Mike Melvill Chosen To Fly SpaceShipOne

ansimon writes "Mike Melvill is chosen to fly SpaceShipOne to the outer limits of this rock that we call earth. Mike will be the first to earn his astronaut wings with a privately-developed aeroplane/rocket. A new era of space exploration is about to begin! Godspeed and come back safe, so the rest of us can go too..."

Comments

For the sake of argument . . .

[OverlordQ]

. . . even if something does go wrong, there wouldn't be any better way to go out, especially with a flight history such as his.

On the other hand, not much left to top this if it does go flawlessly.

First since Columbia

[moberry]

If I am not mistaken this will be the first vehicle launched in the USA since the Columbia accident. That alone is something to celebrate. The USA is back in busness. :p

Re:First since Columbia

[Peyna]

Of course, without all of NASA's developments and the tons of spent by the government in the past, would this private venture even be possible?

Disaster? Unlikely.

[dinodrac]

Scaled Composites seems to have done their homework. The craft has a double presure hull, is relatively small, and uses a propellant that is arguably more stable than what we burn in our cars. Any failure is more likely to result in an abort than in a catastrophe. SpaceShipOne has been tested extensively, and the design, although radical, is comparitively simple when viewed alongside early government funded sub-orbital flight.

Good luck and Godspeed to the SpaceShipOne team.

Re:Disaster? Unlikely.

[Keebler71]

"the design, although radical, is comparitively simple when viewed alongside early government funded sub-orbital flight."

I have to disagree here. This vehicle is significantly more complex than the Mercury missions. Radical - yes, in the sense of using a dual-aircraft staging ascent, but you do not get much more simple than a redstone rocket with a purely ballistic capsule for re-entry. SpaceShipOne is closer to the space shuttle than it is to a Mercury capsule, in the sense that it flys like an aircraft with all the appropriate control surfaces - not to mention the feathering wing during re-entry. Radical - yes, simple - no. Bear in mind, that this design is made possible by relatively modern composite materials, so comparing this design to a 1950's iron capsule is a bit unfair.

Let me preface what I am about to say with the following: I think that what Scaled Composites has done is nothing short of amazing. I don't need to wish them the best, as I have been to their plant, and seen and crawled inside their vehicle. They will win the X-prize tomorrow... That said, I believe that SpaceShipOne is more of a bureocratic and idealogical achievement. First off, SC defined the process by which civilian companies are certified for space flight. Second, this event will usher in a newfound pride and enthusiasm for space exploration that has been missing for decades.

Unfortunately, this design is not very, well, useful other than to make Scaled Composites LOTS of money from space tourists. There is not a lot of interest otherwise in sub-orbital (heck, the Soviets skipped it entirely). SpaceShipOne was point designed to win the X-prize; the approach used is not scalable to an orbital version.

All that having been said, I am very excited for the future of space flight... I know what I will be doing tomorrow morning!

and yes, IAARS.

The last great X-Plane

[dev_alac]

The X-15 was the first plane to fly into space, and I'm sure much of its heritage will be carried on with SpaceShipOne. An excellent history of the program by an actual member of the program is At the Edge of Space" by Milton Thompson. It is amazing to learn about the worries about the reaction control system for out-of-atmosphere flight and how their reentry procedures and much of their data enabled the Shuttle program.

To Mike and the rest of the SpaceShipOne crew, best of luck tomorrow.

If there's any doubt about 'space'

[caitsith01]

From the various articles about the x-prize and spaceshipone one could be forgiven for wondering whether these guys are really going into 'space', because relative to NASA's exploits they aren't exactly going that high. However, pictures like this and this from earlier test flights give a practical idea of just how high they are going to get... awesome! I wish there was some sort of webcast... anyone know of anything live?

Re:To save everyone some time tomorrow ...

[Kiryat Malachi]

Hey, they may have fucked up human spaceflight for the last 20 years or so, but give them credit for Spitzer, Hubble, Chandra, Spirit and Opportunity, Cassini, and all the other wonderful science they've done that I can't remember right now.