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Photos Of Rutan's X-Prize Entry
burdicda writes "I think you might be interest in what Burt Rutan has been up to, out there in the Mojave Desert. Take a look at these pictures."
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the photos are so secret that only the first 4 people to click on the photos were able to see them before the server crumbled.
I saw all the images and read the FAQ on the site. There was no mention of what the in flight movie was :).
<sig>no sig</sig>
it still works, sort of. stupid still, posting a link to a gallery site. INTO A SLIDESHOW on a gallery..
nice pics anyways..
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/ the official page has some stuff too like a video clip..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Uh, did you miss the launch last week? What's new here?
Amount of power to reach escape velocity > Amount of power needed to run Fisher Price(tm) My First Web Server
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
I've said it before, but it's about time that the private sector got into space exploration. The government has gone about as far as it reasonably can in developing the actual process by which we go into space. Now, it should let private industry take the lead, as funding is generally more available in the private sector, and companies can often make decisions quicker than governments can.
This is also probably the best way of getting the public interested in space travel again, by involving them as participants, not just spectators.
NASA shouldn't be abandoned, as there's still room for government involvement, especially in strictly scientific missions like launching satelites. In fact, I'd propose that NASA retain its size, form, and function, but that it be a small percentage of space travel, not the majority of it originating in this country.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Would it kill you to spell-check first?
It's GRAMMAR.
Did I just fall through a time-warp, or is something very wrong with this story?
Who, exactly is wondering what Burt Rutan is up to? I mean, I realize that not everybody cares about spaceflight, but I promise that anybody who knows who Burt Rutan IS could hardly have missed the 2010 recent news stories about what he is up to. I guess unless they are a slashdot editor...
Oh, but wait, there are pictures of his X-Prize entry. That is amazing!
Is it possible to design better slashdotting bait than that? Even screenshots of a new Linux release or an MPEG of Natalie Portman making hot grits is unlikely to get hit much faster.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
After posting the article on slashdot, the server admin heard a loud bang. This was probably the network card buckling under the stress. After further investigation, large amounts of M&Ms were found in the servers drive bays.
wikipedia has a great entry on this.
steal this sig
I disagree with your premise entirely. NASA has been a disaster for space travel, ensuring that resources get plowed into the most inefficient, expensive, hide-bound techniques and designs. The only effort more backward is the Russian one, and at least the Russians stuck with one basic design and perfected it to the point where they have the highest lifting capacity in the world.
Getting into space might have taken longer without the whole NASA "before the end of this decade" mission statement, but once done it would have been profitable and economical. Instead, "we" wasted 43 years of time just to repeat Shepherds sub-orbital pud-knocker.
Seriously, dump NASA completely. Let the government buy commercial launch room for its spy satellites the same way they use FedEx because it works better than the USPS.
And FedEx works better for exactly the same reason that Rutan came back with everything except his fuel, a feat NASA has never accomplished!
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I hope that Rutan wins the X Prize quickly and convincingly. He's the only one (correct me if I'm wrong) who is doing test flights. I trust him to get people into space without killing anybody. The other teams; I'm not so sure.
I wonder how long it'll get to kill my host :)
We desperately need the private sector, and things like the X-Prize.
Anyone read "The Innovator's Dilemma"? The premise of the book is that radical changes (what the author calls "disruptive technologies") can never be supported by organizations attuned to the old technologies.
Getting into space cheaply is going to require disruptive technology -- big paradigm changes. Just the nature of large organizations will keep NASA from being able to recognize or implement it. Just look at their current ideas for "X-Prize"-like contests -- they want to spread too little money over too many technologies. Who wants to compete to make the best astronaut glove? It just goes to show the agency is not capable of the radical changes we need for our space program.
You need to make two flights within a given time period and a few other things. It'll be a little while before Spaceship One can win. So the others are scambling to win.
Spaceship One: First successful flight into outerspace by a commercial company.
This thing: Pictures.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
1. $50,000.00 for composite materials
2. $1,000,000.00 for Electronics
3. $1,000,000.00 + change for Engineering
Surviving SlashDot onslaught PRICELESS!!!
My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!
The photos download just fine once their "SlideShow" software finishes rendering the HTML page that has the pointer to it. I'd recommend skipping the slide show, and getting only the thumbnails - that way you can pick and choose what photos you're willing to wait 30-60 seconds for.
http://www.rokits.org/gallery/x-prize
Mirror
Mirror of images, all one one page. 39 images. 3.2 Megabytes total.
...would dare take off without his trusty West Bend timer! (Picture at http://sd-mirror.dumitru.com/scaled/sso042a.sized. jpg)
West Bend timers...IN SPACE!
(Yes, I know that's actually White Knight's cockpit. Smile and nod.)
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
He didn't go to orbit. Not even close. He was about 15,000mph short of going to orbit.
What he did was hit an altitude of 100km, barely, and fell back.
As many of you know, the pilot of SpaceShipOne released a bunch of M&M's near the top of his historic spaceflight. Scaled just recently released video of the launch, which includes chase plane and in-cockpit views. The floating M&M's are near the end. It's incredibly cool to watch -- one of the M&M's flies right by the camera! This video doesn't have sound, as I believe the "full" version is licensed for an upcoming Discovery Channel special.
I wonder if Mars, Inc. is going to try to license that video for a commercial.
Linking to a gallery slideshow is about the stupidest thing you can do.
"Unfortunately i didnt watch the launch(so correct me if im wrong) but one thing that I quite dont undestand is how he has managed to reach the space with so little fuel in such a 'fragile' structure (considering that the pictures showed a shuttle that didnt have those ceramics plates for reentering the atmosphere).
Everytime NASA put the something in orbit, they burn that boatload of fuel, and this guy just got there in a what looks more like a giant Kite! And with what I believe being a much lower budget."
He didn't need heat shielding because he didn't achieve orbital velocity - which is around mach 25. Simply going into space and coming back doesn't create a problem with reentry.
You also have to keep in mind that impressive as space ship one is, it's a toy compared to an actual commercial launch vehicle. To get into low earth orbit you have to get up to about 300 miles altitude and attain a velocity of around mach 25, while Space Ship One only went up about 62.5 miles with a velocity of mach 3. Also, SSO doesn't carry any substantial payload; a commercial launch vehicle like the Delta 4 can launch 15 tons into orbit.
They've done a horribly annoying job of mixing feet and km in this image but why have they used nm? Like did the flight reach 100km high, travel 53nm in space then come down again?
Did they screw up there or am I deeply confused about some weird measurement scanle than just happens to look like nanometers but like, isnt?
here are some other gallerys:/ 2004/2 93.html
http://spaceshipone.airshowjournal.com
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/006
In this case, nm stands for Nautical Miles, not Nanometers