SpaceShipTwo Design and Pics Released

An anonymous reader writes "Designs and photos for Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic's new suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, and its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, have been released." Lots of specs and numbers if you're interested in that sort of thing although nothing hugely detailed.

Comments

Wow

[The Psyko]

Would have thought by this time the editors would have learned apostrophe rules. They aren't that hard.

Re:Wow

[moderatorrater]

Lot's of people ha've problem's with 'apostrophes, you insensitive clod!

Re:Wow

[dmitrybrant]

Look's like the new design's are really impres'sive.

Re:Wow

[Scubafish]

I didn't notice any apostrophes but I think there are a couple of commas they could have done without.

Re:Wow

[bark76]

Maybe we should all chip in and buy them one of these: http://www.angryflower.com/aposter.html

Re:Wow

[CrazyTalk]

Wow is right - I just happened to see that poster for the first time on someones office door, not 10 minutes ago. What are the odds?!?!?

Re:Wow

[CarpetShark]

Would have thought by this time the editors would have learned apostrophe rules. They aren't that hard.

People who can't use the word "that" or the word "learnt" probably shouldn't throw stones ;) With just a bit more tolerance and understanding, and we'll all be better off. I admit though, slashdot editors deserve everything they get ;)

Re:Wow

[caldodge]

Who would have thought by this time that /. posters would have learned about question marks? They aren't that hard.

You just put one after every question.

Re:Wow

[The Psyko]

You're right, they are used after a question. The real question is, what does that have to do with my post?

Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Oooh, yeay. Another joyride that contributes absolutely nothing to space exploration.

If you disagree with this statement, go ahead -- explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art.

Re:Nothing to see here

[FlatEric521]

Really, the primary thing this project has going for it is that it is not funded by a government. It might be boring and not state of the art now, but further development of private space flight should lead to some truly interesting technology and vehicles.

Re:Nothing to see here

[geekoid]

Cutting edge technology is only one place to contribute to space flight. Production improvements can also aid space flight, and producing more of the material needed to do space flight may improve manufacturing techniques.

Then making 'space flight' available to more of the public helps create more awareness.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Jeff DeMaagd]

They also only flew the first one three times. I just don't see how that's enough to fully understand how the craft operates.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

I should add that I'm only criticizing SS1/SS2. I have nothing against WK1 or WK2; they're quite nice carrier aircraft. But SS1 and SS2 are completely meaningless. If you want small companies doing meaningful rocketry, check out SpaceX. Their Falcon 9, a rocket whose heavy version will carry as much payload as NASA's beleagured (and possibly dead in the water) Ares, including its own spacecraft that can dock with the ISS, will be launching this June. The typical launch cost of payloads in the west is $10k/kg. In Russia, China, and India, $7k/kg is the standard. Sometimes you can get discounts down toi as low as $4-5k/kg. The Falcon 9 is $2-3k/kg. And looking over its construction, design, stats, etc, these numbers definitely appear credible.

Cheer for the rocketry not matters, not the irrelevant joyrides.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Feyr]

they flew the first one for the prize's purpose twice, but they flew the craft a lot more times than just three. there's (or was) a testing report publicly available for each flight they did, and it's a LOT more than 3. plus a lot of simulation runs. they probably understand their craft quite well by now

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Production improvements of low ISP vehicles contribute absolutely nothing to high ISP vehicles. Production improvements of vehicles with minimal to no TPS contribute nothing to the serious TPS challenges of actual orbital vehicles. Virtually nothing about SS1 applies to the serious challenges involved in spaceflight.

Re:Nothing to see here

[iocat]

It advances the state of the art not at all, but if it gets the kids interested in space flight, and icreases public support for NASA and other govt. funding, or even creates a market for that crazy inflatable space hotel, I am all for it. Plus Scaled Composites is a cool company.

Plus, why does something need to advance the state of the art to be cool or worth doing? Making something that's already proven to be possible cheaper and more accesible is a noble goal too (see also: the personal computer revolution).

