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SpaceShipOne Captures the X Prize
I got to Mojave yesterday evening (it's a long way from El Paso), slept in my car, and got to the airfield itself just before 4 a.m. Traffic on state highway 58 was brisk already, though not clogged (which it later became), and nearly every car was turning onto the two-lane entrance heading for acres of packed-dirt parking spaces near the runway from which SpaceShipOne would take off.
The crowd which built up in the following hours was surprisingly quiet on takeoff, which happened right at 7:45 local time. Not exactly hushed -- perhaps "hesitant" is a better word, or maybe just waking up. Only scattered clapping (guilty!) as the White Knight / SpaceShipOne piggyback duo lifted off, followed shortly by two chase planes, an AlphaJet and a Beechcraft Starship. The enthusiasm grew, though, as the flight progressed; a P.A. system kept the spectators informed of the trip's progress.
When SpaceShipOne finally separated and fired upward ("Good release, good release!" over the P.A, followed by enthusiastic cheering), it was after three separate two-minute warnings, then for one-minute and 30-second intervals. After an 84-second burn followed by a clean shutdown, SpaceShipOne coasted to its final altitude. At 90 seconds into the flight, the ship was well past 100,000 feet, and out of sight to the unaided eye. At 7:51, an altitude of 328,000 feet was reported, but the ship was still climbing for the next 40,000 feet under its own momentum. The reported peak altitude is enough to top the previous record, set by an X-15 at 354,200 ft. in 1963.
The descent was happily uneventful. At 60,000 feet, Binnie experienced "slight oscillations" -- consistent with previous flights, according to the announcer, who continued to count down the altitude. At approximately 45,000 feet, the conditions are right for contrails, and more cheering erupted when those popped into view. The crowd perked up and cheered even more with the first of two sonic booms audible on the ground (the booms that occur during ascent aren't), pointing and shading their eyes from the sun, following the ship as it traveled in wide arcs to bleed off the energy of the ascent, followed by a smooth 3-point landing.
(Special thanks to the members of the Foothill High School band who traveled the three hours from Orange County to watch the flight and play both before and after the flight. The launch itself was surprisingly low on ceremony, and their playing provided a bit of well-deserved pomp.)
After the first several dignitaries and rich adventurers (and probably pile of useless pop stars and actors/actresses) the thing will probably be booked solid with geeks with telescopes.
i wonder if William Shatner can get me cheap tickets through Priceline...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
That's a bit of a let-down, actually. I was hoping a few more people would have a successful first launch before someone managed to do it twice in two weeks. It would have been a little more dramatic.
What do you think will happen to the other projects? I suppose they must have been funded well enough to not depend on receiving the prize.
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
But it's probably a safe bet it doesn't run Windows...
Right is wrong when left is right.
328,000 ft in miles
doh.
Official X-Prize peak height from first flight
According to those numbers, the first flight was several kilometers lower than the number given by the Mojave radar. i.e. The X-Prize foundation says that SpaceShipOne only went ~102 km, while the unofficial numbers has said ~117 km. This time SpaceShipOne only went to 368,000 (~102km) according to the unofficial numbers. (CNN said that 328,000 is the cutoff point, not the altitude) Given how much lower that number is, I'm sweating bullets until I get the numbers from the X-Prize foundation.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
According to the rules...so anyone from the da Vinci team...you know how to win!
Now that the Mercury missions have more or less been reproduced for ~$25 million, I'd like to hear some reassessments of modern Moon mission costs. Same for Mars. The media (and a lot of slashdotters by the way) like to come up with estimates which go something like "if Apollo cost $X billion dollars, Mars will cost 10 times that cause it's harder".
Based on the fact that this was an order of magnitude or two cheaper than comparable NASA missions, anyone care to extrapolate a Moon or Mars mission if NASA is just turned into a clearing house for prize money? I'm guessing that Zubrin's crazy estimates of less than $25 billion seem a lot less crazy now.
Blaze a trail to the New World
congrats to all involved, another chapter in space exploration has been opened.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
Say what you will, but this guy is a true visionary and genius. First the round the world on a tank of gas flight, and now this.
Congrats to Paul Allen as well, for his vision and support.
I was wondering when this news would be making it to slashdot. It's been nearly 15 minutes since I first read about it.
"budget embarrassingly smaller than NASA's"
Of course Rutan didn't perform any of the fundamental research that lead to the first manned flights, so his efforts are piggy-backing on those of NASA.
What a bullshit comparison.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
On the webcast. Wow. I mean really - ok, it isn't the moon landings, but it is one of the more significant things I'm likely to see in my life I think.
I have to say, it brought a tear to my eye when they did it. Yo, America - you guys have something to be proud of today!
fortune -o
"Interesting to note, that a majority of its funding ($20-$30 million) was put up by Microsoft's own, Paul Allen." We cant just be happy about something without having to find a flaw in the whole grand scheme.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
The rules say the pilot must land in good health. Good health means surviving 24 hrs after the landing.
Even as we speak Spaceship ones competitors are arranging a hit......
I thought to win the X-Prize that the team had to launch 3 people into space. Did spaceshipone use the equivilant weight when doing the launches?
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
Or were they worried about it crashing? [/obvious] But it is pretty amazing, maybe we will have (somewhat) cheap airfare into space in our life time. Now that would be something cool. Plus it will put down travel time to the opposite side of the globe, instead of 20 hour flights 2 hour flights in sub-orbit, amazing
Step 1 - Construct complex private spacecraft. Step 2 - Fly to altitude over 328,000 feet. Step 3 - ?????? Step 4 - Profit!
I hope the land around you yields, a crop like all the other fields, and then your waiting might make sense...
Time to get a loan so I can go into space :)
AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
X-cellent!
Today is a great day for space afficionados. We've been rather fed up with NASA's castration for years... it's great that the doorway to space seems to be opening up again.
Next step: orbit.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Finally private industry has shown it can rocket a man 62 miles straight up and stay there for a couple of minutes! Congratulations! Now all it has to do is send someone to, you know, orbit the globe, and it will have caught up with government-sponsored space flight a third of a century ago.
Too bad Rutan started boasting and criticizing NASA. He IS obviously an aircraft genius, but I guess he's not a PR genius.
Yea yea, I read about it on fark at 9:30, and followed it live on CNN until it was over at around 11:15.
Most news organizations try to keep up.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
What will become of the other X-Prize contestants who were on track to make their attempts but did not do so in time?
END COMMUNICATION
Much as I absolutely loathe Microsoft and their products, it's nice to see this kind of cool thing being done.
:-(.
I just hope these guys didn't use Microsoft Space Management to run the thing, although I have a nasty feeling that they had to
Well, it worked. And today, that's all that matters. I lift a glass of metaphorical champagne. For today, a truce -- at least until I see my next Windows meltdown here on the ground.
(Come to think of it, though, I believe Paul Allen has very little to do with Microsoft nowadays -- right?)
D
I'm wondering what took up the extra mass to account for a 3 person flight. Did they have to take up extra stuff or did the weight of the pilot's 200 pound testicles suffice?
Blaze a trail to the New World
Technically, under FAI rules, the pilot has to survive for 24 hours to be deemed "in good health".
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
Jesus loves you, I think you suck
Its also a hell of a lot later than when NASA did the same, with technology that is more widespread and cheaper to boot. When NASA did their shots, it had to invent pretty much all of the technology, whereas Scaled Composites had the benefit of all the public knowledge now available about space travel. Not to put a cloud on this success, but come on guys, comparing it to NASA and saying its much cheaper just isnt fair.
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I put together the footage I took at the last launch attempt into a video on my homepage.
The music is from the very cool band ZIA. The lead singer/songwriter was at the launch this morning. (Lucky woman!)
Shared by Sputnik and SpaceShipOne.
Soviet Russia and Capitalist America, forever entwined by space history.
I think it's time to start the open source spaceship project.
Six score characters.
Brevity being wit's soul
I have enough space.
in 3hr plastic surgery
>...repeatably (if only technically) reaching space, on a on a budget
>embarrassingly smaller than NASA's.
Let's see them reach orbital velocity and then I'll be impressed by the budget difference.
It is not that I am unimpressed by the flight, but I'm not really impressed by comparing the budgets of two totally different projects with totally different goals.
"The craft rolled nearly 30 times in an unplanned manner as it shot faster than a bullet out of Earth's atmosphere."
Sounds like a bug or two needs to be worked out still. Anybody know what kind of safety standards a ship would have to pass before allowing civillians and who would set those standards?
"prestige of repeatably (if only technically) reaching space"
That is the point - to 'technically" do it. Sure the X-prize is won, but like a first in anything this is a starting point not a finish line.
I'm sure more technically minded will discuss practial applications and new limits to be beaten. But I'm glad I was here to "witness" this. I imagine in 100 years when people will talk about this like they talk about kittyhawk now.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
Now where the hell is Martin Short?
I grew up in the 70's dreaming of being an astronaut and going into space. That dream of course crumbed along with NASA.
Now at least my children can have that dream again.
One giant leap for mankind..
Can't wait until this actually becomes remotely affordable so I can see the Earth the way the astronauts do.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
They need to step up the challenge, so now we know we can have private commercial spacecraft, where would we go? They need to make a second xprize to launch a private space station :)
This is truly a great achievement, and congratulation to the winning team.
That being said, I keep hearing and seeing people remark about how this somehow embarasses NASA or proves the "wonders of the private sector". I feel that the people making these comments (including the submitter/editor of this story) fail to realize that, without NASA's taxpayer funded contribution over the span of its existence, what they did this morning would not have been possible at this point. The private sector was able to accomplish this on such a budget because of innovations by NASA that brought this technology out in the first place.
Apparently, Space Ship One also beat the altitude record set by the X15 almost 40 years ago.
This is an exciting time to be alive.
Private industry outperforms big government yet again.
While I agree that the Demopublicans are hardly a great party, tell me which company landed men on the moon.
Oh, that's right - there aren't any.
And which private company launched a human into sub-orbital flight in the 1960's.
Oh, that's right - there aren't any.
The private company that landed probes on nearly all of the closest planets?
Oh, that's right - there aren't any.
I could go on for hours.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
NASA does a lot more with its budget than "only technically" reaching orbit. And despite a few tragic "early terminated" missions, its safety record is extremely high, especially compared to its competition. And the amount of science it has released into the public domain has been vast, and nearly inestimable. We'll see how well you and I benefit from the privatization of spaceflight. I'm filing my preemptive patent on "extraterrestrial birth" now, while supplies still last.
And incidentally, it's been a long time since Paul Allen was "Microsoft's own" - as a major shareholder not employed at the company for decades, it's more like Microsoft is Paul Allen's own, to some degree. More appropriate is to say that the money invested in winning the X-Prize was "our own" before we paid the Microsoft tax.
--
make install -not war
After the wonderful success of the X-prize, I have to wonder if it would be cheaper for NASA to start sponsoring some of these?
