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SpaceShipOne to Join Smithsonian Collection
iamlucky13 writes "After having inspired space enthusiasts around the world and possibly setting the stage for space tourism by winning the X-Prize a year ago, SpaceShipOne is on it's way to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. There it will join other historic craft such as Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis and Yeager's Glamorous Glennis. The exhibit will be unveiled on October 5th at a ceremony with Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, the company that built SpaceShipOne, and Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder who funded the project."
On the contrary, I think that this will only fuel innovation even more. Having this amazing space ship available for viewing in public will help people to believe in space travel, also from a private, consumer perspective. Take an example, a young engineer student, studies its aerodynamic properties at the museum, and can then create new ideas and spur the development himself. I also take this as a sign that the Scaled Composites team has even more and better ships in their space fleet.
How does this affect the star trek timeline? I just don't get it??
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The X-Prize was designed to spur invention and get people looking at private spaceflight and funding deals. SS1 is way too small to be commercially viable. It did it's job, and is now obsolete. Life is short when you're a prototype in an evolving industry.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Sputnik was not the first man-made object in space. If the boundary between the atmosphere and space is defined as 100 km altitude, then the V-2 beat Sputnik there.
Sputnik's real claim to fame is that it was Earth's first artificial satellite.
Well, that, and also the fact that at it gave red-blooded Americans the heebie-jeebies to have a sinister Soviet satellite beaming out Communist radio signals while whizzing over your head fifteen times a day.
It's not like they've thrown away the blueprints and with all the extra money from Virgin their going to be able to quickly fabricate many more with all the kinks from SpaceShipOne worked out, after all it is a prototype albeit a very good one. I can't wait to see the new version they make that comes with cup holders and leather trim interior.
Besides they probably felt they had a good chunk of flight data to analyze and could further refine the engine on the ground, traded against the risk of pushing it further to the limits and losing the ship and possibly pilot, at which point everyone would berate them for destroying a piece of history. Nope sounds like they made the right call to me.
To the people asking about the reusability of a craft that's being put on display...
SpaceShip One was the testing prototype. The production models are already being built, for Virgin Galactic.
Yeah, that's right. A real company, run by someone who owns a real world-wide airline, will be using these babies for (near-) space tourism.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
This is actually an old story. It had been reported earlier in the year that this was going to occur.
The SS1 Prototype has actually been at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Annex (Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum (UHASM)) in Dulles, VA since late July / early August awaiting transfer to the downtown Washington, DC center.
For those who would have wanted to see it there, while it was not on active display, it was there at the west end of the building under a great big blue tarp. They had it under the tarp because the director of the UHASM did not want to allow it on display because he "did not want to upstage the downtown facility's unveiling". For what it's worth, since it was there (and its not hard to recognize it under the tarp), I thought that it would not have hurt to have been not on active display but out from under the tarp and just have a temporary placard stating "Awaiting transfer to downtown facility for official showing".
Link to Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Homepage:
http://www.nasm.si.edu/
Link to Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center:
http://www.nasm.si.edu/museum/udvarhazy/
I took my 4.5 year-olds on their first visit to Air & Space when we happened to be
near Washington last weekend. SpaceShipOne was hanging in the main entrance hall,
but it was under wraps. The shape is distinctive, but I was disappointed that we
couldn't actually see it.