Re:Nothing to see here

[keep_it_simple_stupi]

Maybe so, but it's a joyride I'd love to take. Seriously, even if this is only a PR stunt (which I don't believe it is), I think it's a good thing. Space tourism will be a new industry at some point in time, and I for one can't wait to get my ticket.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

The design specs are enough. The ISP is tiny, the fuel/oxidizer combo will never scale without going OTRAG on it (which makes its carrier design as well as the entire construction method used impossible), and there's virtually no TPS. How, exactly, is this relevant to actual orbital spaceflight?

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing irrelevant about brining space travel to the masses. You are free to ride in the cargo bay of one of those commercial rockets, I'd rather take a "joyride" in comfort and see things few humans have seen.

Re:Nothing to see here

[The One and Only]

Plus, the first craft was more of a proof-of-concept. If they're going to do extensive flight testing into suborbital space, it ought to be on the production model.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Really, the primary thing this project has going for it is that it is not funded by a government

So is your average bobble head doll manufacturer. And they're just as relevant to improving orbital spaceflight. If you want someone to cheer for, cheer for SpaceX, for Orbital Sciences, for SeaLaunch, for any of the private companies involved in *actual orbital spaceflight*.

Re:Nothing to see here

[moderatorrater]

The commercialization of space at all is going to be beneficial in the long run. As much fun as it is to have all developments come from the government and funded exclusively by Congress, there's a lot to be said for companies who can earn money getting a lot of people to go to space. Eventually, we'll see better ideas about waste management and how to stay healthy in zero-g.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Hey, if all you care about is joyrides that do absolutely nothing more than entertainment, power to you. As for me, I care about spaceflight that has more relevance than a sounding rocket. I.e., satellites, stations, bases, colonies, probes, telescopes, and so on. What's holding us back is the price of *orbital* launches, so pardon me if I'm a bit harsh on companies that pretend to be contributing to that when they're doing absolutely nothing.

Re:Nothing to see here

[FlatEric521]

I always felt that the interest of SS1/SS2 was not in the rocketry, thrust/lift capacity, or any other comparison with payload lifting spaceships, but its unique design for a manned vehicle. As far as I know, it is the only manned spacecraft without a complex or heavy reentry heat shield. Anyone interested in space knows how complex the Thermal Protection System is on the Space Shuttle, and all other vehicles seem have a heat shield on the underside of the capsule. The feathered reentry design was highly innovative and never seen before SS1.

Give the man credit, he did come up with something inventive and new, even if the uses are only for joyrides right now.

Re:Nothing to see here

[ceejayoz]

Uh, Falcon 9 is more along the lines of the Delta IV, not the Ares. Wikipedia says Ares V will take 130,000 kg to LEO, versus the Falcon 9 Heavy's 27,500 (comparable to the 22,950 of the Delta IV Heavy).

As for meaningful rocketry and the beleaguered state of other systems, their two Falcon 1 launches thus far have failed to reach orbit.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

(First off, sorry for the apostrophe slip, simply a typo on my part as the OP.)

That's not the engineering problem the design team was looking to solve, quite simply. But SS2/WK2 will be significant in the sense of a man-rated, commercially funded, supersonic/hypersonic, high altitude _production_ aircraft/suborbital spacecraft.

And the significant advance that Rutan claims primary credit for is the feathering mechanism, which allows for his spacecraft to essentially ignore the reentry problem. Quite the elegant solution to what was a rather intractable problem on previous designs in the performance space (X-15)

Jick, who can't seem to login today...

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

You just don't understand the point of this program because you are looking only at the shiniest edge of technology that is extreme overkill for this mission. I concede that you may be correct that this may not contribute much to high ISP rocketry, but again that is not the point. SS2 is not about pushing the bleeding edge, going orbital or to the moon or Mars. SS2 is about pushing the economic envelope of what is achievable without government funding.

Yeah, it would be nice to hitch a ride on a heavy lift vehicle, but almost nobody can afford that. We use those largely for satellites and other inatimate objects that we take for granted. A vew super-rich can hitch a ride on a Soyuz out of Kazakistan, but how does that really include most of humanity? Nobody seems to notice when a new satelite goes up, and only a few more people noticed when the ~3 private citizens so far have gone to space, providing unneeded ballast on largely government-funded science missions.

This program is about making personal, human space access an "affordable" reality for anyone to experience. High ISP and the like more than exponentially increases cost, risk, and turn-around time, making those engines much less economically feasable for this mission. Private programs cannot take the cost-be-damned approach that the Space Race fostered, as there is no tax-payer spigot to go to when the well runs dry. The economy of offering these low-cost sub-orbital flights as a prelude to orbital and beyond is much more sustainable than shooting for the moon.