Like an orbital shuttle, a private moon program and a manned landing on Mars? Heck, even a robotic one.
It seems like all of these could be done for a fraction of the cost to the US Taxpayer.
I doubt it would happen, as it would impinge on NASA's turf.
> Private industry outperforms big government yet again.
The irony of someone writing this using the Internet is incredible.
A.
Of course Rutan didn't perform any of the fundamental research that lead to the first manned flights, so his efforts are piggy-backing on those of NASA.
Besides the fact that SpaceShipOne utilizes a completely different and more efficient aeronautical approach than NASA to reach space, what relevance does your flippant remark even have? We're talking about the budget required to build the thing. Take a look at Scaled Composites' expenditures and then compare then with those of NASA for one damn shuttle launch. Then shut your mouth.
The coolest voice ever.
There's actually going to be a company called "Virgin Galactic" in my lifetime.
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I would say that it would be more accurate to say that SS1 reporduced the results of the X-15. What is interesting is that in terms of costs, both efforts cost the $25 Million.
If you assume that a 1960 dollar is worth 4x of what it is today, then SS1 cost 1/4 of the X-15.
Well done Scaled!
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
.. and when i say NASA I mean all the countries and agencies involved "way back when".
And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
till touchdown brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at all oh no, no, no
I'M A ROCKET MAN!
(Sorry.. that was the first thing that came to mind.. )
I am the maverick of Slashdot
That Paul Allen put up some money?
/. fagbots have to flame anything that involves anyone that's involved with Microsoft?
How is that interesting, other than
What's interesting is that these guys went to space. Whether Carmack, Allen, Steve Jobs or Oprah Winfrey put up the bucks is irrelevant.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This is an amazing feat. Definitely one of the top 5 space events in my lifetime. I do have a beef with the article summary though. This part:
it will win the $10 million purse, and more importantly attain the prestige of repeatably (if only technically) reaching space, on a budget embarrassingly smaller than NASA's
Although this is a great feat for a privately funded venture. This is only equivalent to NASA's first manned suborbital flight which happened in 1961. NASA has still put many people in space for extended periods of time, including 12 manned flights to the moon. And for all practical purposes, NASA started this adventure with no prior experience or knowledge of space flight. Also, a good portion of NASA's budget is for the first "A" in the acronym.
Again, this is a great feat, and its a first, but this is only the very beginning of private space flight.
I, along with many other people im sure, were watching the live feed. That is until 10 minutes ago when it was posted on slashdot.
How about next time the editors exercising some judgement and NOT posting once-in-a-lifetime live events when you KNOW they will get slashdotted?
on a budget embarrassingly smaller than NASA's
Last time I checked NASA's scope was signifigantly larger than the x prize's. the shuttle flies much higher and with larger payloads -- which exponentially more difficult. I'm not knocking what the space ship one folks have done, but we need to keep some perspective.
Jonathan
I wonder if Paul Allen put up the money so that Microsoft could start its own airline (spaceline!).
For no apparent reason, you'd have a Blue Sky of Death instead of a Blue Screen of Death and all passengers would perish instantly. Of course, all logs of the accident would be unrecoverable.
During the flight, you'd have to pay for extra upgrades such as seatbelts to stop you from being sucked out of the plane through the spontaneously appearing holes in the hull.
Linux and OSS friendly passengers would be considered as terrorists and shot on the spot once discovered.
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The problem is money. Scaled has Big Bux behind them. All the others involve huge model rockets (a good way to die). And it's not just the model rocket thing (hey, the V-2 is proven technology that eventually lifted man into space via NASA), its R and D. All these other programs just don't have the technical skill to build something other than a Roman candle.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Apparently, in order for the landing to be called "successful", the pilot must survive for 24 hours afterwards... according to some archaic aeronautical standards of French origin, left over from the early 20th century. This was when many landings were what we'd call "crashes" nowadays, and the pilot had to not die from injuries within 24 hours, or the landing would not be considered officially "successful". This ancient rule is still being applied in the X-Prize today, so let's hope that Brian Binnie doesn't get run over by a bus before tomorrow or they won't win the prize money.
It's nice to see our tax money finally being put to good use. Way to go, people!!!
As always, the GREATEST thrill is landing.
I do think that this remark is unfair to NASA. It is kind of like the difference between building a laptop computer today or in the 60's. Now you can get them for a grand or two, then it would have been prohibitively expensive if not totally impossible. The time is right for cheap space travel, but it is only possible today because of the trail blazing efforts of NASA and the USSR.
Microsoft is finally associated with something that DOESN'T crash!
but who were the three lucky pasengers that were required?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
All I can say now is Woohoo!!!
Maybee now their be a huge influx of commerical investment in space flight like their was for the Internet awhile ago. Of course having your space bubble burst sounds a lot more life threating than having the Internet bubble burst.
Especially since private industry built our modern Internet where the government couldn't.
Please don't.
I don't think it was Microsoft sponsoring it - I think it was Paul Allen personally putting some of his own money into the project.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
...but I think history will remember this day as far more important than most at this moment believe it to be
Then again, I'm just talking out my ass. But I wouldn't put it past Rutan.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Seriously, for all those who sit and trash NASA, how do you think these guys got the information to build the damn thing? N.A.S.A.
/. here, unless someone is doing something great at the moment, the second someone outdoes them they suck. Remember all the great posts we had when NASA landed on Mars? All the people that were talking about how revolutionary NASA was? Now, as soon as someone else figures out how to catch up to NASA using less money, all of a sudden NASA is horrible.
How do you think many of the things we use today were pioneered? N.A.S.A.
People sit and trash NASA and complain about their budget. NASA isn't hanging out in 330k feet, they're going to MARS. 15 years ago, when NASA did this, was a bigger budget because they weren't as technically advanced as we are today. They were designing the technology to do what they did. SpaceShipOne is simply CATCHING UP.
It seems as though on
It's a shame..
PS: Congratulations to the SpaceShipOne Team
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein
For those who didn't see this headline on CNN earlier today, here's a screenshot:
http://musicalgearbox.com/cnnorbit.jpg
Oh how I hate news reporting of science. If people think SpaceShipOne goes into orbit just as does NASA's Space Shuttle, it's no wonder, with science reporting like this. "But it said it right there on CNN's website..." For some people it would be easier to explain that "a hacker [they wouldn't understand the 'cracker' distinction] put that headline on CNN's website" rather than a major news organization being wrong.
An I overly cynical, or have I just been spending too much time around stupid people?
Tag lost or not installed.
Congratulations are particularly in order for Anousheh Ansari's family without whom the X-Prize would not have been funded.
Hopefully guys like Paul Allen and Bill Gates will get the idea they can do a lot more with their philanthropy money if they put up prize awards than if the schmooze it up with toadies. If they do they will start making major advances not just in space migration but in life extension, intelligence increase and fusion energy which will finally embarrass the government into doing what it should have been doing all along the right thing as well:
Fund prizes, not proposals.
Seastead this.
paul allen hasn't been a part of microsoft in years
I think its interesting to point out that Rutan & co. have made it into space, sure, just space, not orbit (but seriously, when did we start getting so picky? It is _still_ rocket science, and getting to space is still a technical achievement that took over 10 millennia of human technological progression), three times while NASA is still trying to cobble together a way of making their space shuttle (launch cost: about what every slashdotter COMBINED will ever make) safe enough to fly again.
So basically, the ONLY way that the US can send anyone into space right now is with SpaceShip One - making it one of 3 vehicles, including Russia's Soyuz and China's Soyuz-esque rocket, that can go into space with people in it.
Its also significant that I think this is the only completely reusable vehicle to ever go into space, as being able to do a one-week turnaround shows, having this capability has some pretty big benefits.
Tim
I'm trying to get my head around how the shuttlecock wing formation works for re-entry. Unfortunately their web site is a little bit snowed under at the moment for me to dig around much on their site.
Can someone explain how this works?
Thanks
Yes, the Government is no longer able to keep us from killing ourselves in the name of adventure. Truthfully, a lot of these X-Prize contestans remind me of the guy who attached weather baloons to his lawn chair. Is it any wonder that Scaled won it? Not really, they where the only contender.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I live in Ridgecrest California which is about 50 miles away from Mojave. When I arrived at work this morning I first noticed a bunch of people outside looking up. Above us were two contrails doing a slow right hand pattern. White Night and probably the Alphajet chase plane. When the contrails were way to the south, probably over Edwards Air Force Base, SS1 released and shot off to space. Even from where we were we could easily see the orange rocket plume and also see when the exhaust stopped. A great show that I didn't expect to see at all today.
What's a Sig???
The ailerons (sp?) failed for 5 minutes in the first flight. That's what caused the instability during the first flight. He managed to get it back under control before anything majorly bad happened.
Note: I am not a pilot, engineer or whatever, so if you're upset that I botched the part of the airplane that broke, go stick your head up a notoriously famous rectum.
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
I watched the documercial last night on Discovery called Black Sky about the Scaled project, it's on again this week and there is a second piece coming up as well, it's worth watching.
After I watched it I was thinking about who it really shows as being behind the ball. Well NASA is the obvious choice, but NASA made an investment from the 70s on into Shuttle and with the tangled web they have to tread with Congress and internal inertia, I don't think we can say "Look, NASA sucks!"
Who it really makes look foolish, in my opinion, is the Chinese space program.
They have been ramping up for thier space program for decades, and thier way of doing it was to buy Russian hardware, reverse engineer it and then build it again. No one knows how much that cost the Chinese, but look at Scaled. 250 people and about 25 million in venture capital is running a space operation out in the desert. Yea they haven't orbited yet. But they will, I've read it costs about $80,000 in fuel and prep.
I'm a night owl. I mean, a serious night owl. I rarely get to bed before 2AM, and tend to get up after 9 at the earliest. However, knowing that today's flight was to start at 7AM, I was up, ready and waiting, at 6:30.
I was bebopping from one news channel to another (no, I don't get CNN), looking for coverage of the flight. About 7:30-ish, NBC said they were going to have the seperation live in about ten minutes. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Lots of blather about how Mt. St. Helens could erupt at any time, much blather about Hollywood news, politics, and/or both, but naft on Space Ship One.
Then I caught mention that it had hit the mark, and would soon be landing. Again, live coverage of the landing coming up on MSNBC. Again, nothing. Nothing. More Mount St. Helens blather, more Hollywood, more people selling unsound "treatments" for non-existant "diseases",, then, finally, on Fox, a shot of SS1 landing.
Total coverage, from 6 different networks' news shows? Under a minute. For an event that could well have a major impact on humanity for generations to come. Not even 60 whole seconds of air time. Compare this to Lindberg's landing, and the hullabaloo that caused.
I'm steamed. As NBC claimed they were going to have live coverage, and didn't, and NBC is now MSNBC, I really hope that Paul Allen will raise the roof about this. After CBS' fake memos, and NBC dropping the ball here, I REALLY hate to point out that the place that had the most coverage, and the timeliest, was Fox News.
