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."

Comments

I'm impressed.

[Doesn't_Comment_Code]

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.

Re:I'm impressed.

[crawling_chaos]

Actually, they're not doing much more than the Air Force did with the X-15 program in the fifties and sixties. I'll be curious to see if Scaled's promised orbital vehicle retains the same elegant lines. I doubt it. Orbital velocities are much higher, so I'm betting we end up with a much chunkier vehicle, a la the Shuttle or Buran, only smaller.

Re:I'm impressed.

[netringer]

Actually, they're not doing much more than the Air Force did with the X-15 [af.mil] program in the fifties and sixties

That's not a coincidence. As a young man, Burt Rutan actually worked as an civilian engineer and designer for the Air Force and worked on the X-15 program.

The general wisdom was the X-15 was a better bet for getting into space vs. missiles but it lost out to the rocket boys in the politics at NASA.

"Ansari" co-opting still really bothers me

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:"Ansari" co-opting still really bothers me

[Teancum]

What the X-Prize foundation does next year is going to be the real issue, not the co-opting of the name. The Ansari family has pushed a huge pile of case to the foundation for the rights to add their name onto the X-Prize... enough to set up one or more new prizes.

If the foundation takes the money and runs to Argentina or Pakistan you have a right to be pissed (I will be too.) If instead they announce a prize to get people to orbit, I would be incredibly impressed. It is just in that case Robert Bigelow is going to beat them to the punch with his own prize.

Orbital (LEO) flight: The next major frontier for private spaceflight. Keep in mind the quote from R.A. Heinlein: "Low Earth Orbit is half-way to the rest of the solar system." If you can get there, getting the rest of the way to places like the moon or Mars or even Europa is going to be comparatively easy.

Aerodynamics and 'correction'

[kbahey]

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.

Quote from Dick Rutan re: the roll...

[LaminatorX]

"When something like that happens, it makes a much better chapter in the book."

I love these guys.

no mass transit has been profitable over time

[slew]

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.