Disclaimer - I am posting anonymously, as I currently am working on the Virgin Galactic space program.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

Cheer for the rocketry not matters, not the irrelevant joyrides. Not to be rude, but you need to get a clue here. Joyrides mean more money in a growing space economy. SpaceShipTwo is a critical test of space tourism. Will it get enough business to cover development costs or help fund an orbital vehicle? Sure SpaceX's $2-3k/kg is very sexy especially since they're close to a demonstration launch, but SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in private manned space. Further, SpaceX has yet to successfully launch anything while Scaled Composites has three successful launches (with extremely fast turnaround times) to 60 km already. And putting together a good, cheap reusable means they have a great chance of capturing a share of that cargo to orbit.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

As far as I know, it is the only manned spacecraft without a complex or heavy reentry heat shield.

That's because it doesn't go fast enough to need one. It peaked out at Mach 2.5 (and this was in the upper atmosphere, meaning it was getting far less heating than a jet moving at this speed), not Mach 18 or so (and remember that energy is proportional to the velocity *squared*). This is not "state of the art". It's "state of the art fifty years ago". It's not contributing a damn thing.

Re:Nothing to see here

[EasyTarget]

Well, for a start, it's more relevant than you are...

WTF do all those acronyms stand for? Totally irrelavent to me.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's not the rocketry going up but rather the craft coming down. We've had a handle on getting up for a long time, but getting everything back down in one piece in a reusable way is all new.

And let's not forget that there is nothing wrong with joy or joy rides. They are fun.

Re:Nothing to see here

[gstoddart]

It might be boring and not state of the art now, but further development of private space flight should lead to some truly interesting technology and vehicles.

But, really, if private space travel is to become commonplace, what we want is boring and un-sexy technology -- not exciting and cutting edge.

What we need is the equivalent of a Buick station wagon with wood-grain trim. Boring as hell, but a reliable vehicle which focuses on doing the task instead of pushing the envelope. Once you have that, then this stuff can start to become routine based on available technology.

Cheers

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, they're establishing a space tourism business with the obvious intent and goal of showing enough demand for "merely" sub-orbital flights that investors such as Branson will be willing to pony up the greater amount of money required to overcome the additional challenges of orbital flights.

Rutan isn't a billionaire like Musk, he has to get the funding however he can, and has to follow a different path. Musk can afford to spend $200 or $300 million without a single successful flight and ever-increasing launch costs. Scaled can't, and has to rely on smaller steps in the hopes of convincing enough people with deep enough pockets that there is a big-enough market, at a low-enough technical risk, for the step to orbital flights.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be helpful for some of us if you would explain a little more. I know next to nothing about spaceflight but I'm curious. Could you just give a little more explanation of what this company is actually doing vs. what other (NASA, ESA, ?) are doing? I mean, in a dumbed-down way, what problems need to be solved for cheap commercial spaceflight that this lower flight does not address?
Thanks!

Re:Nothing to see here

[sab39]

It's relevant because the more companies MAKING MONEY in the space industry - especially the "consumer level" space industry - the more investment there will be in those industries and the more the state of the art WILL be advanced.

I certainly cheer for SpaceX and other private companies doing what you insist on referring to as "real" space flight like it's the only kind that matters. They're doing amazing things. But their focus is - quite naturally - on bringing costs down in the market that exists today - satellite launch for large companies; astronauts for NASA. As long as that remains the focus of the entire space market, there will never be any prospect of people like you and I getting into space at all - orbital or not.

VG is doing something in an entirely different market - going after consumers, albeit very rich ones for now. If you're insanely rich right now, you can go Space Adventures for $20Mil and get into space. VG's very first flights will be at 1% of that price! There is at least the theoretical prospect that within my lifetime the prices might go down enough and I might be able to save enough that I could make that flight. They may not be advancing the technical state of the art, but they're sure as hell advancing the state of the art in availability.

Besides - knowing Branson's well-publicized personality - can you really imagine that VG will STOP at suborbital?

