White Knight Testing X-37

mknewman writes "The innovative carrier plane used to air-launch SpaceShipOne has a new mission. At its inland spaceport in Mojave, Calif., the White Knight mothership has been involved in fit and high-speed taxi checks with a new passenger: the X-37, an unpiloted, reusable space plane. "

Comments

Real-life crash

[Latent Heat]

As explained in Milton Thompson's "Flight Without Wings", the Steve Austin crash was an actual crash at Edwards of one of the lifting bodies. But in real life, the pilot actually walked away from that one -- apparently they needed extra weight in the nose to balance the craft for flight, so they used that weight to beef up the safety cage for the pilot.

Re:Real-life crash

[WormholeFiend]

as AC pointed it out, he did lose an eye.

And to the moderator who modded me down, WTF?! It does look similar :P.

Ok, well maybe except for the big holes in the hull.

Re:./ed

[Anonymous Coward]

The site is not slashdotted. Nevertheless the original space.com article.

Re:Why? Answer: Cost

[uberdave]

I guess the answer is cost.

"NASA has transferred its X-37 technology demonstration program to the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which plans to go ahead with atmospheric drop tests of the prototype space plane next year."

The B-52 aircraft that NASA normally uses for such drop tests would not be used, a decision made by the agency now in charge of the X-37 program, he said. "The cost analysis favored Scaled Composites," [NASA spokesman Michael] Braukus said.

Re:Private Space May Be The Only Game Left

[iammaxus]

Fortunately there are newer, less expensive methods for delivering payloads into LEO and with this vehicle it will be possible to perform much of what NASA proposed doing with the ISS with a fraction of the cost.

Exactly what newer methods? What is "this vehicle"? The White Knight? The White Knight is a conventional air craft that goes no where near LEO. Perhaps you are talking about the X-37? While it is testing new, cheaper space travel technologies, I don't see how it can do what the ISS can do, namely, extended experiments in space. Get your facts straight.

Re:How does this relate to the America's Space Pri

[jnhtx]

Rutan has done a lot of DoD work for years. He started by making composite models of various low observable aircraft for radar cross-section testing, hence the name "Scaled Composites".

He has made an ultra-low cost ground attack fighter and an experimental flying scale model of a tactical transport airplane.

White Knights sister ship, Proteous, has been dropping various smart bombs as a "UAV Surrogate" for DoD testing for the last year.

Re:Why?

[Wyatt Earp]

NASA has a large fleet, included in that fleet are a B-57 Canberra bomber, a B-52 for large aircraft drop tests and 2 747-100s for carrying the Shuttle.

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/research/index.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets /FS-005-DFRC.html
http://www.nasa.gov/news/special/747_Shuttle_Carri ers.html
http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/