Slashdot Mirror
Rutan's SpaceshipOne Hits 200,000 Feet
An anonymous reader writes "Burt Rutan's privately-built SpaceshipOne is one step closer to winning the X-Prize after zooming to what witnesses say was somewhere around 200,000 feet on only its third powered flight. (See also the partial update from Scaled Composites.)"
I skimmed the article and didn't catch anything about the re-launch within the given time period. Are they going to try and reuse the vehicle anytime soon? This, IMHO, is one of the most interesting requirements of winning the X-Prize.
Anyone who's ever been on the tours at Kennedy Space Center knows that the space shuttle launches don't begin with the countdown. Rather, they begin when the space shuttle touches down and the crews start preparing the shuttle for re-launch. Given that it takes (took?) NASA a helluva long time to get the shuttles prepped for re-launch, I'm wondering how these teams in pursuit of the X-Prize are doing with their plans to quickly refuel and relaunch the craft(s) within the alloted time period.
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
> Keep in mind that this was paid by the
> Microsoft tax often ridiculed by slashdotters....
Most of Paul Allen's money was from inflated Microsoft stock prices. Not actual money from Microsoft. Money from selling stock comes from investors and not Microsoft customers.
Granted that a lot of the Microsoft stock value comes from Microsofts bank account. However strictly speaking Paul Allen and Bill Gates got most of their fortunes from the investment community who bought shares.
The reason why the X-15 didn't get any further was strictly political, not technological.
By the time the X-15 was doing its stuff, NASA was already gearing up for the Apollo program, and the ballistic missile guys (primarily lead by Von Braun, but it did involve others) were trying to push a competing program. It should be obvious who won that debate.
The Space Shuttle should have (and in a small part did) been a technological decendant of the X-15 project, but instead most of its design technologies came from the Saturn V program and its predecessors.
The promise of the X-15 was to have routine reusable aircraft for travel into space. The pilots of the X-15 were finally granted astronaut wings, but politcally even that wasn't really appreciated by the guys at NASA. The prep crew for the X-15 was just a dozen or so people, compared to the hundreds it took even for Alan Shepard to do his sub-orbital flight. It is indeed too bad that this research wasn't followed, but not because it was a technological dead-end. It wasn't followed simply because Congress in their infinite wisdom decided that programs of this nature should be cut. And it was almost impossible to get a follow-on project to go this route.
Space Ship One really is the heir apparent now of the X-15 flights, and you had better believe that Burt Rutan knows just about all there is to know about the X-15 flights... probabally a world-class expert on the subject.
Other X-class projects have been done since the X-15 (Notably the X-33) and they have all suffered with political problems coming from folks at NASA thinking they (the X-projects) are mussling into their turf. The X-prize was even named that in honor of these X-class planes and the potential they could have had if they hadn't been abandoned.
The inspiring thing is that this ship goes higher and higher, pushing the materials and seeking refinements on what they already have.
Finally, remember the saying of Robert A. Heinlein: "Low-earth orbit is half-way to the rest of the entire solar system."
That sums up the importance of these flights. If refinements of materials and general ship design gradually lead to something that goes into orbit or even can leave the earth's gravity (like the Apollo missions), the age of manned planetary exploration will truly begin. Eventually, if you keep getting higher and higher, you are going to run out of altitude to the point that it really doesn't matter any more. You will be in orbit regardless.