Re:Nothing to see here

[edwardpickman]

Say the 29' Mercedes was far more impressive technically than what Ford was putting out but how many straight 8 engines do you see used in cars today? The most cutting edge isn't always the most practical. Do we wait for warp technology for space flight or use chemical rockets to get the ball rolling? The Space Ship 2 is the Model T of space flight. That's not an insult it's a major compliment. The Model T was one of the most successful cars in history for good reason. This craft puts space flight not into the hands of the average person but potentially into the hands of large numbers of people. Henry Ford would give it a big thumbs up and we should all view it as the stepping stone it is.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

ISP: Specific Impulse (properly, I followed by subscript SP). Defines how much thrust you get per unit of mass based on the exhaust velocity. Low ISP rockets simply don't scale up without...

OTRAG: OTRAG was a German rocket design concept which proposed a way to make low ISP rockets scale up to orbit: by making an utter monster, a skyscraper of a rocket with only a small payload. The idea was that if you have every part be as incredibly simple as possible, with hundreds of identical stages stamped out cheaper than you can make a car, even with low performance, you can still get to orbit. The project failed for a number of reasons, but the idea behind it is basically sound (although the many stage separations would have been incredibly risky). But building smooth composite structures or, really, anything SS1 did, just won't work with the sort of design needed to make an OTRAG system work. OTRAG is a Big Ugly Rocket(tm). And, naturally, having such a monster doesn't work with a carrier aircraft because you can't lift that much weight.

Perhaps before you argue that something you don't know much about is useful, perhaps you should familiarize yourself with even the most basic rocketry terms like ISP.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see you seem to have some advanced knowledge of rocket science. but could you reference your acronyms at least once in your posts for us less in the know people? especially the particular ones with a more common use. I'm pretty sure you're not speaking about Test Procedure Specifications for Internet Service Providers. As for you're general argument. The innovation is coming from the fact that they are reaching sub-orbit for somewhere around a 1/10 of the cost of the Mercury project. Also, take into consideration that being a govt. funded military war project that was the space program (ICBM's.... deny it), the technology and innovations generated by the program are either being simply lost in time or are locked from private enterprise behind "classified". therefore, we have to start from scratch again. if you have to build your space program without the benefit of prior innovation, you don't start by just building your fusion thruster.....

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

SS2 is about pushing the economic envelope of what is achievable without government funding.

Sorry, but SeaLaunch, Orbital Sciences, and SpaceX already beat you to it, and they're doing *relevant, orbital rocketry*.

Yeah, it would be nice to hitch a ride on a heavy lift vehicle, but almost nobody can afford that.

Because they actually go to orbit, meaning that they have to deal with the real challenges of getting to orbit.

High ISP and the like more than exponentially increases cost, risk, and turn-around time, making those engines much less economically feasable for this mission.

And they actually get you to orbit Your ISP is similar to OTRAG's, meaning you'd have to scale like OTRAG does. Which means a 100 tonne launch vehicle with 64 stages just go loft 1 tonne of payload. Tell me, are you planning to scale to a 100 tonne launch vehicle with 64 stages? Are you? And how do you plan to bulk stamp out these stages like OTRAG was p[lanning to in order to keep such a monster econmoical? And how do you plan to lift a 100 tonne vehicle? Going to scale up WK2 big enough to make a Mriya look tiny?

Please, join the real world here.

Re:Nothing to see here

[peragrin]

Spaceship 2 is just the second step. they are working their way up to space which is far more than what you are doing.

The fact is that only a few countries have been able to afford the hundred million dollars a launch. Spaceship 2 is working on getting there for a hell of a lot less than that. sure it will take a while, but at least they are trying, unlike NASA, Russia, ESA, or Japan.

The Answer to regular space travel isn't shoving a stick of dynamite up your arse and lighting it, which is currently how we get to space. You can have a dumb projectile, or you can fly up gracefully. spaceship 2 is working out how to do the latter safely. Everyone else has given up due to budget concerns.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Original Replica]

Oooh, yeay. Another joyride

It has been pointed out that the private industry side of this is the exciting part, which does have some value, but I think the "joyride" part actually has more. Sure this is just for the very rich, right now. Airplanes used to be only for the very rich as well. Virgin Galactic will make space accessible to the public. Right now space is only something cold and functional, for the military and billion dollar businesses. This makes space fun and exciting, not for the lucky Air Force pilot turned astronaut, but for everyone who will now get to go there. That, more than and return mission to the moon or man on Mars will make people put a higher priority on Space exploration and travel. Virgin Galactic isn't about function, but about fun. Like porn on the internet it will pave the way for Space travel to grow much faster that it would under government and industry alone.

