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FAA Grants Sub-Orbital License to SpaceShipOne

Posted by simoniker on from the mote-in-moon's-eye dept.

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."

18 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome by TheKidWho · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:Awesome by Fuzzy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

  2. what happens? by hellmarch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:what happens? by Jjeff1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:what happens? by Richthofen80 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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!

      --
      Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
  3. Re:eek by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny
    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.

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  4. Check the approval date! by RobertB-DC · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
  5. Throwing stuff into space ... legally. by j_cavera · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > 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.

    --
    #include "humorous_pop_culture_reference.h"
    1. Re:Throwing stuff into space ... legally. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Keep the rocket, launch the lawyers.

  6. Re:License Requirements by Lazyhound · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  7. Vanity plates? by falken0905 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Vanity plates? by voidptr · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes, they do.

      --
      This .sig for unofficial government use only. Official use subject to $500 fine.
  8. Fiction: "Net Assets" by Mad+Man · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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."
  9. Lloyd's of London by Chmcginn · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    --
    Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
    1. Re:Lloyd's of London by Fnkmaster · · Score: 5, Interesting
      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.

  10. Re:Come on by Coryoth · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
  11. Bush doesn't want us on the moon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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."

  12. Re:Come on by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.