Scary.
Lemon curry?
"Microsoft Money," as you put it, has done some very interesting and beneficial things. The X-Prize isn't the exception to the rule, it's pretty much the standard practice.
This is cool, but keep in mind that when SS1 reaches space, it is going waaaaaay below orbital velocity. If NASA had only had to reach space, NASA's programs would have been considerably less expensive, too.
The other teams won't be going anywhere. Sure, Scaled goes down in the history books for their efforts but soon we'll all be able to watch the annual X-Prize cup. We won't just be seeing SSO make a trip to suborbital flight but instead seeing multiple launches per day for a week as many teams compete and bring us further, faster and closer to commercial manned orbital flight.
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In a rare break of Microsoft solidarity, Steve Ballmer says most people flying to space are stowaways and Microsoft will lead the way to space. "There is no way you can get there with NASA. The critical mass has to come from the PC, or a next generation lift-off device."
Finally. "The future" is here! Space flight for the masses (the rich ones anyways). I know, I know. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the flying cars get here though :-)
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Yet they both beat the snot out of /. on this article.
I used to read this site to learn things, but it seems like I only come here now so I can babble about crap I've already read about elsewhere.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Second, I notice Rutan did NOT go on the second flight. In fact, from the fact that the two "passengers" were balast (again!), I'm concerned that Scaled Composites were more concerned about the rolls in the first flight than they let on.
Remember, Rutan was all dead-set on going into space on the second flight, and the spirit of the X-Prize rules was that the vehicle was to carry passengers. The fact that only the pilot was on the second flight indicates that the potential publicity coup of being on the second flight was outweighed by the risks.
The only risks we're aware of are the "bang" heard on the first sub-orbital flight, and the propensity for SpaceShipOne to lose control on the edge of the atmosphere. The first problem was likely overcome, which means that the second problem likely has not.
Whilst I certainly applaud Scaled Composites for what they have achieved, I think it's worth stressing that they will need to achieve a lot more (on the technical front) before the technology becomes viable.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Let's see fundamental research:
- flying (see Wright brothers- not NASA)
- rockets in general (see Chinese/Goddard/Germans)
- reentry feather tail (Rutan- not NASA)
- jet engines (Whittle- not NASA)
- hybrid rocket motors (irc Bevin, not NASA)
- supersonic flight (X1-US Airforce- not NASA)
In fact, I can't think of any technology on SS1 or WhiteKnight where the fundamental research was by NASA. Anyone?
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Their navigation display did actually flake out while the rocket was firing three flights ago; the pilot said he just kept going since with his head straight forward he could see the earth out of the corner of his eye and knew he was still going up.1 4P m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne_flight_
http://scaled.com/projects/tierone/logs-WK-SS1.ht
I don't understand why everyone dumps on Scaled Composites. I mean, they only spent $20-$30 million, but this was because scientists under NASA had already done a lot of the enabling R & D and put that into the public domain.
.5 * mass * velocity squared. V^2 is a really large number.
Furthermore, this is a far cry from orbit. This was just lifting something into the sky. (Potential energy, which is equal to mass * grav. constant * height.) To reach orbit, you have to hit a really high rate of speed, which is kinetic energe:
So Scaled Composites was a great achievement, but it stood on the backs of giants. It's rocket will not scale to orbit, either, nor would that craft survive orbital reentry.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
I thought Rutans remarks were inapproriate at best. Nasa does good solid research and its no doubt that SSl and White KNight benifited from that research.
In my experiance boasting is a sure fire way to set oneself up for a big fall. I hope that it doesnt happen but the karma of the whole SS1 program has to be revised downwards in my estimation.
Anyone that tries to stay informed can see that yes SS1 is neat, and it did accomplish something. But, the real revolution is coming with Scramjet Engine technology that NASA is developing. Burt didnt use scramjets because he lacks the research . Nasa is about to launch the X-43A later this fall and it will hit Mach 10. Im sorry but the sell out of SS1, combined with the lack of appreciation for government sponsered space flight on Rutans part just pisses me off, and makes me sick. Thats sad, because it didnt have to gbe this way.
Check the X-prize website (says they won as of 12:15 eastern) and Please update the headline accordingly.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Bigelow has recently announced the logical follow-up to the X-Prize: America's Space Prize, a $50 million prize to build a vehicle capable of taking 7 people to an orbiting space habitat and back before the end of the decade.
Bigelow actually denies any plans for an orbital hotel, but with his background everyone keeps assuming that's his intention anyway.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
While I agree that the Demopublicans are hardly a great party, tell me which company landed men on the moon. Oh, that's right - there aren't any.
Because there wasn't any profit in it. The government didn't make money by landing men on the moon - they lost a ton of money.
Now, the private companies did indeed make a fortune by doing contracting for the government. So, just to set things straight - the Democrats poured money into the coffers of private companies. And you're using this as an example of why Democrats are better than private companies? I'm a little confused there.
What's your damage, Heather?
tell me which company landed men on the moon.
That would be Grumman, who built the LM. With, of course, an assist by North American (CSM), McDonell-Douglas and Boeing (boosters).
Oh yeah, the government threw in some cash.
The private company that landed probes on nearly all of the closest planets?
Well, the USSR's the only "company" that landed anything on Venus. The first two Mars landers (Viking 1 and 2) were by Martin-Marietta, who built both the landers and the launch vehicles (Titan IIIs), again with the Feds throwing in some cash.
-- Alastair
Sometimes I wonder about this kind of people... Successful authors of commercial software are more likely to be able to afford (re)investing some money for projects like this.
If MS was open source, Allen probably wouldn't get so rich and be less able to invest in myriad of cutting-edge stuff like this. Which makes me think of Google which obviously negates this idea...
But then I think of ambigous part of GPL which allows people like Google to run ASP-style apps on modified GPL software which they are not obliged to open-source (for example, Google's modifications to Linux packages including kernel, etc.) So maybe they're not an exception, after all... They'd be poorer if they had to open-source improvements to Linux scalability they performed.
I wonder if someone has done a **wholistic** comparison of free vs commercial software and their impact on the economy (I'm interested in unbiased analysis, of course).
For example, in short term, commercial software makes the government be able collect more sales tax, but then end users are able to afford less if average cost is higher than for OSS software/services.
Long term, end users can be more efficient if they pay less money for the equivalent features (_if_ we assume the features and the TCO are the same), but commercial software vendors can reinvest more in R&D and supposedly create software that justifies the (higher) price...
Without a doubt, it's the visionary drive of Peter Diamandis, Gregg Maryniak and the donors and volunteers at the Xprize Foundation that are the real heroes in this story. History may footnote them, but I for one won't ever forget their contributions to get things moving again.
I watched the documentary on the development & testing of SpaceShipOne, up through last week's flight. If you didn't see it, it was called "Black Sky" -- set your Tivo to look out for it. I'm sure they'll be showing it again.
Since Paul Allen of Microsoft put up much of the funding, does this mean I have to pay for a copy of Windows if I fly in any spaceship whether it is his or not?
Those who can do. Those who can't sue.
Interresting to note that Spaceship one has also broken the X15's altitude record (by a large margin). I don't think they broke the X15's speed record though.
>> Private industry outperforms big government yet again.
>The irony of someone writing this using the Internet is incredible.
Or would have been circa 1990.
Get with the times pal: private industry owns all the major backbones. MCI/WorldCom may have disappeared into the ether, but the cable they put across the continent has been duplicated a hundred times over. Even the ICANN is an NGO, at least ostensibly.
Boy, private industry picking up and popularizing a government service... Hmm... Hey, wouldn't it be cool if someone did that to NASA, too! And made like a privately owned Space Ship! That'd be so cool!!
Oh, right.
"You don't own space, so stop acting like you do." - Master Shake
Speak truth to power.
Don't take away what NASA accomplished in the '60s and early '70s. They were really pushing the envelope. Only since then have they stalled, and now deserve the criticism they receive. Their plan was to have a reusable spaceship that could lift astronauts and equipment at a fraction of the cost of previous methods, but that plan was horribly inaccurate. There was no real plan after that, and over the next decade and a half, it became painfully obvious, which is why there was such a shakeup around 2001/2002.
The next 5 years will determine NASA's future. If they can get back on track, set big goals (like the '60s) that interest the public and push science and technology, and most of all, work with the private industry, they will continue to be relevant, and I dare say, could easily accomplish feats that rival those of the early '60s. If, on the other hand, they continue to drift along, dabbling in various projects, but never commiting to anything large, as they have done for the past 20 years, NASA will fade into obscurity, and private enterprise will take over.
The ball is in your court NASA. Will you run with it?
Given the fact that they came in embarrassingly under the budget compared to NASA, you can be almost guaranteed that Congress is going to find an excuse to outlaw it.
It happened with private postal services in the 1800's. Private couriers delivered mail faster and cheaper than the good ol' USPS, so Congress outlawed them.
That's the way things work.
The Internet was a military project funded by the government, dumbass.
how long before DHS will shut it down in the name of security?
Duh !!
NASA is certainly allowed to piggy-back on NASA's fundamental research. I don't think anyone is including NASA's 1960's budget in today's budget numbers.
....for the first privately-funded manned orbital spacecraft.
:-)
And guess who's in the lead to win that prize: you guess it, none other than Burt Rutan and his group at Scaled Composites. You're forgetting that Scaled Composites did development work for both the McDonnell-Douglas Delta Clipper and Lockheed Venture Star programs. Though these programs were not complete successes it has given Scaled Composites valuable learning experience in building real spacecraft, and that experience gives them a huge advantage in winning the US$50 million prize. Besides, given Paul Allen's financial resources, Allen could easily part with the US$150-US$200 million needed to develop the so-called TierTwo project that will lead to a privately-funded manned orbital spacecraft.
When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.
-Fight Club
We know there's a mile-high-club, but what about a near-zero-"g"-club.
I'm not a doctor, but I play one in bed.
basically gave up on winning the X Prize. According to this press release, they were dogged by two things: 1) they had pinned their hopes on using 90% peroxide as their fuel, but it wasn't available to them, and 2) a test flight crash on August 8th.
They are continuing work, albeit at a slower pace.
I was thinking that had it not been for enormous stash of cash hoarded by Microsoft and it's corresponding stock value, this flight would have been impossible. May be somebody else would have financed it and not Paul Allen. But the reality is that Paul Allen, of the hated MS, has funded this. I wonder if any open source enthusiast or group can do this? Here, it means that open source is essentially effective where knowledge dissemination is concerned (Wikipedia, Linux...etc) but not where the physical world is concerned.
Perhaps you could go on for hours, but here are a couple for you to consider:
Which government has found a way to get suborbital flights for $25M R&D?
Oh that's right - there aren't any.
Which government has developed a reusable spacecraft that can be launched twice within 6 days?
Oh that's right - there aren't any.