Re:Nothing to see here

[WindBourne]

He was comparing Ares I to Falcon 9, which are similar. As to falcon 1 not reaching orbit, well, both the DOD and NASA are saying that everything is fine on this, and believe that the next launch is good. Considering that falcon 1 actually just missed the altitude due to early cut-off, I would say that they really have a pretty good chance of success.

Re:Nothing to see here

[kylben]

"Another joyride that contributes absolutely nothing to space exploration."

That's like saying that competing in the Nascar provides no beneficial experience whatsoever toward building minivans. It's a baby step, but this is about making space exploitation a business more than inventing cutting edge tech - that's what Rutan and the rest are doing. It's about creating a body of experience.

What this will provide experience in includes, but is not limited to:

logistics (equipment)
logistics (passengers)
safety procedures
safety equipment
materials
supply chain
financing
market research
regulatory issues
public relations
efficiency tradeoffs
passenger comfort tradeoffs
product development (product as in "joyride" or other activities)
production processes
port facilities
reliability
maintenance
business models

These are all things that the business world has enormous experience in in general, but little to no experience in applying them to space. They have to start somewhere.

Secondary effects that increase the viability of the industry as a whole include, but are not limited to:

public acceptance
institutional acceptance (banking, VC, regulatory, insurance)
financial viability of ports
financial viability of secondary port and logistics infrastructure
financial viability of vendors on the supply chain
R&D of materials, fuels, components, etc.
competitive incentives
capital accumulation

Cutting edge tech makes it possible for somebody to go to space. Turning that tech into viable businesses is what will make it possible for lots of people to go to space.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

As long as that remains the focus of the entire space market, there will never be any prospect of people like you and I getting into space at all - orbital or not.

"Not" is irrelevant. "Not orbital" means joyrides, sounding rockets, and nothing more. "Orbital" is where virtually everything relevant is. SpaceX is reducing costs to orbit. Scaled is doing nothing of the sort. Hence, Scaled is irrelevant.

the more investment there will be in those industries and the more the state of the art WILL be advanced.

Success in offering joyrides means *more investment in joyrides*. VCs will invest in orbital rocketry based on the success of *orbital rocketry*. Orbital rocketry != joyrides, and VCs aren't dumb enough to be tricked into thinking otherwise.

But let's just look at that "success in joyrides" aspect, shall we? Historically, rocketplanes offer a several percent chance of blowing up with every flight. Let's be nice to Scaled, ignore their repeated near-catastrophic problems in SS1, and assume that they get this down to only 1%. What sort of business model involves blowing up half a dozen people with a combined net worth ranging from the hundreds of millions to the billions of dollars, every hundred flights (on flights that they plan to launch frequently)? I don't care what waivers you make them sign, blowing up millionaires every so often is a stupid business model, and a great way to *harm* the reputation of private rocketry.

Re:Nothing to see here

[hador_nyc]

So is your average bobble head doll manufacturer. And they're just as relevant to improving orbital spaceflight. If you want someone to cheer for, cheer for SpaceX, for Orbital Sciences, for SeaLaunch, for any of the private companies involved in *actual orbital spaceflight*.

The problem with your logic is that you are missing the effects of changing the norm. Sure, like another commenter said in response to your comment, a Buick is not amazing, but it's reliability is compared to a Formula 1. The Shuttle is a Formula 1, so is SeaLaunch and the others. They aren't trying to move people on the scale and with the safety of these guys, but think if all the cars in the world were just race cars. This will change things; particularly, to continue my analogy, when SpaceShipTwo is basically the Model T. With the funds they will get from selling these trips to the public, sexy advances can be made; ones that I think the other companies will have difficulty keeping up with.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Orange Crush]

I think what's important here is it's commercial spaceflight being done as a viable business. Sure, they're $200k joyrides that aren't even close to acheiving orbital speeds and the engineering challenges with getting to orbit are daunting and well beyond anything with SS1 & 2. A private manned orbital spacecraft will require fundamentally different design principles, but if there's a successful business behind suborbital, ponying up the R&D cash for an orbital craft will be much easier to justify. Branson and Rutan have said as much--if SS2 is successful, SS3 may very well be an orbiter. Meanwhile, there's several other companies addressing more issues--SpaceX's rockets, Bigelow's inflatable habitats, and Virgin/Scaled settling up the spaceport/tourist infrastructure.

