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Burt Rutan On his Upcoming X-Prize Attempt

Posted by timothy on from the good-fine-americans-like-dr-wernher-von-braun dept.

dkleinsc writes "The BBC is running an article about Burt Rutan, the head of Scaled Composites and creator of SpaceShip One. He talks about his motivation (besides fame and a big pile of cash) for the project."

5 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Ironic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Gates foundation has donated Billions to Global Health care issues.

  2. September 29 at the Mojave airport, California by Degrees · · Score: 5, Informative
    If you live in Southern California, its not too far to go to see the launch. From the Ansari web site:
    launch currently scheduled for approximately 6:47 a.m.
    Mojave Civilian Flight Test Center
    Address: Mojave Airport
    1434 Flight Line Mojave, CA 93501
    Parking is $35. My boss is letting some of us trade 1/2 day off Wednesday for some Saturday work - we will car pool and split the fee. There is more expensive, premium parking available - but we can't tell what that buys us.

    Lucky me, I have cool boss. ;-)

    --
    "The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
  3. Re:what, no tiles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    The description of the reentry strategy includes none of the bazillion tiles stuck all over the shuttlecraft. This seems like a better approach --- very simple and apparently a lot less heat.
    Thats because this is a suborbital flight and not an orbital one so there is not the insane amount heat generated when Rutan's craft re-enters the atmosphere.
  4. SpaceShipOne Chat 'ready for launch'... by pandelirium · · Score: 5, Informative

    As many already know, Scaled Composite's "SpaceShipOne" is set to fly on Sept 29th, 2004 in the early-morning hours (Pacific-time) in it's first attempt to fulfill the requirements to win the Ansari X-Prize. Chat will again be available for the flight and the following flights as well.

    We had a VERY sucessful chat-session during the previous flight on June 21st and expect to have a good round this time for the X-Prize flights. The channel is open to all (we prefer you register/identify your nicks but is not a requirement for this channel). IF any 'over-flow' occurs, a back-up channel will automatically re-direct those as needed. A !news bot (Space.com) and !countdown bot is available.

    We also set another 'special' channel ( #SS1-FltData ) to record/display near 'real-time' Flight-Data from SS1 but the final decision is still not complete and not expected for the first flight-attempt. In any case, we expect to still have some limited data/info available. This channel is to monitor only, no chatting there, unless you are 'voiced'. The #SpaceShipOne channel is for that. ;) You MUST be a registered nick and identified in order to join this channel. There is no cost to register.

    The chat-server is located on the Freenode.net series. Point your chat-client to:

    -- Server: irc.freenode.net

    -- Channels: #SpaceShipOne and #SS1-FltData

    Hope to see you back there for the flights. ;)

    b>John B. -("Pandelirium")
    SpaceShipOne Admin/Ops/Moderator

    For other 'space-related' chat on Freenode, goto:

    - #space (general-combined channel)
    - #maestro (Mars Rover/SAP/Maestro Planning Software)
    - #cassini (Cassini/Huygens to Saturn)
    - #messenger (Probe to Mercury)
    - #celestia (3D Space/Solar-System Simulation)
    - #roverware (NexGen Rover/Planning Software development)

  5. Re:what, no tiles? by AeroNate · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is there an advantage to orbital flight? Why couldn't an orbiting craft stop orbiting before reentry and return to the atmosphere like SS1? In order to stop orbiting, they have to slow down from very high speed, and that requires getting rid of a huge amount of kinetic energy. In the case of the shuttle, capsules, etc, that energy is just turned into heat by the atmospheric drag. If you want to avoid that heating, you need to slow down in a different way. The only other choice is to use an engine burn, and that is hugely expensive because it means that you have to lift a lot of extra fuel into orbit along with your payload. In fact, it takes as much fuel to slow down as it takes to get into orbit in the first place (unless you get rid of some mass by tossing out a satellite). But carrying that extra "deorbit" fuel means that your original load on the launch pad has to be much much bigger too. It is better to just let the atmosphere slow you down.