside the box successfully.

Re:Crock of Shit

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

Shouldn't that be near hit? Near miss sounds like they hit. "Look those two planes nearly missed."
IIRC, that's a George Carlin bit. The next line should be "Yes, but not quite"

--

uh...Secretarat v. *Tyson*...

[caveat]

Slaughter In The Water!

Homer: "Yeah, heh heh...they were so drunk..."

Carmack :(

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I love the idea of the X-Prize, a part of me is disappointed.

I desperately want Carmack to win; he is the mozart of software development and no one would be more deserving.

er..

[rebelcool]

you would think that the guy (burt rutan) who has devoted his life to novel aeronautic designs that challenge notions of what can be done regarding flight would be "more deserving" to win a space race than a guy who has programmed 3D graphics engines for just over a decade...

Re:er..

[bwy]

Hell, I think Burt ought to step up and pilot the damn thing- or at least ride along as crew. I mean, wouldn't you? The SpaceShipOne/White Knight stack looks pretty friggin sweet! I really hope he wins because I feel like his design is a lot more innovative and exciting than some year 2004 copy of Alan Shepard's ride- 40 year old ballistic missle technology.

Re:Fiction: "Net Assets"

[Anonymous Coward]

That was an aweful read.

Re:Crock of Shit

[marko123]

To summarise:
C? E B DEAD!

another example

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a jeweler who has his hands insured (you have to have good dexterity to make jewelry)

Re:another example

[AndroidCat]

There's been a number of actresses who have had their breasts insured, starting with Jane Mansfield, on through Jennifer Lopez for a billion. (Including her ass. Okay, but not a billion dollars okay.)

Burt, Open up the EZ's first!

[BigBuckHunter]

Now if only Burt would allow free distribution of his Canard blueprints, I'd be much happier. Heck, you can't even buy the things anymore.

http://users.chariot.net.au/~theburfs/longezMAIN .h tml

Too lazy to figure out how to post a real link,

BBH

Re:Burt, Open up the EZ's first!

[HeghmoH]

You're probably joking, but it's like this:

<a href="http://link.goes.here/page.html">Put the link text here, or a copy of the URL</a>

End result:

Put the link text here, or a copy of the URL

Single Engine planes

[Nick Driver]

Anyway, now you can't pick up a new single engine Cessna for less than 158K

And you can still pick up a decent used, older single-engine plane that has decades more life left in it for under $30K. A brand new GMC pickup truck costs more than I paid for my Piper Cherokee. Why people shell out over an eighth of a million dollars for a new C172, I don't understand. If I had ~$160K to spend on an airplane, I'd much rather buy an older, bigger, plane like a T210 or perhaps even a Skymaster 337 inline twin in that price range.

Can they afford it?

[Anonymous Coward]

...after all, it's only Paul Allen funding it.

If they can lauch one Microsoft Founder into space, why not both of them?

Carmack quote

[jayrtfm]

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=c0e0a1dd.0310 311328.99308bf%40posting.google.com&output=gpl ain

"This is not intuitively obvious, but the cost of propellant is basically NOTHING compared to the system support issues with a launch vehicle."

Not Bad

[jayrtfm]

I enjoyed it.
Another book, with a more technical bent is "The Rocket Company" which is presently being serialized at Hobby Space

hmmm...

[fantomas]

speak for yourself, but I really wouldn't want to be underneath a 50kg lump of metal that has fallen 40,000 metres / feet from an exploding rocket, however it was powered... I think people would still die... there could be a fair spread of debris colliding with people if such an explosion meant the fallout path was across an urban area.

Actually, yes.

[tm2b]

Historically, much of the United States' expansion was preceded by individuals homesteading land before the government had legal sovereignty of that land.

Look at the history of the westward expansion of the US, especially the way in which the Texas became a state (the land was first "colonized" by US-friendly ranchers against Mexican sovereignty), and also the annexing of Hawaii (preceded by American sugar and pineapple interests in the kingdom).

The fact is that governments will happily allow their citizens to go out and be productive elsewhere, and then step in to rule over (and tax!) the new enterprise.

The place this will really get tricky is concern over terrorism. Look at the damage done by a few pathetic subsonic jets that were hijacked, loafing along at several hundred knots.

Now imagine the damage that can be done by a suborbital (or orbital!) craft flying into a nuclear power plant.

Re:Actually, yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Historically, much of the United States' expansion was preceded by individuals homesteading land before the government had legal sovereignty of that land.

Well, that's technically impossible. Homesteading is a specific activity, I.E. taking land granted by the goverment and earning the right to buy the land (or to be granted it outright) by proving and developing the land.

Re:Actually, yes.

[tm2b]

Well, that's technically impossible. Homesteading is a specific activity, I.E. taking land granted by the goverment and earning the right to buy the land (or to be granted it outright) by proving and developing the land.

Actually, no. You're right only about one sense of the word. In the more general english sense [see definition 1 of homestead and the transitive definition of homesteading], it also refers to any sort of permanent settling of a home.

Did you think that they invented the word homestead when they started granting land? No, it came from the older english meaning.

I wish there were a (-1, Illiterate) moderation option.

wrong on soooo many levels....

[adamofgreyskull]

You didn't see that space documentary he made with...what was that guy's name? You know...the one who sung about the little fella in the Peter jackson movie...

Re:wrong on soooo many levels....

[fucksl4shd0t]

You didn't see that space documentary he made with...what was that guy's name? You know...the one who sung about the little fella in the Peter jackson movie...

Nope, didn't see it. But I did see a tape of William Shatner singing (or saying, rather) Rocket Man sometime in the '70s. Well, I saw it in the '90s, but the tape was made in the '70s.

Commerce Clause

[Douglas Simmons]

So long as a given issue interferes with interstate commerce, at least according to article two secion eight of the Constitution, Congress may make laws to regulate it, and American citizens are subject to those laws with some exceptions to certain government officials. Period. As far as this what is airspace argument is concerned, the only people who may be untouchable one way or another by any such law would be those who are not citizens.

Inspections on aircraft

[Nick Driver]

Annual inspections on my Piper Cherokee run from $500-1100 the past few years. Complete engine overhauls are at 2000 hours of operating time, or 12 years whichever comes first and cost and the last one on my aircraft was done in 1999 and cost about $12K. In the USA a personally-owned small aircraft that is not used for commercial purposes does not have to have the engine overhauled at the otherwise mandatory intervals as long as it's still running strong, not "making metal" into the oil, or consuming too much oil. The Lycoming O-320 like in my plane can often surpass 2500-3000 hours of runtime before it really must be overhauled if it is taken care of correctly during it's life. At about 100 hours a year of use, that's about a quarter century of flying!

who owns this?

[JeremyALogan]

so for all the arguing I've seen on here so far I'm really surprised/impressed that noone mentioned this (from the article):

Last December it was formally announced that multi-billionaire Paul Allen -- the co-founder of Microsoft -- is footing the bill on the SpaceShipOne project.

so my question now is... who owns this technology?

Re: Your lousily-formatted post

[Anonymous Coward]

How hard is it to use the "Preview" button?

He cain't

[GnarlyNome]

Legal liability laws prevent that from happining although plans __aro Available__ ;-)