Re:Nothing to see here

[peragrin]

But spaceX is doing the same thing NASA, Russia, the EU have done. sit on a giant explosion and ride it up into space. SS2 and white knight are working on flying up there. with any luck SpaceShip 10 will be SSTO which makes it 10 times better than anyone else.

Of course SS10 will also be 30 years down the line. they will need the funding to get their first. So Suborbital flights, and then deliveries will help pay for it.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Skater]

I assume SpaceShipTwo will earn money, some of which will be put toward the design of SpaceShipThree or SpaceShipFour or whatever that will someday be orbital. It seems very relevant to me - crawl before you can walk.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Protonk]

I'm not exactly cheering for OSC. And what has Sealaunch done that is so revolutionary?

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

ISP = Specific Impulse
TPS = Thermal Protection System.

Sorry; I figured people could look up any acronyms they don't know on their own. After all, they feel qualified enough to debate about rocketry; shouldn't they at least be bothered to learn the most basic terms and concepts?

The innovation is coming from the fact that they are reaching sub-orbit for somewhere around a 1/10 of the cost of the Mercury project

They're *not doing any relevant research*. Mercury was breaking new ground, and didn't have the benefit of modern materials to boot. This is repeating old ground. Mercury used Redstone rockets. The Redstone reached Mach 5.5, over twice as fast, which means over 4 times the kinetic energy per unit mass, which means dissipating that much on reentry. Getting to that velocity, however, is a lot harder than double or even four times the effort. In rocketry, as you try to scale up your velocity, you also have to scale up your fuel and oxidizer. However, that also means getting that fuel and oxidizer to velocity, which means more fuel and oxidizer, and so on. It's exponential growth and exponential difficulty.

the technology and innovations generated by the program are either being simply lost in time or are locked from private enterprise behind "classified"

The heck they are. Rockets designs far, far better than the Redstone are completely open and available to the public. Not to mention that most serious rocketry companies hire at least *one* engineer (preferably many) with a background in rocketry.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

Production improvements of low ISP vehicles contribute absolutely nothing to high ISP vehicles. Production improvements of vehicles with minimal to no TPS contribute nothing to the serious TPS challenges of actual orbital vehicles. Virtually nothing about SS1 applies to the serious challenges involved in spaceflight. Here's my take. You are very wrong. Scaled Composites is carefully putting together that vehicle with the high ISP engine, the thermal protection system, and all those other challenges. It just hasn't starting designing it yet. There's a lot more to a vehicle than the vehicle itself. You need experienced designers, ground crew, and pilots. You need testing experience and infrastructure (note, for example, that SpaceShipTwo has its own flight simulator already). You need to gain experience in jumping the substantial bureaucratic hurdles for a manned space vehicle. You need to understand what the problems and challenges are before you design much less put the vehicle together. And you need to do all that without going bankrupt. What you are seeing is IMHO how a master would approach this problem. The key is incremental design. You don't make the orbital vehicle all at once with all those unknown pieces snapped together. You build up to it with progressively more sophisticated launch vehicles and extensive testing at each step. Unlike the other "alt.space" players like SpaceX, Blue Horizon, SpaceDev, etc, Scaled Composites probably turned a small profit with SpaceShipOne, its first space vehicle. And I bet it's turning a profit with SpaceShipTwo as well. If SpaceShipTwo doesn't get the hoped-for business, then Scaled Composites can walk away from it all. The thing that gets ignored is that Scaled Composites has economically one of the soundest projects in the space business.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Scrameustache]

Oooh, yeay. Another joyride that contributes absolutely nothing to space exploration.

If you disagree with this statement, go ahead -- explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art. No, because the reason to disagree with your statement is that it implies that advancing the state of the art is absolutely everything to space exploration.

