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X Prize Launch At Mojave Spaceport [updated: success!]
knovis writes "The Ansari X Prize is being attempted at this moment: 9:30am EST. Bert Rutan and Paul Allen's Scaled Composites is preparing to make the first of 2 launches necessary. For the uninitiated, the X-Prize is a $10M prize available to the first entirely privately funded organization that creates a vehicle that travels to 100km above the earth's surface (low earth orbit) twice within 2 weeks. IIRC, SpaceShipOne is planning 3 flights for that 2 week period, for safety. Best of luck to Private Spaceflight. Did anyone else notice that Virgin Galactic has just been launched?"
Project Zen writes "MSNBC has an article about how the seats won't be filled with people but mementos of the crew." Several readers sent links to CNN's story on the flight, and space.com's continuing coverage, including by webcam; NASA TV also has an eye on the launch. (Watch this space for updates.) Update: 09/29 15:57 GMT by T : Disconnect writes "As reported all over, SpaceShipOne successfully flew its first X-Prize flight attempt. As of now (11:45:40EST) the officials have not cleared the flight as successful, but it's looking good."
CNN is covering it, not sure how great the video will be. but it appears it was delayed due to high wind. The White Knight just took off about 5 minutes ago. give them another hour or so before they actually fire the rockets in SpaceShipOne.
Let's just hope Mike does ok with this, i'd hate to see someone die on an absolutely amazing thing these guys are doing. Granted I think they'll do ok but I am still worried about the guy, especially his family.
Go Mike GO!
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
...at least here in the UK. The last flight I was able to make plans in advance to see it live, but this is the first I've heard about this one - and it's the real thing!
Still, very best of luck to everyone involved - proof that some folk still have the "Right Stuff".
This is where the serious fun begins.
I'm amazed how elegant this space craft is. Granted, the NASA flights were about half a century ago. And these guys have a lot more to work with. But it seems to me like they are doing an amazing job! Think of the NASA budget and manpower as compared to these guys. They have yet to acomplish all that the space program has accomplished - but dang are they doing a good job. Every time I see the separate space crafts and how elegantly they maneuver... I'm just impressed. I think about the old rockets just dropping pieces into the ocean. But this two staged design that flies to altitude and then separates into to pilotable vehicles seems very well thought out.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Branding the X-Prize at the (relative) last minute, post-establishment, has always seemed like a real second-hander move to me.
Once upon a time, I was truly excited and idealistic about the X-Prize. Now that it's the Ansari X Prize, and the Microsoft billionaire's project is going to win, it feels a bit "so what?"... it seems like Ansari and Allen could have just teamed up and accomplished the same thing - only, I guess, there wouldn't be as much publicity that way (and maybe no subsequent deals with Virgin). But the "contest" aspect now rings false and feels extraneous.
I'm surprised this flight is eligible for the X-Prize, since it is only carrying 1 person. Don't the X-Prize rules state there must be 3 people on board? There is more to carrying out a flight for three people than just boosting their weight into orbit. There are safety concerns as well. I thought the goal of the X-Prize was providing safe commercial space travel, not just space travel that a stunt pilot is willing to risk.
You consider that sick? LOL, take a look what religion did to the world, now thats sick!
I am using RealPlayer 8 and it's fine using Mdk 9.1.
I just wish stories would mentioned when links would allow only MS Windows Media, <i>c.f.</i> space.com.
See Flying to Orbit, with an update for SpaceShipOne
The CNN interviewer kept interjecting nonsense, so I muted the TV and listened to the web feed, where they didn't feel the need to talk when they had nothing to say.
Language students: Don't try to learn English here. This ain't it.
For sentimental reasons, we should probably rename SpaceShipOne to "The Doohan" -- in honor of James Doohan. Before he passes into oblivion, he would certainly feel honored that the first prototype of a commercial spacecraft is named after him.
There is always the remote possibility that the winner of the space prize will evolve, 100 years later, into a real starship.
Did anyone notice this?