Which government has designed a launch vehicle for the purpose of selling commercial tourist flights for $200K each?
Oh that's right - there aren't any.
If your goal for manned spaceflight is to have the occasional huge spectacle taking government employees into space, followed by long stretches of inactivity or wasteful boondoggles, well, then I can see why you'd like NASA's approach. Personally, my goal for manned spaceflight is that I'd like to go there myself someday. Scaled Composites' achievements look infinitely more relevant to that end than the ones you mention.
I do agree with you that NASA is likely to be better at space science (probes to planets) than private industry. NASA would be a healthier agency if they focused on that, and stopped spending billions on the Shuttle and IIS.
Did this ship have an on-board camera so you could see the few from its point of view? And is there any web pages with pictures?
I recall there was one on a test flight located somewhere at the landing gear but not 100% sure about that.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
someday there will be more women in engineering
> Especially since private industry built our modern Internet where the government couldn't.
>Boy, private industry picking up and popularizing a government service
I'm glad you two both agree with me! Or put another way, duh! That's what's supposed to happen! Pure research (which especially these days, is mostly funded by the gov't) comes up with things that US businesses can then bring to market and profit on.
Pure research drives industry. The US Gov't (through military and non-military programs) is the biggest sponsor to pure research. And US industry grows. See a connection?
Oh, wait... neither of you are socialists who want the gov't to actually _compete_ with business, are you? I hope not.
A.
Bloody hell Taco, stop trying to scam your subscribers with these damn duplicate posts!!!!
For the next prize they get NASA to drop a package containing 10 million bucks into orbit. Whoever recovers it ... gets it.
(Of course, the letter X is over used: X-Files, X-Box, X-Window, etc. X marks the spot, etc.)
Spaceship One is cool yes, but it can't get to Orbit. Before you call the cost differences "embarassing' be sure to compare apples to apples...
I'm not trying to troll here or anything, but am I the only one who finds it somewhat humorous that they spent over $25 million to win a $10 million prize?
I mean, yay for space and everything, but take it out of context a little bit. I'm pretty sure TBS would rate it funny...
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AIAA Long Island Section AIAA DINNER MEETING October 14, 2004 SpaceShipOne - First Private Manned Space Program Kevin Mickey, Vice President, Scaled Composites LOCATION: Jillian's, Airport Plaza, Northeast corner of Rt. 110 and Rt. 24, East Farmingdale, NY Time: 6:00 PM Sign-In, 6:30 PM Dinner, 8:00 PM Presentation Cost: $25 Members/Guests, $15 Student Members RSVP By October 11 to Gerry Yurchison (516) 346-0048, Gerry.Yurchison@ngc.com As of the latest news today, October 4th, 2004, the Scaled Composites contender for the ten million dollar Ansari X-Prize competition has become the successful winner. They are the first privately funded team to achieve 100km altitude with a three person payload, successfully return, and repeat the flight within two weeks. The first flight for the prize was September 29th. Their second flight today was achieved only 5 short days later. Our speaker will discuss the development, testing, and organization behind the SpaceShipOne program, and be able to share details and videos related to their amazing achievement. Mr. Mickey first joined Scaled Composites in 1986 as a Technician, fabricating parts and aircraft made of then-revolutionary composite materials. Later he worked at Lockheed's Skunk Works as a Program Coordinator, responsible for programs involving RCS (radar cross signature) models, composite structures, and flight. He then returned to Scaled Composites as a VP, Program Management, where he has been since 1996. He is responsible for the overall execution and performance of several projects, most notably SpaceShipOne, Scaled Composites manned spacecraft. It is generally seen as the leading contender for the Ansari X-Prize competition, and is the first entirely privately funded spacecraft.
Paul Allen funded SpaceShipOne and Paul Allen made his billions off Microsoft. Microsoft is evil, therefore Paul Allen is evil and SpaceShipOne is evil. Right?
On a side note, it was cool to watch the show on the Discover Channel and see a mac on Burt Rutan's desk.
Nasa built on the work on many other people, including, but not limited to the work of Goddard. To say that NASA invented everything themselves isn't fair either.
Sure, Rutan had the advantage of existing data from the X-15 program. But, his ideas went in entirely new directions, and created a craft that is unique and very forward thinking.
NASA has too much reliance on computers -- SS1 is a basic stick and rudder vehicle. This is why NASA can't do anything like this these days.
However, perhaps this is the "wake up call" NASA needs to bo "better, cheaper, faster" the correct way. Bravo to NASA for the Mars Rovers, etc., but double Bravo to the SS1 team for getting into space AT ALL on a very limited budget.
NASA is simply too top-heavy, beauracracy-wise. NASA could be slimmer, and stil maintain it's achievements. Consider that the majority of NASA's safety-failures were not engineer-related, but management-related, because management refused to listen to the objections of the engineers.
Let the smart guys run the show. The bottom-feeders always wind up working at the top, an that's why we have so many problems.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Okay, way to go Scaled team!
But I must object to "embarrassingly smaller budget than NASA's." NASA had to do their first manned suborbital flight with 1950s hardware borrowed from the artillery boys, and without 40 years of prior experience to draw on.
The X Prize contestants are, in Newton's words, standing on the shoulders of giants. They're doing great things, and I applaud them, but there's no need to tear down other pioneers to build these guys up. The present work is quite impressive enough as it is.
It is all a hoax. The shadows do not make sense and the lighting is all wierd. Too bad SpaceShip1, you can not fool us this time.
Let us not forget that he also built Evil Knievel's Sky Cycle in the 70's. Did you see some of the exotic aircraft flying with SS1. They were his too. The guy is amazing.
an ill wind that blows no good
This is obviously a great situation for innovation, not only here in America, but also in the world.. here's why the SS1 program will go farther faster than NASA. NASA's governmentally funded and based.. they take all of their orders from the government. This is free enterprise at work here. If it took this program less than 5 years to get to the point where it's at now.. imagine where we could be in 5 more years? Trips to the moon, anyone? Wonder who's going to be the first to start researching ways to create artificial atmospheric conditions on the moon. Will there be an X-Prize for that?
You're right that this could not have occurred without Allen or someone else's money. But whether Allen obtained his money selling proprietary software, from selling used cars, or from selling crack, it does not bear on the validity of open source software.
5 9.html?tag=l h
Linux and open source are certainly effective in the real world. Open source makes companies effective:
http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-50658
Open source appears to be quite effective in building cheap supercomputers via clustering.
And open source appears to be quite effective in running most of the web via Apache.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
[i]Different than what?
Oh, you mean the one that worked for 40 years?[/i]
He spent less on his program than NASA spends on a single shuttle launch.
[i]How many hours of Rutan's work was spent on failed attempts to achieve space flight?
Wow, he didn't have to spend any because it had already been done.[/i]
I'm pretty sure this is false. Any new design is going to have failures and false starts. It's just that he did it(including failures) for $20-30 million vs. hundreds of millions.
Sure, there are more OTS components available, but I'm willing to bet that a great deal of customization and creative usage of those components goes on. It's research in and of itself.
And the guy has a point. With NASA's current structure, would they be able to come up with a system of SpaceShipOne's capabilities for ~25 million? Nope-They'd spend 25 million before ever creating a draft of a design!
And given NASA's failure to produce something better than the shuttle, the private sector is starting to step in.
I don't read AC A human right
I think it's wonderful that the SpaceShipOne team one the X Prize. However, I think it went a little outside what the competition was trying to accomplish. I do admit that it is a great achievement, but what I'm referring to is that the prize was for $10 million. In such, I think they were hoping that someone would spend less than that to pull it off with a reusable craft. They obviously spent much more than that. They still did it for less than the US government spends pulling it off though, so they still did prove a lot in the exercize. What do others of you think? I think prizes like this can be great to move our society forward and get individuals active in inovations.
Peace
That is all...
In God we trust...all others please have two forms of ID
Paul Allen probably uses Linux. This was his money sponsor the project. If you feel the need to attach any corporation to the money, try his basketball team,the Portland Trailblazers.
Laws are for people with no friends.
unlike CNN and other news acronyms, I didn't have a satellite connection from the strip, and had to jog back to the press room's wireless coverage ;)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
both begin with the same letter. Mike Melville & Brian Binnie! Is this a prerequisite to fly to space in this system? ;-p
____________________
Huh?
Scaled Composites had the benefit of all the public knowledge now available about space travel.
Maybe, but Burt Rutan has pioneered the use of composites and canard designs. SS1 should prove for the millionth time that the way to get the most for the R&D dollar is to challenge a small group with a lot of talent. Large numbers of people make for stupid decisions and designs. Look no further than the Space Shuttle or the X-33 as examples. Burt Rutan is considered to be a bit of a wacko to mainstream aerospace. Hopefully he will now be recognised as the genious that he is.
an ill wind that blows no good
Oh you mean the thing the Russians invented. Yeah, NASA helped them a lot, I'm sure. Not!
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"The risk of traveling by plane is lower than by car even if you compute it per mile travelled. It's not lower because you fly by plane less often. You are a lot less likely to die on a 400-mile plane trip than you are to die on a 400-mile car trip.
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Congratulations to the great work! This opens up a door like never before for space exploration. I bet people like Arthur C. Clark and Ray Bradbury and the likes must be more than proud for helping keep the dream of space alive and giving these entrepeneurs and 21st century explorers the inspiration and perseverance to reach their dreams!! Yet I hope that this great achievement which in some decades will lead to everyday space-faring adventures will not make space loose "its magic". We humans tend to think something is special while we dont have it. The moment we get it, we loose interest in it. This most not happen with space exploration. And good luck to the other teams who are still testing their crafts, your achievement will be just as great as Space Ships One's!!
You forgot the $25 million that Richard Branson is paying to Paul Allen's company to license the tech, and the $15 million that he's paying to Rutan's company to build more spacecraft.
So assuming Allen funded the entire cost of SS1, at $25 million, then Allen will be making at least 10 million, and Rutan will be making at least $15 million.
Sounds like a good investment to me.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
If your ship comes to sudden stop, that luggage will go THROUGH UrAnus.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Rule 2 of the Ansari X Prize states:
Carries three people 62.5 miles (100km) up into the atmosphere
If the two successful flights carried only the pilot, how did they qualify for the prize?
We will soon have our first Marriage ceremony is space. It will be Britney Spears and her 3rd husband Biff (An unemployed sanitary worker). They will take off on spaceship one and be the first couple to marry married in space... and shortly after we'll see the first annulment in space.
By increasing the power, something like SpaceShipOne could reach orbit, but that's the easy part. Returning without burning up is the hard part, and it's a problem on a whole different scale. When SpaceShipOne reached the top of its arc, its speed was zero; the problem is just to control the acceleration on the descent. A craft in orbit is going at 18000 mph, and all that kinetic energy has to be dumped. You can use atmospheric friction (as the space shuttle does, but then you generate enormous heat if you do it right, and if you enter at the wrong angle you either burn up or bounce off the atmosphere like a skipping stone. I don't think other approaches (like using onboard rockets to get rid of most of the kinetic energy) are feasible.