This will contribute to establishing a routine of space exploration. They're expecting weekly launches. Who else is capable of weekly launches?
When the R&D team has passed this project onto the exploit and maintain team, they can start working on weekly orbital launches. They can offer a 'round the world trip in a single day. Take THAT, Jules Verne!

Re:Nothing to see here

[ThreeGigs]

So is your average bobble head doll manufacturer. And they're just as relevant to improving orbital spaceflight. If you want someone to cheer for, cheer for SpaceX, for Orbital Sciences, for SeaLaunch, for any of the private companies involved in *actual orbital spaceflight*.

You forgot one very important word:
*Manned* spaceflight.

SpaceX might have launched, but not a manned mission, yet. Virgin Galactic in that regard is quite a ways ahead.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Not to be rude, but you need to get a clue here. Joyrides mean more money in a growing space economy. SpaceShipTwo is a critical test of space tourism.

Successful joyrides mean more money thrown at joyrides. Soyuz (and later Dragon) are a test of orbital space tourism.

but SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in private manned space

SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in rocketplanes that go ~850 m/s instead of the 7,800 m/s needed for orbital rocketry (and remember, it's an exponential challenge to get more velocity, not a linear one).

Further, SpaceX has yet to successfully launch anything

NASA considers SpaceX's last launch a success, as does SpaceX, and as do most observers. All of their systems were flight qualified, which was the purpose of the launch. The only problem they had was a slightly early cutoff in the engine due to sloshing, which is a pretty trivial problem to solve (all you need is a baffle in the tank). Q1 will see a Falcon 1 with a higher performance, regeneratively cooled Merlin launch its first payload, and the first Falcon 9 will be in June. In general, SpaceX's stats have been very encouraging to the rocketry world. Especially their impressive turnaround on aborted launches; that was amazingly fast.

Re:Nothing to see here

[everphilski]

I agree with you, suborbital joyrides don't contribute to the art of space access, they are a dead end merely for profit. And I agree with you, I am excited about SpaceX, other private orbital ventures and their possibilities, however, I must refute this statement:

Their Falcon 9, a rocket whose heavy version will carry as much payload as NASA's beleagured (and possibly dead in the water) Ares, including its own spacecraft that can dock with the ISS, will be launching this June.

1. Yes, the Falcon 9 has more payload than Ares I. But you are comparing the small Ares I to the big Falcon 9. Not to mention both are still moving targets.
2. SpaceX has yet to successfully launch Falcon 1 to orbit, much less Falcon 9.
3. The Dragon (manned capsule, dockable to ISS) module is far from finished, and will not be launched for at least another year. (And, mind you, is being launched for a NASA **contract** [COTS], not in competition with NASA)
4. Ares I/V are anything but dead in the water. If it was, I'd probably already have lost my job right now, contractors are always the first to go :).

Again, don't get me wrong, I wish I was a self-made millionaire like Elon, Jeff Bezos, John Carmack, or David Masten. I'd be building orbital rocket hardware in a heartbeat (I build small scale rockets in my garage ... ). But there's no point in creating hype and saying things you know nothing about ... These companies are doing a good enough job on their own to stand out without it!

Re:Nothing to see here

[Tyberius]

But the SS1 and SS2 does not have to scale up, it only has to scale out. I do not need a 18 wheeler, I only need a four door sedan and sometimes a small van or station wagon.

Re:Nothing to see here

[The One and Only]

On a technical level you're right. But SS2 addresses a different problem. Once joyrides into space are sold, space tourism will be established as a market. Right now space tourism is a single-segment market: for several million dollars the Russians will sell you one of their spots on the space station. Aside from that, no one knows for sure how many people will pay how much money to go into space. If SpaceShipTwo is a commercial success, that decreases the risk and proves the potential return of investing in private space technology. That means more money to develop orbital technology and expand the market into yet a third segment, namely orbital tourism.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

So, in short, you're saying that we should be, instead of focusing on companies who are actually going to orbit, like SpaceX, instead focus on people who are trying to raise enough venture capital to start from scratch in trying to go to orbit.

Um, why?