I was watching the live feed, and saw the plane spin wildly before he cut off the engine.
The SpaceFlightNow status update page said "The craft is in a major tumble!". Several minutes after that, it was 'corrected' to : "The craft is in a major roll!"
I think they still have some issues with the aerodynamics at this speed.
Not that this will affect them in their bid in the race. They seem to be well poised to win.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
I love these guys.
Did anyone notice how none of the Scaled guys wanted to take the microphone? They all kept offering for the other guy to take the stage, not wanting to take any of the credit - these guys are the real deal!
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
Not to say that a few people shouldn't try to eek out some bucks in a startup, but on the other hand it's easy to forget the aerospace crash of the '80s and the dotbombs in the 00's to realize that you really need to have underlying value to sustain something in the long run.
Do what you want to do and be the best at it you can, don't take a java class and hope for a dot-com million (unless you are already the type that regularly plays the local lottery). That's a bit of free advice (of course you get what you pay for).
Also it's interesting to note that no mass transit system in history has been consistantly profitable over time (e.g., busses, trains, airplanes, ferries). There are some isolated local successes, but overall the failure rate is really high and it's often the government (or a government licenced monopoly) that comes in an ends up picking up the slack (usually justified as infrastructure investment).
Some food for thought on your future career choice.
Didn't make it out to Mojave today. I should've and I'm kicking myself for it. My friend Steve and I made it to the last launch, however, and brought our digital cameras (his Canon 10D and my Canon 300D). We didn't have any super-telephoto lenses and the launch was way up there, so there aren't a lot of images of the actual flight. However, there are plenty of launch and landing photos and shots of SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnight at low altitudes. Besides giving you a better idea of what the flight was like (and seeing how long it would take to kill this account), there should be a geek-appeal in that doing this with digital cameras meant that Steve and I uploaded the images to my powerbook which I had connected to a kyocera 7135 smartphone acting as a wireless modem. The images were up by 1100am.
The images may be used for a book, but the speed of this project was mostly a proof of concept for us, and while we posted it on a design news site (which took forever to do the posting therefore generally made me hate them) but I'm thinking of going up again, but if I did, I'd like to find a real outlet that might host the images and gain us some wider exposure.
http://www.simultaneous-environments.net/
Full story here
Is there an industry with an exception of entertainment and pharmacuticals that has sustaining value over time? ( There probably is, I just can't think of them at this time)
.com bust think about how much better the world is because of it.
I will reinforce your arguement with another example before I counter it.
In 1905 detroit there were over two hundred american automotive companies in or surronding detroit. Automobile Startups popped up left and right with entrepenuers opening their wallets to anyone with a neat idea about cars and how they will impact society and how everyone will want one. How many of those companies exist today? Not many. Why? Well there was a big boom in automotives in the early twentieth century and like every other bubble it burst.
Sounds familiar? Well it should be, just replace the words automobile and car with computers and internet and change the dates and we have history repeating itself. Oh yeah and change the location from shitty Detroit to Cali.
It happens it's economic dawrinism, the comapinies that did not have a solid business model, product, poor managment or were founded on some half-baked idea failed. The compainies that did succeded for the most part.
Is that to say that the automotive industry is trivial and nonimportant and becoming an automotive engineer is a waste of time? Of course not.
Same with radios, tv's, movie theaters (just ask your parents about movie theaters in the sixties, alot different from the multiplexes of today). Look up old television design from the fities during it's boom and you'll see some funky cool designs from companies that are not around anymore.
Is the aerospace industry going to have the same bubble? I hope so. All usefull and some not so usefull tech has it's boom but when things settle down where better off for it.
Despite all the bad that has happened about the
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There is a huge, huge difference between flying to 100 km and achieving low-Earth orbit (LEO). SpaceShipOne has about 2% of the energy needed to reach LEO.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Did anyone notice how on both their flights they managed to lose control? I saw video on the news, and the thing was just free falling for awhile (not gliding, mind you, rolling). Surely the XPRIZE officials cannot deem this a success.
hi