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Rutan's SpaceshipOne Hits 200,000 Feet

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-can-see-my-house-from-here dept.

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.)"

3 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Re-launch? by robbymet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It takes the Shuttle to so long to relaunch because the entire craft needs to be recertified before relaunch. That is because the design has virtually no margin, so under normal operating conditions there are components that are on the verge of failure. These components must all be inspected and potentially replaced before another flight can occur. A small, reasonably designed vehicle should be able to hit a two week turn around no problem. DARPA's RASCAL and FALCON programs require a 24-hour turnaround.

  2. Re:Two thirds of the way there... by plj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to international settings in Mac OS 10.3.3:

    60,960.00 metres in UK
    60,960.00 meters in US ;-)
    60.960,00 metres in Germany and Spain
    60 960,00 metres in Finland, France, Russia and Sweden (I live in Finland)
    60960.00 meters in US/POSIX

    Actually, space as a thousand separator sucks ass. There are zillions of non-aware (i.e. english-centric) programs that want to wrap words in the middle of numbers...

    --
    “Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
  3. Mojave Spaceport.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A most interesting titbit in that article that I don't see anyone else has mentioned is that they've applied for a licence to allow Mojave airport to also become an inland commercial spaceport.

    Like an airport.. but FOR SPACE! Wow! ;)

    This is amazingly cool news and almost could be straight out of the pages of a science fiction book. Perhaps in a few years it will be major center for space traffic and commerce?