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SpaceShipOne Flight Completed Successfully
knothead99 writes "CNN is reporting the successful liftoff of SpaceShipOne from a runway in the Mojave desert. Around 10:30 EDT the craft will reach an altitude of 50,000 feet and they'll separate from White Knight and ignite the rocket for space entry. More information can also be found at the Mojave Airport website" Update: 06/21 15:36 GMT by S : An MSNBC story confirms that SpaceShipOne 'glided safely back to Earth, landing back at the Mojave Airport' around 8.15AM PST.
And other people using that backward metric system, that's about 100 kilometers in the title.
Slashdot....
'News' for nerds, stuff that matters (an hour or two late, and no guarantee of it not being duped later).
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
So how long until the Discovery channel does a special on how they hoaxed it?
QAExpress: Solid bug tracking for you. Graphs and reports for your PHB.
I saw "2001: A Space Odyssey" in 1968 as a young kid. At that time the Space Race was making great progress toward a lunar landing. Many thought the technical parts of the movie to be very likely. It was extremely disappointing to watch the manned parts of the US and Russian space programs dwaddle along the next 35 years with mediocre accomplishments- like that 90 giga-buck lemon up there that can barely support two people at a time and do very little science. (Space science probes and robots doing reasonably well, however.)
There are reasonable explainations: The US practically bankrupted itself in an endless series of international military adventures: the Vietnam War, The Energy war, the Reagan Cold War. Not to mention the expensive socialist expansion of health, welfare, and retirement costs. Only in 1990s was there enough capital suspluses to seriously consider commercial space again.
Am I the only one who thinks that "SpaceShipOne" is a somewhat unimaginative name?
I mean for christ sake call it something like "Destroyer III" or "Killer MKII", show those aliens who's boss!
There IS a ten million dollar prize offered. But they've already spent twenty million. So what?
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Vote for your hopes, not for your fears - Vote Third Party
He seems to 'crave' publicity with his projects.
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Also I heard on Cnn interview of Rutan that he didn't develop this rocket with the X prize in mind
What ?
The big Corporate cash funding doesn't make me happy. Just another contest bought out by the richest guy.
I congratulate Mr. Melvill, but keep wondering about what qualifies a pilot to be an ASTROnaut.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
By the time you factor in extended life support and the heat shielding needed to survive reentry, orbital flight becomes a much thornier problem that almost certainly won't be solved in a decade.
... one that was solved four decades ago. Remember the Apollo missions?
You're right, orbital flight is a thorny problem
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
I posted on this topic earlier (see history) but I'll reitterate: There is no real point in privitzation of deep space because there is no profit there.
This X-Prize contest is akin to GM offering a prize for a flying car. Sure you find find an inventive solution and a flying car that works well but I don't ever see it replacing the family SUV unless it can be made and sold for under $20k.
So here we have a contest where people think that privitization will solve all of the slowness in the sector. It isn't going to happen. Exactly what can you use this vehicle for? Hauling a small amount of weight really high? It hasn't even gotten into LEO yet and by my rough guessatments they need to figoure how to increase the thrust output 30 times more to do so.
Beyond this how is a craft that can take a couple people up to LEO supposed to bring forth a new age of discovery especially when there is nothing is up there? Companies are supposed to magically make money from doing this? I wouldn't hold my breath.