Da Vinci Project Postpones X-Prize Attempt

brainstyle writes "To some people this won't come as much of a shock: the Da Vinci Project's inaugural launch has been delayed. I'm a Canuck, so I'm rooting for these guys, but it always felt a bit iffy. The Canadian Arrow team seems to be doing things a bit more intelligently, so if any Canadian launch works, I'd bet on that one."

Comments

Re:And when we don't win?

[brainstyle]

There's the annual X Prize Cup which will hopefully give a number of teams motivation to keep working on what they're doing. Anyways, I doubt that many of the teams would quit just because the prize was won... I mean, I think they all just want to get into space, and they're closer now than they've ever been (even if they're still a ways off).

Re:da Vinci Design: Not very practical

[david.given]

IANARS, but it also appears that the Tier One design is highly scalable. Just make a large enough plane that can achieve a high altitude that can carry a large enough orbiter and fuel, and this thing can become a new LEO personnel or unmanned shuttle, or the much-lamented spaceplane.

Alas, it can't; there are fundamental reasons why SpaceShipOne or any similar vehicle can't get into orbit. This principally boil down to not being able to get enough delta-V from that rocket technology, and no thermal protection system for reentry. Changing the propulsion system and adding a TPS would involve a fundamental redesign from scratch.

What it is is a good technology demonstrator. They're getting experience in dealing with multistage vehicles, rocket propulsion, freefall attitude control, supersonic flight, etc; all well worth while, and all necessary on the path to a real orbital vehicle.

Plus the PR benefits are huge, too --- you could probably write the whole Tier One programme off as advertising. Think how much publicity Scaled Composites has gotten out of this...