That's not to say that these problems can't be solved. But acting like we're going to have space tourism tomorrow because some guys won the X-prize is mistakenly optimistic.
I think, though, that private companies offering satellite launching services with non-reusable vehicles is a much easier objective to achieve. For that, you don't have to worry about the problem of re-entry.
"was" being the key word. The majority of the MODERN internet was been built by private corporations.
So they are cheaper, but still 2-3 times over budget?
In 2 years, the X-Cup in Las Cruces, New Mexico will let teams compete for a number of prizes. YES!
Perspective is to Science what Interpretation is to Religion. Obama + Paul FTW
...was technically first in achieving first privately funded spaceflights: As their government is more or less bankrupt, there already have been "space tourists".
If we now compare the money that tourists payed to the money that spaceflights had cost, we may come up with zero difference...
Look, this thing is totally safe! Built it myself, you know. You just press that button like this and then turn that lev
congrats to the SS1 team.....who will never read this
I thought they said no governments could be involved.
RP
What are the plans of the other teams? Will they continue and finish (not winning any cash) the race?
I happened to be on the loop while the Space Ship One flight was going on. Pretty much everyone here at Johnson Space Center stopped to watch it.
One of the ground controllers told Mike and Gennady the news about the flight. Mike's statement was moving (hopefully I don't screw up his quote):
"It's nice to know, if only for a few minutes, that we're not the only two people up here."
That's how all of us engineers at NASA feel, as well. Most of us are here because we Believe in spaceflight, and it is a relief when some of that pressure gets taken off our shoulders.
More the merrier. Great job Scaled!
Yeah, but if you survive the spaceplane crash, the shadow government gives you a nifty new set of bionical limbs!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This just in...
Babylon: 5
Deep Space: 9
Heard them talking on CNN about the X-Cup, which will take place in 2006 in New Mexico. Apparently New Mexico won the bid to have it in their state ($10 Million).
They said they have to have 50 (i think i heard that right?) vehicles ready to fly, having 5 or 6 fly a day.
Or maybe you're being to negative? Why don't you look at it as Paul Allen's attonement for his sins instead?
You know what's actually kinda scary? I was talking this over with a friend and we were like...man...suddenly NYC to LA for lunch doesn't seem so far off... What an age we live in!
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
During the show about this project on the Discovery Channel yesterday, a Mac is clearly visable on Burts desk.
I assume any company that's selling suborbital trips will make a big production out of the whole pre-flight thing. A week of training, meet-the-astronauts, maybe ride up on the carrier plane for the guy ahead of you's flight, and then you actually get to fly. For that, it might start to seem value for money.
An I overly cynical, or have I just been spending too much time around stupid people?
Neither. Since most of the public gets their science news from non-science sources, such as CNN, and those sources are frequently wrong (mostly because the people doing the reporting have no idea what they're talking about: they're just reading copy), it's a wonder that anyone knows anything correct about science news. Remember when Columbia blew up and CNN was scrolling "Space Shuttle traveling 25 times the speed of light on reentry" across the bottom of the screen? Then, of course, when they changed it, it read, "Space Shuttle travelling at Mock 25 during reentry." Let's get someone with an engineering/science degree in the newsroom, shall we?
For some people it would be easier to explain that "a hacker [they wouldn't understand the 'cracker' distinction] put that headline on CNN's website" rather than a major news organization being wrong.
News organizations don't use the word "cracker" for good reason: it's a racial epithet for Caucasians, when referring to a person. If they were taking about buttery Nabisco products, or those wacky cardboard tubes used by the British at Christmas, people would know the difference. We geeks can say that "hackers" are benevolent until we're blue in the face, but all those Norton commercials talk about "hackers" breaking into a laptop sitting on a kitchen counter to nab credit card numbers. It's a lost cause. We may as well admit that "hackers" are criminals and come up with a *new* word for benevolent packet-sniffers. Like "software security consultant."
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
a quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_Spa ceShipOne
"Although impressive, the achievements of SpaceShipOne are not comparable with the Space Shuttle. The energy requirements of true orbital space flight are in the order of 33 times as much as a SpaceShipOne ascent."
SpaceShipOne is great and all, but for my money, i wouldnt go for a "3-minute high" (pun!).. I'd rather wait for an orbital craft that can stay there as long as we like it to (@ about 500 km height).. this Buran Spiral Orbital Program website and another one about the MIG 105-11 (aka "teh wooden shoe") talks about several orbital aircraft designs..
I am Korben Dallas and this is my hot wife Lilu Dallas!!
This news is sensational for me
Im proud that the United States still drives
the humanity to new frontiers.
Im glad to see again the spark that made
the US so unique for me during my childhood.
An inhabitant of the 'Old Europe'
tnx
69, dude!
(actually, 69.6969696969... you can keep 69'ing forever!)
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
Hell, Rutan designed his own launch platform, you lazy poofters!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
According to rough count of the astronauts bios at the NASA web site, there have been about 350 of them. There have been four private astronauts in space if you count the two soyuz ones. I wonder whn the number of private astronauts will exceed the government ones? I guess 2010.
(I counted the corporate payload specialists [ about 20 ] as government.)
With all the news headlines about Afganistan and Iraq ... and with the whole world seemingly hating the US these days ... I think the Scaled Composites team should receive a congressional medal for remdinding the world of what truly makes our country great.
Proudly (once again ... thanks guys),
DT
well, considering they are more-or-less repeating the same tests that NASA did 40+ years ago, without doing much of the basic science and R&D that NASA had to do, i'd expect the budget to be smaller.
and this was paid for by your taxes...the microsoft tax.
and they spent 20-30 million to make 10 million.
i remain unimpressed and find all the rhetoric about this being some great advance scary. is the american public really this gullible?
Here's a harder challenge than the X prize. Even though it sounds so easy.
http://arimaa.com/
More to the point, all of the cash. Don't let's pretend that the contractors built all of these vehicles for any other reason.
Mind the Gap
All the kids will have to have both the Michael Melville and Brian Binnie action figures! They'll all want both the White Knight and SpaceshipOne toys! And M&Ms! (Hell, Mars should have a special commerative packagae out for Halloween!)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Not to karma whore, but the list of X Prize contenders can be found here. I looked at a few of the web sites and none of them seem to have anything to say about todays accomplishment. It might not be fair to judge these teams by their websites, but I looked at some of the team's websites and many of them appear to be quite lame. I have difficulty taking a team seriously that has a completely lame website. Maybe one of you who is not as sleepy as me can finish what I intended to do which is to get some idea of the future plans of the other X-Prize contenders now that the prize has been won.
Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
The factor that makes all the difference between accidents from flying verses driving is based on training, currency, and type rating. You only need one generic license to drive any passenger vehicles and in most states there are never any requirements other than paying a fee to get it renewed. Also the requirements to show driving profficiency are so pathetically low and the odds of ever lossing your license even more so when compaired to that of a pilot's license.
Essentially if they held drivers to the same standards as they did pilots right off the bat at least 25% of the population would never be allowed to drive, ever. 75% of the remaining population would not be allow to drive anything but a 50hp compact car at speeds less than 40MPH during the day and only on nice clear weather free days. Also nearly anyone involved in an accident where they were at fault or illegal activity would loose their license until a governing board could review the discretion and then most likely if they were found to be negligent loose it for several years if not permanently.
For some odd reason I see the number of auto accidents being greatly reduced if that were the case.
NASA would be a healthier agency if they focused on that, and stopped spending billions on the Shuttle and IIS
Yeah. Especially when Apache is free.
In comparison to NASA's budget, the cost of SpaceShipOne was certainly trivial, but SS1 didn't just bloom from the womb. Who performed the pioneering research that enabled SS1? Pioneering research is always more expensive, quite often in an exponential relationship with time. Is SS1 even close to achieving orbital velocity, let alone escape velocity? Does SS1 include a pressurized, habitable environment?
Fair enough. Where did Paul Allen get the money?
Ok, I hope to have the cash availble when this flights are availble on virgin :)
the funniest part is when the gates foundation started flooding money into all these liberal/humanitarian causes, two things happened:
1) NPR basically stopped doing anti-microsoft news;
2) Blacks groups started supporting microsoft (the foundation targeted africa, etc).
This knocked the legs out from under the liberal/democrat fight for software freedom via the law.
it's called social engineering, and they did a textbook job...they spend a fraction of their wealth on liberal/humanitarian causes and effectively end all criticism of the company from either side of politics.
"Doing it right" not only refers to completing the task, but doing it efficiently enough that a "normal" person could conceivably afford it. That's one goal governments seem to have problems attaining.
Last post!
Here's a harder challenge (that's also more down to earth) than the X prize.
It sounds so easy, but no one has done it yet.
http://arimaa.com/
Scott
Actually it has been fairly common practise in R&D contracts for the companies to throw in some of their own money, and so retain rights to the technology developed.
-- Alastair
Where the governments are in the process of failing, the private secotor, and human ingenuity have taken the lead once more! My, that must be a black eye for NASA. Tiny fraction of the budget, and yet they made it quite nicely. Hopefully someone over there take's notice. And hopefully rides for the rest of humanity will be along shortly. Regardless, it's deffinitly within our grasp now, if not actually within the practical range quite yet. Only a matter of time, now. Hmmm... I wonder how much it costs per flight now that it's built and the main chunk of design/research is done? Is it low enough that "average" ppl can start thinking about a trip? As in the price per trip down into the single digit thousands? Or is is it still in the range of the very well off? On the plus side, it's gota be less than the $20mil that was being charged for a trip up to the ISS... Oh yes, and a link to footage. http://www.eclipticenterprises.com/gallery_rocketc am.shtml
Yeah for us! No need for CNN soul sucking registration for the vid!
Z
Z
The time is right for cheap space travel, but it is only possible today because of the trail blazing efforts of NASA and the USSR.
Not to mention that what SpaceShipOne did pales in comparison to what NASA accomplishes (current shuttle troubles aside).
The Space Shuttle typically orbits at an altitude of anywhere between 200 and 350 miles, depending on its mission and payload. In order to maintain a constant distance from the earth in freefall (and therefore be considered to be in orbit) the shuttle must be traveling in excess of 17,000 mph horizontally. Contrast this with SpaceShipOne, which reached Mach 2.7 vertically on the way up (about 2000 mph), slowed to a stop at the top of its parabolic path, and then plunged back to earth, hitting a top speed of about Mach 3.3 (about 2500 mph). In terms of kinetic energy, achieving orbit is at least 50 times more difficult than achieving 368,000 feet (70 miles) at the top of a parabolic flight. Burt Rutan & Co. basically did the same thing Alan Shepard did on the first manned Mercury Flight in May of 1961 (although Shephard reached an altitude of 615,000 feet (about 116 miles), because he was strapped to the top of an intercontinental ballistic missle).
What NASA accomplishes is nothing short of remarkable, considering their timelines, budgets, and waning public support. Hopefully, the onset of these private commercial ventures will spur both the public and NASA to even greater accomplishments. Just like the competition from FedEx and UPS spurred the US Post Office into becoming the most efficient, best run government department in the country, so, too, will commercial space ventures force change within NASA. Now that the psycological barrier has been broken, it's only a matter of time.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
The risk of traveling by plane is lower than by car even if you compute it per mile travelled. It's not lower because you fly by plane less often. You are a lot less likely to die on a 400-mile plane trip than you are to die on a 400-mile car trip.
I've seen that claim often. And suspect it's true. (I was in a plane, for instance, that blew ALL the tires on one side when it touched down - due to improper maintainence. I'm afraid I wrecked the captain's day when I congratulated him on the landing - he'd just bet another crwe member that nobody noticed anything.)
But I'd trust it a LOT more if any auto fatalities of auto passengers in the horrendous traffic near airports (where you WOULDN'T have been driving if you didn't have to go there to transfer to/from the plane) were counted toward the air travel, rather than car travel, totals.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Ansari X-Prize terms state that the pilot must survive at least 24 hours after re-entry. If the price on Osama bin Laden's head is 2.5 M$US, then the price on that pilot's head right now is 4x greater. I'd advise him to stay away from DaVinci staffers.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
For bringing us into a new era of real space exploration.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
IIRC the safest form of transport (per passenger mile) is mass transit e.g. on a subway or city bus. *Catching* the bus on the other hand ain't so safe (but that gets counted towards walking :-)
Superior at spending more money to make less? Considering that Paul Allen put in what, $20M to $30M, and the prize is only $10M, that's still in the red.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
There's a dramatic difference between the odds of dying in a commercial flight and the odds of dying in general aviation -- those little buzz planes. Per million miles it's about like this:
commercial plane, train -- 0.01
commercial passenger bus -- 0.1
automobile -- 1
motorcycle, general aviation -- 10
Dunno what it is when you build your own spaceship. Aliens are notoriously reluctant to report their crashes.
Total coverage, from 6 different networks' news shows? Under a minute.
(Except on FOX, of course, which covered pretty much the whole thing.)
First a history of biased news coverage, including outright falsehoods. (Examples: Faked exploding pickup trucks. Too much on gun issues to list.) Then pronouncements that "the viewers want entertainment, not real news". Then Rathergate (rubbing our noses in both the bias and the low quality of fact-checking), along with expressions of support from the other establishment networks' head news talking heads. Now virtual silence on something this important.
Yet the establishment news media wonders why people are turning them off and getting their news from other sources.
I guess that's what they get for listening to their own propaganda. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
They are making a new competion, the X-Prize Cup, that will try to create competition in more areas (highest flight, nicest spaceship, most passengers, orbit, etc..). This is by far not the end, but a great begin.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
...it's the rest of the world that is too modest. To be fair, the Americans are front-and-centre on this project so kudos to them as long as they remember they got there with a little help from others.
The US sometimes isn't the leader in Aerospace but give them credit when it's due. Russians and Canadians bet them in the sattelite race--the Canadians also beat the Americans to Mach 2 flight speed. And the REALLY big, complicated projects are the result of collaberation between all three of those nations among many others. However one thing the US consistently tops the world in is national pride and the associated amitious goals they have set. Only Amercans had the balls to reach for the moon and actually REACH it. When they win they win BIG.
Thank God rocket scientists don't get into pissing matches like the ones here or nothing would get done.
...they announced one (of the first) space-ticket to go to be given to one of their drinkers.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
There were two astronauts per landing, so 12 men walked on the moon on six missions. There were also three circumlunar missions, Apollo 8, 10 and 13 (13 being an aborted lander mission).
VASIMR to Mars!
Been almost 30 years since I saw it.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Sorry, won't work. Hot air can only get you so far. It can be generated from the processor, or from Ballmer's mouth/arse, but it is still hot air.
Yes, Paul Allen was actually on the board of directors until late 2000. However, he is not currently employed by Microsoft, at least in executive management where he should be. He might under contract in an advisory role, but I would hardly think this is Microsoft money. Maybe "Vulcan Inc." money, maybe even "I-like-Microsoft" money, but not Microsoft.
e op leId=1
http://www.vulcan.com/who/leaders/leaders.asp?P
It doesn't take very long to travel 400 miles in a passenger jet, relative to a car. How does the comparison look when you compute it per hour rather than per mile? Is a ten-hour plane trip generally safer than a ten-hour car trip? If so, by how much?
It should be noted that October 4th, 1957 the first artificial satellite Sputnik-1 was launched by the Soviet Union, marking the start of space era. Is it a coincedence that this SSO flight was made on the 47th anniversary of the event?
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
now all we have to do is find a use for 20 minute missions. :)
There was a 2 hour special on the discovery channel last night that I would highly recommend. It was called Black Sky: The Race For Space. It is airing again 10/4 and 10/10. One of the things you said was exactly what Burt Rutan said; that you need to try the wacky theories as well, and it requires a lot of balls because you risk losing life, wasting money, and so on. He said that 50% of innovation was thinking and planning, the other 50% was developing and testing crazy ideas to see what worked. The rest of the program talked about their challenges, how they overcame them, Burt's previous experience, and a little about the prize. Cool stuff.
John Whorfin
Kinda puts nasa , the Russian space program and the chinese space programs to shame that amatuer rocket builders can do this
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.
Looks like Google is in the spirit!
It doesn't matter where Paul Allen got the money from - it still doesn't make it Microsoft sponsorship. It makes it Paul Allen sponsorship because it was his money, not Microsoft's. It doesn't make Space Ship One Microsoft-sponsored any more than me flying light aircraft make the aircraft sponsored by my employer.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
ional...)
It would be interesting if they run it on Flightgear and enable ground-based people to take 10-second helm control spots.
Afterall, the second flight displayed a 'few dozen' spirals or corkscrews on the way up, and had enough time, inertial, fuel, and structural integrety to get there.
All the same, I'd rather fly in a cockpit run by *nix and FlightGear, PC- or plane-based.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Its cool that the pilot was South African, but remember he was an employee of the company that did the deed. Its not a South African stunt, its was an American stunt. Arguing this point is rather stupid.
Buy the way: he also was not the frist South African in space.
It time for NASA to take notice. No more primadonnas in space. Time for the regular guy (well sort of).
In Soviet Russia, history entwines YOU
Why bother.
You didn't watch last night's Discovery Channel special. Rutan had a Mac on his desk.
You'd have Steve Ballmer on stage, jumping around and screaming "Altitude, Altitude, Altitude, Altitude!"
Thank goodness it's only Paul Allen.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I would like to point out that much of the original work with composite structures was done at NASA. SpaceShipOne benefits greatly from the original 10's if not 100's of millions of dollars NASA has done with composites. If we counted all that research money in the cost of SpaceShipOne significantly increases. This is not to take away from the accomplishment but let's not always try an think in terms of money for everything we do:)
Governmentss Don't screw up projects, People Do.
yeah, their display went out on that flight, but they figured out what it was. The dimmer switch for the display is just a pull knob, and the forces sustained during the rocket burn were enough to pull it out all the way. I can't believe they didn't just use a rotary knob...
I agree that Open source has achieved vast amount of things. But my point was that it is still broadly effective only in knowledge sharing sphere. When you say OSS runs supercomputing clusters, Apache, etc., we are still talking about software. I wanted to explore the limits of the concept and strategy of OSS in other fields. But most people on slashdot refuse to hear anything against OSS. Anyway, I put in my 2 cents.
Is it just me, or is this story not getting nearly enough attention.
This is most likely a landmark event in the annals of history...and no one cares.
I'm planning on going into aerospace engineering, and I'll admit that I'm much geekier than the general populace. Still...isn't this important? This could be the start of a gigantic new industry (space tourism), of a new age of the relationship between man and his universe...and everywhere I look, I just hear, "Oh. That's nice."
Hell, Google News has more stories about Tiger Woods posted than it does on SpaceShipOne.
Something is wrong here...
;_;
Goo goo g'joob.
SpaceShip One is built predominantly from Carbon Fiber. The first carbon fibers were actually developed by Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan while working on the light bulb. This was done by "carbonizing" (heating in a vacuum to remove all non-carbon componants) a cotton fiber. In 1957, scientists developed a reliable process for manufacturing carbon fibers from cotton and rayon. Then it was in 1961 when japanese scientists produced polyacrylonitrile, which is the first true high-performance carbon fiber. The resin used for compositing in many high performance applications dates back to the 1920s.
The flight controls used are simple cable, pulley, spring, lever controls. That is to say, the entire craft is mechanical and direct connect, except for the linear actuators which deploy the wing to the feather-cock configuration, and the outboard elevators.
The avionics were developed entirely in house, and housed in a single unit known as the TONAS (Tier One NAvigation System), and while it could be argued that NASA pioneered the miniaturization of electronics and digital computers, the truth is that Bell Labs invented what NASA built upon, and the actual devices used in the TONAS rely more on private sector research into VLSI and IC technology than anything NASA ever did. Incidentally, the TONAS was built in-house by Scaled Composites own electronics and software engineering guru.
Lastly, the hybrid solid/liquid booster used in SSO was first developed by Russian Scientists S.P. Korolev and M.K. Tikhonravov in 1933. While they used liquid oxygen as the oxidizer and plastic gasoline impregnated cellophane, SSO utilized liquid NO2 oxidizer and what is basically tire rubber. NASA didn't even bother with hybrid rocket motors until 1995, by which time amature rocketry had already flirted with home-built designs to get over the thrust limitations of even the larger commercially available engines.
So like the sign said, it's still SPACESHIP ONE, Government Zero in the low cost sub-orbital category. By the way, NASA nor any other space agency has ever turned around a single launch vehicle in as little as 5 days. Thats just one of the record firsts that Burt Rutan and the team at Scaled Composites have given us.
I hate to rain on your glory parade, but part of the reason private enterprise is getting into space is because beauracratic government-run space agencies like NASA, ESA, and so on have done such a miserable job expanding the envelope over the last 30 years. If you ask me, NASA at this point stands as a collosally embarrasing failure in that after 20 years there is nothing to replace the shuttle on the horizon except drawings and models of different SSTOs. NASA is one big pool of talent being utterly wasted by institutional management mindsets.
What I would like to see is more NASA talent break out from NASA, snag up some DARPA money, and actually do something useful. Give me my god damned flying car already!
Of course NASA didn't perform any of the fundamental research that lead to the first unmanned flights, so his efforts are piggy-backing on those of Germany and Von Braun.
There we go, all fixed. You're welcome.
If you think China sent a man to space "because it's there", or for any of the other reasons you listed, then you are truly very, very naive. The large governments have much more than lowly tourism on their minds when it comes to space; they think slightly bigger than that.
The spirit of X-Prize has been broken with this space ship due to the big money contributed by Steve Ballmer for about $30 million.
Whoever with some mind that receives a budged like that should be able to do this. The spirit, in the begining was a private funding project, but I thought there was some limits. If you play unfair on this against all other competitors, certainly isn't a merit at all.
What about limited the private funding to a maximun of $1 million? that can have BIG merits if done.
Well if you want to go far enough back in that vein, the British used rocketry as field artillery since the 1800's. Particularly effective against aboriginals in Africa, India, and Australia. Of course, all the blame belongs to the chinese, who used rockets in war and in celebration.
...yeager was the first US guy in space, in a deal very similar to spaceship one (rocket plane launched from a jetplane at altitude)
The same slashdotters who were rooting for SS1 invariably turn out to be the ones to immediately whine about it when SS1 lands
And you came by this information how?
Slashdot is not a single hive mind. Never accuse an eclectic group of engaging in hypocracy when you haven't yet figured out whom in the group is making which statements.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Glenn Mahone/Bob Jacobs
Headquarters, Washington
Oct. 4, 2004
(Phone: 202/XXX-1898/1600)
RELEASE: 04-329
NASA CONGRATULATES SPACESHIPONE'S X PRIZE WIN
NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe today congratulated the
SpaceShipOne team on the third successful flight of a private
human spacecraft. The team also wins the $10 million X Prize
competition.
"Burt Rutan, Paul Allen and the rest of the SpaceShipOne team
are to be congratulated for this important achievement. They
successfully demonstrated a new human spacecraft, a new
propulsion system and a new high-altitude airborne launch
platform," said Administrator O'Keefe. "The spirit of
determination and innovation demonstrated today show that
America is excited about a new century of exploration and
discovery. We wish the SpaceShipOne team continued success
and many more safe flights," he added.
Aboard the International Space Station 230 miles up, the
Expedition 9 crew, made up of NASA astronaut Mike Fincke and
Russian Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, noted that for a few
minutes this morning, they were joined in space by
SpaceShipOne pilot Brian Binnie. "From Gennady and myself and
the International Space Station team, congratulations on a
job well done, and we're really glad SpaceShipOne returned
safely," said Fincke.
The X Prize Foundation created a $10 million prize designed
to encourage space tourism through competition among
entrepreneurs, engineers and other rocketry experts. The
Ansari X Prize was conceived to reward the team, which
designed the first private spaceship to successfully fly to a
sub-orbital altitude of just over 62 miles (100 kilometers)
on two consecutive flights within two weeks.
The competition was modeled after the Orteig Prize, won in
1927 by Charles Lindberg for the first non-stop flight
between New York and Paris. All teams had to be privately
financed.
For information about SpaceShipOne and the White Knight
carrier aircraft on the Internet, visit:
http://www.scaled.com/
For information about NASA's exploration initiatives on the
Internet, visit:
http://www.exploration.nasa.gov/
-end-
* * *
NASA press releases and other information are available automatically
by sending an Internet electronic mail message to domo@hq.nasa.gov.
In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type
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I've seen a lot of posts that alternate between "NASA/Gov't sucks and could never do this on such a shoestring budget" and "SpaceShipOne didn't even come close to accomplishing what NASA has done." That's all well and good, but you have to consider a few things...
The truth lies somewhere in the middle.
First off, let's get the technical issues straight. SS1 did not achieve orbit of any sort, and would require MASSIVE modifications to do so. It is not comparable with the Shuttle program or anything larger (lunar missions, planetary missions, etc.). While it does use a pretty slick hybrid engine, it's still a chemical engine at heart, and thus is not this raving new technology that will send us to the stars.
Technical issues aside, let's give credit where credit is due. The most comparable thing that NASA has done is X-15, which was designed for hypersonic research, and still to this very moment holds the suborbital speed record. To be more explicit, X-15 was designed for speed 40 years ago, and SS1 was designed for height. Both now hold their respective records. Further, while the costs were high, let's not compare them without taking into account the real differences here. This page says that X-15 cost about $300 M total, which divides to about $600 k per flight. As of right now, SS1 has had 5 rocket flights for roughly $30 M total, which means that, until they fly some more, SS1 costs $600k per flight, the same as X-15. At best it is on par with NASA, except that NASA did this stuff 40 YEARS ago, without standing on the shoulders of any prior research.
Moreover, it is wrong to denigrate the contributions of the very skilled engineers and very brave test pilots of X-15 just because they were government. They lived and died paving the way for private industry to follow. It would be equally wrong, for example, if something went wrong today and Brian Benni died, for NASA to mock the SS1 team and say "See, stupid private industry, you can't do what we do."
Now, for the flipside, SS1 deserves a LOT of credit for finally picking up the ball and possibly bringing the space industry to private citizens. I imagine a lot of people are doing cost/benefit/risk calculations to see if this business is a worthy venture, and that's good. If a suborbital "big roller coaster" industry develops it'll be good for everyone. (Maybe those darn flat-earthers will finally go away). While NASA's achievements are profoundly great, they do not cascade down in a visible way to everyday people. In this sense, SS1 has succeeded greatly where NASA has failed. Further, if it proves to be profitable, SS1 will have marked the beginning of the suborbital tourism industry.
However, the ORBITAL tourism industry is a BIG difference, and while it might have started us on the path, SS1 has not directly contributed to that in any way (no new technologies regarding propulsion or reentry, etc.) Further and finally, it is important to realize that SS1 is a marketing achievement, not a technological one. If NASA had wanted to start a space tourism industry a long time ago, it could have.
Bottom line, give credit where credit is due (to both SS1 and NASA), and don't denigrate the contributions of either. Both have very brave pilots and skilled engineers, and both are necessary to conquer space travel. You need one side that's willing to forge ahead by dumping money in without regard to expected profits, and you need the other to turn that research into something we can all use. Cheers for both.
my friend and i were trying to figure out why things burn up when reentering earth's atmosphere. sure we learned all the explanantions about friction etc when we were in sci class as kids but dont falling things reach terminal velocity and then just fall at a steady rate if this is the case then why dont you burn up if you skydive from really high up and please dont say its because space thingies are higher because then you have to explain the terminal velocity limit - i had thought falling things reached terminal velocity pretty quickly (i used to jump out of airplanes and thats what they told us anyway)- if things reach terminal velocity in a few seconds then who cares how high they are when they start if things fall faster when the atmoshere is thinnner or nonexistant then there should also be less friction because less air is terminal velocity higher in areas without atmosphere - so the thing gets going really fast and then hits atmosphere at a faster speed than what terminal velocity is in atmospheric conditions sorry about the stupid sounding question but when i was in sci class as a kid they kept "explaining things" without explaining them.
Hmm, OK, let's see... a certain well-known aviation company that for money reasons moved from Everett to near Chicago had a faulty fuel line design on a new-model plane, didn't own up to it, and people died....
It takes a lot of deaths and a BILLION dollar demand to make some airlines take ownership of their fatally-flawed designs (or pieces thereof)
"Crash made travel safer for millions"
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/spe cialreports/flight427/s_247850.html
(spiral-related deadly crash)
OK, substitute "spiraling out of control" with:
-- defective parts (search those words in the next link:)
http://www.marsearthconnection.com/flt587.html
--shorn off tail:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/a300crash/story/0,11165, 593554,00.html
--human error or alcohol/substance abuse:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20010221X 00482&key=1
--lack of de-icing
http://www.google.com/search?q=fatal%20crash%20lac k%20de-icing&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
--striking ground facilities:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20040128X 00121&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20040128 X00121&ntsbno=WAS04RA010&akey=1
--failed rods/actuators for flaps
--wind shear
from 1975:
http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/Tech/Aviation/Dis asters/75-08-07(Continental).asp
--faulty terrain avoidance
http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/Tech/Aviation/Dis asters/
Major Aviation Accidents of the Super70s
--loss of ONE engine:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20040819X 01260&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20040819 X01260&ntsbno=WAS03RA019&akey=1
--bad information from towers
-- I didn't determine:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief2.asp?ev_id=20020801 X01281&ntsbno=DCA02RA047A&akey=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20030402X 00424&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20020418X 00536&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/Response2.asp?spage=10&x_ page_size=10&sql=%271%2F1%2F2002%27%2C+%2710%2F4%2 F2004%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27like+%27%27FATA L%28%25%27%27%27%2C+%27Air%27%2C+%27N%27%2C+%27%27 %2C+%27%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27%27 %2C+%27fact%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27ev%5Fdate%27%2C+%27 Desc%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27%27%2C+%27%27%2C +%27%27%2C+%27%27
Yes, obviously a turbo prob or turbo jet has a multi-bladed prop ahead of the power turbine, combustion chamber, and the other components inside that cowling. I did not ever refer to the pax or any other jets as being scoop-jets or ramjets or solid-fuel rocket-propelled. I referred to blades and turbines. Not scoops.
I never said high wings are unusual or inherently dangerous. I have admired and studied aircraft since my childhood, built models, drawn them, looked at many flight books, diagrams, cross sections, and even talk with people. I would not say that flying a flight sim would allow me to perfectly fly a plane, but I there are Navy pilots who used ms flight simulator and had NO prior flight or flight line experience, yet excelled on their practical flights as well as or better than those who had cropdusting, rotary or some fixed wing hours in their logs.
Triple-engine jets have lost only ONE engine, and, despite the best pilots had to give, hydraulics being shittily designed were the ultimate doom of an otherwise out-to-recover craft. In some cases, even ALL the redundancies failed to
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
There was a shot from the Discovery channel show last night showing Burt behind an Apple Cinema display.
0->-<
(this is me)
<======<
(that was spaceship one going up)
>======>
(that was spaceship one going down)
[0->-<
(that was the pilot...check out his cool hat!)
0-]-<
(this is me with my laptop posting to slashdot)
(...my name is Simon and I like to do drawings!)
Comparing the technology and importance of SS1 (for that matter, X-15) to Shuttle is like comparing Kitty Hawk to any airplane that fought in WW1.
On this historic day, I am pleased to announce the creation of the Ansari XXX prize: a $15.99 prize for the first porno made in space.
Let the blast-offs begin.
The "ballast" should be available on E-Bay by the end of the day.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
I worked with researchers for several years doing testing and research at Langley Research Center Hampton VA. Believe it or not it takes more than one fiber or even just the idea of carbon fibers to make a space craft. A lot of testing of fiber combinations, weaves, temperatures and epoxies went in to the development of COMPOSITES. People didn't know exactly what those combinations would be until they tried them. This is what we in the busines call ENGINEERING. Can you say ENGINEERING. I thought you could. Much of this was paid for or done by NASA before the cost came down and the materials could be used in consumer products.
Similary transisters we use were developed by funds for from THE GOVERNMENT for BASIC RESEARCH long before there were practicle APPLICATIONS for them.
Knowing a bunch of names and factoids doesn't mean you have a complete picture. The fact is the US invests in most of these things with DARPA in an nevering ending effort to find better and more cost effective was to kill people. In fact the first people to go into space were just ballistic payload replacements. Secondly the GOVERNMENT found that computers were good at breaking codes of your enemies making it easier to kill them. This encouraged them to make better computers and thus smaller transisters.
I'll have to bring up this point again. Depth of Earth's gravitational well is 11200^2/2 = 6.3*10^7 Joules per kilogram. Going into space means escaping this well, or at least getting into an elliptic orbit that does not cross the surface of the Earth at any point ( to do this, you need the energy equal to half the depth of the well ). Kinetic and potential energy of SpaceShipOne at the highest point of its trajectory adds up to about 2.3% of total depth of the well. If someone tries to run a marathon and goes down after one mile, can we consider him a marathon runner?
And you shouldn't have pretended to determine the others. All of the NTSB reports you cited are preliminary. None of them present even a finding of fact, let alone a probable cause. You state that the "loss of ONE engine" is responsible for a crash, then you show me a two paragraph report with no conclusion! The engine failure was certainly a contributing factor, there is no denying that, but how do you know it was the cause of the crash? How do you know, for example, that they didn't experience instrumentation error caused by the sand getting into air data sensors? It is simply a fact that losing one engine will not crash a jet. It may be a contributing factor, a distraction perhaps, but that's all.
I would not say that flying a flight sim would allow me to perfectly fly a plane, but I there are Navy pilots who used ms flight simulator and had NO prior flight or flight line experience
Microsoft's little toy doesn't even begin to expose a person to the realities of aviation. Go fly a plane -- a real one -- and then we can talk.
Go and look at some NTSB reports.
I have obviously read and understood far more NTSB reports than you. But if you want to keep burying yourself in ridiculous, idiotic fear, be my guest.
Dig deep. TALK to jet engine and powerplant techs, even ONE who knows about shortcuts military
I have, and I've dug way deeper than you. It takes more than a passing conversation with some National Guard dimwit, a few Google searches, and a total misunderstanding of the NTSB's reporting process to convince me that flying is unsafe.
Republicans are cheaper to buy. You can write a check to them directly.
Answer: A couple of really rich guys who want to discredit the idea of government-sponsored research are willing to blow a lot of money for the propaganda effect. They aren't going to talk about the REAL research costs--which were almost entirely for technologies developed for the real space program. Paid for by the government, remember? There's NO way private investors would have been able to develop rocket engines (just to pick an especially obvious example) in the first place.
The sad thing is how many foolish Americans think this is a real alternative instead of a flashy dead end. The American space program is probably dead now, and it was politics (mostly Nixon's) and propaganda (especially BushCo's) that killed it.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
According to this Nature article:
...
In an interview last week, Jerry Grey, director of aerospace policy at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, credited Rutan and his team's achievements. "It's a tremendous engineering accomplishment. He's stimulated a new wave of interest."
"Rutan did it with private money," Grey says. "Other than that it's not much of a big deal."
Linux at home
Now where in the fuck did I say NASA lacked talent?
Yes! I too think we should thank Paul Allen for his vi$ion and $upport. :P
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
"It's nice to know, if only for a few minutes, that we're not the only two people up here."
HEY! Damnit! You made me cry.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
SpaceShipOne is doing a marvelous job. And any pilot who can sit on a missile that accelerates from 0 to 3000 mph in a minute's time has to be one tough dude. Both have my utmost CONGRATULATIONS. However, their equation is still only HALF the equation needed. The propulsion system doesn't do much good when the ship reaches the nether region where there isn't any AIR... and it becomes useless... UNLESS the propulsion engine was to switch off to a different process, morphing into a TRANSITION ENGINE. I have some theories for doing that. I tried to contact them but they're being swamped with the attention and worldwide e-mails I suppose. Very unfortunate... but if the engine had a second process to carry SpaceShipOne through the higher altitudes it wouldn't have to strain at the gut for so much escape velocity.
For some odd reason I see the number of auto accidents being greatly reduced if that were the case.
Accidents would be reduced. So would auto maker profits, oil company profits, car insurance profits, state and federal gasoline tax income, state license renewal profits, state emissions testing profits, garage repair profits, drive-through restuarant profits, MTV pimp-your-ride profits, ER profits, etc.
American society is so heavily dependent on, and in love with, the automobile that your proposal will never happen--no matter how many lives it may save.
What took them so long? I mean it's not rocket scie... Oh wait.
But SpaceShipOne is a protoype, a proof of concept vehicle.
Its cost of development will be offset against the sales of future spacecraft based upon its design and the licensing of its technology to other companies. In fact Virgin Galactic has already paid £14m / $25m to license the technology.
So Mojave Aerospace Ventures may already be earning a profit, having reputedly spent $30m and gained $35m in prize money and license fees, with undoubtedly more outside investment and sales to come.
Sure, people who want to actually work in space would be willing to live in a tin can - but if you want a lot of people up there, either as tourists or as workers, you need a multi-user tin can, with enough resources to handle a bunch of people and enough redundancy that equipment failures don't become emergencies. So you might as well call it a hotel, and have somebody working up there as concierge / desk clerk / janitor / cook / bottlewasher.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sure, it'd be cool to hop out with your surfboard and oxygen tanks and try it, but it's not likely that SpaceShip One's aerodynamics are designed to have the door opened at full speed. They might be able to get away with it because there's very little atmosphere up there and they're going relatively slowly at the top of the curve. But also, the lack of atmosphere means you'd probably need a pressure suit and not just oxygen tanks, so your maneuverability once you're down to low altitude will be pretty limited.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If I recall the correctly the X-15 was part of a combined NASA/USAF project.
------------ in case you care to look at is a URL from some overseas source... -------
http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=1& id =314283
Only a blurb is there, but it is just another event/incident indicator.
"I didn't determine" OBVIOUSLY means (in the context of all the URLs I dredged up) that I didn't BOTHER to dig those up, and if you'd FOLLOWED them, you'd see there wasn't much information and there was no point in elaborating on those, except to list them as possibly interesting for future follow-up.
Of course microshaft's little toy will never simulage G-forces, touch-downs, turbulence, etc, even if hooked up to woofer-equipped, swinging, throbbing chairs. Where did I say ms-simware MAKES a pilot? I related that bit of information only because the USN was thrilled that incoming pilot trainees who HAD used ms flight simulator had better mechanical interaction with their test equipment AND the trainer craft once in the sky. I never said ms stuff would train or prepare a person for flight. (On the other hand, it seems to me some nefarios/bandidos did some sim time and (maybe some actual flight hours) but managed to take over and keep aloft 4 planes, 3 of which reflected SOME level of proficiency in keeping planes aloft...until KABOOM!)
So WHAT you "...have obviously read and understood far more NTSB reports than..."? Big friggin' deal. The point here is what you take away from it. Obviously, you think I am someone unwilling to fly out of fear of the thing crashing. Obviously, you didn't read or comprehend the bits where I ACTUALLY LIKE the turbulence, the little g-force and banks/yaws on take-off... I am NOT afraid of dying, I just care about HOW and whether it is unfairly premature (say, hit by a bus or murdered intentionally or accidentally vs dying from long bout with cancer or some degenerative disease...)
"But if you want to keep burying yourself in ridiculous, idiotic fear, be my guest." Keep burying yourself in/with ad-hominem attacks...
You assume my information comes from ANG types. What makes you so certain I did not communicate in the past and present with actual power plant certified military or civilian types? I don't give a rat's ass for cover-up types, so I have no vested interest in playing cutesy-happy with an industry rife with information suppression and the will to bend rules, engage in risky practices to please investors, and gamble with odds soley based on "well it never happened before...". I'll fly, I just don't care to do it OFTEN, nor do I care to reward selfish or greedy airline CEOs for taking shortcuts (Yep, I DARE say 9/11 would NOT have happened if reinforced doors were on all the planes once a few nuts tried to hijack El-Al. Dick around with them and you get blown away. But noooo, 'merikun airline CEOs go on statistics, insurance costs, and other escape routes. "It never happened before and was statistically unlikely" was a BULLSHIT, farce, escapist excuse, when put into context with 'merika's policies, practices, and history. We're the biggest target of some of the whackiest people on Earth, and even the FBI, State, CIA, and others WARNED Congress/Senate and others OVER A DECADE ago, and the airlines did NOTHING, even when since 1994 crashed airliners initially were rumored to have been hijacked, and yet NO new planes were fitted and no older ones retrofitted with security doors strong enough to deter takeoves. Moreover, on at least 1, maybe 2, the pilots surrendered the cockpits to save ONE life when MORE were at stake. So, that was REAL pilot error.
"I have, and I've dug way deeper than you. It takes more than a passing conversation with some National Guard dimwit, a few Google searches, and a total misunderstanding of the NTSB's reporting process to convince me that flying is unsafe."
I never said flying is 100 percent "unsafe!" Your twisted sentence makes it seem as if I am saying it's unsafe, maybe to make it taboo to fly. I like LOTS of planes. I just to like all the glowi
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Thanks.
Perhaps the most cynical thing I've read all day.
So, is it possible, maybe even a little, that Allen and Gates are doing these things to perhaps make the world a better place? Maybe reduce the suffering from AIDS a little? Keep kids in Africa from getting the stupid diseases that we all got immunized for when we were infants?
Nope, in your world, the only reason that Gates and Allen are doing these things is to get NPR to quit reporting the news (not bloody likely) and get Black groups to support Microsoft.
It must be very uncaring and cold in your world.
Back when I was in college and the term was newer, I had an Afrikaner friend who referred to himself and his wife as African-Americans, and they were, just as you can be an Italian-American regardless of what your skin colour is.
One of my current friends was from Rhodesia, and became a Zimbabwean (the name changed in 1980 after the British Empire recognized the independence they'd declared for themselves in 1965) before he moved here to the US as a teenager, and yeah, he's African-American in spite of being a light-skinned blondie. (I'm pretty sure he's both young enough and old enough that he was born Rhodesian, but I don't know if he's also a UK subject from the disputed-ownership period...)
Somebody else mentioned a Moroccan friend calling himself African-American - that really doesn't tell you whether he looks Negro, because Morocco is an extremely diverse country. I'm guessing from context that he's probably Arab, but I've met Moroccans ranging from Berbers in the south (black, but mostly looking quite different from Sub-Saharan West Africans or East Africans) to Arabs to Sephardic Jews to leftover French bureaucrats.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
...is actually the Tier One Navigation Unit, TONU ("tah new"). TONAS was something completely different.
In any case, its clear the Ansari's did something incredibly important in meeting the final goal of $10M.
PS: There was some ambiguity about the actual funding available to the X-Prize early in the project which was damaging to its credibility. Hopefully this sort of thing will not be repeated in the future.
Seastead this.