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

A joy ride yes.. but's it's all about economics. To create revenue in such a market for future orbital and planetary exploration. In reality we are not using state of the art but known technology to create revenue toward funding state of the art. Virgin Galactic is currently charging 300,000 dollars per ticket now at the moment, 10,000+ have already vowed to take a flight at this price. That's 3 billion dollars to fund future space flight on.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

We have a winner. I get the impression that the original poster thinks that the vehicle is the hardest problem. Maybe it is. But you're going nowhere if you can't do the above. Mod parent up and all that.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

The most cutting edge isn't always the most practical.

Get to orbit on a pogo stick, then.

Rocketry is subject to the constraints of physics, and the constraints of physics say that their system (low-ISP air launched) simply cannot scale. Which means starting from scratch. Not like they've addressed any of the most serious rocketry challenges to begin with (like, say, a TPS)

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

You're right. Because a cockpit with no TPS is so much more challenging than turbopumps that can drain the volume of swimming pools in minutes to seconds, pumping cryogenic and/or corrosive materials, into a combustion chamber operating hotter than the boiling point of steel, on the scale of a building dozens of stories high, built as light as physically possible despite accelerating this building-sized monster at several Gs with heavy vibration. :P

Re:Nothing to see here

[ThreeGigs]

relevant, orbital rocketry ...that can't land at an airport. Nor will passengers survive long in an unpressurized capsule with no life support. Getting there is only half the fun.

Remember the Mercury and Gemini programs? You know, the ones we used to help us learn what it would take to get men to the moon and back, safely? They're taking STEPS, and you're complaining because they aren't jumping right to a space shuttle clone.

SeaLaunch, Orbital Sciences, and SpaceX require extensive launch infrastructure. Tell one of them "There's a runway, let's see you launch in a week", and they couldn't do it.

Re:Nothing to see here

[dpilot]

I call this "The Star Trek Problem" because the public just has no respect for how difficult achieving orbit is, nor any understanding how reaching orbital altitude is practically nothing compared to reaching orbit. Our science fiction generally makes reaching orbit easy, and the hard part appears to be everything after you're in orbit, when in reality it's pretty much the opposite.

Re:Nothing to see here

[GodfatherofSoul]

I'm sure you Libertarians are soiling your pants, but this entire project is not much more than the US government was doing 60 years ago. Hey, maybe in another 60 years private industry will bring us a "reusable space truck."

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Scaled Composites is carefully putting together that vehicle with the high ISP engine, the thermal protection system, and all those other challenges. It just hasn't starting designing it yet.

Oh! Whew! For a minute there, I thought we were going to be talking about the remotely near future and cheering companies on for what they're *actually doing*. ;)

You need testing experience and infrastructure (note, for example, that SpaceShipTwo has its own flight simulator already)

Ooh, a flight simulator! Those are so hard to come by these days, after all. Don't tell me that they also have a 3d model! Perhaps they're being daring and actually doing CFD simulations. Oh, when will this mystical technology end?

What you are seeing is IMHO how a master would approach this problem.

Zen Student: Master, I must leave Osaka and journey to Tokyo. Which direction should I travel?

Zen Master: A tenth of the distance in the opposite direction.

And the student was enlightened.

You build up to it with progressively more sophisticated launch vehicles and extensive testing at each step.

"Progressively" implies continuity. There is no "progressive" approach to orbit from their current design.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

But spaceX is doing the same thing NASA, Russia, the EU have done. sit on a giant explosion and ride it up into space. SS2 and white knight are working on flying up there. with any luck SpaceShip 10 will be SSTO which makes it 10 times better than anyone else.

Better yet, while we're ignoring physics, let's ride a magical unicorn up to the ISS and let it graze on stardust and moonbeams.

Re:Nothing to see here

[EasyTarget]

Perhaps before you argue that something you don't know much about is useful, perhaps you should familiarize yourself with even the most basic rocketry terms like ISP.

I said almost exactly the same thing to my mum when she wanted to get on 'this internet thing'..

She called me a twat. And she was right.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Right. So, let's cheer for a company to earn enough money so it can start from scratch at doing something relevant rather than for those who are already doing relevant things, eh?

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Remember the Mercury and Gemini programs? You know, the ones we used to help us learn what it would take to get men to the moon and back, safely? They're taking STEPS, and you're complaining because they aren't jumping right to a space shuttle clone.

Right. Because Mercury and Gemini were simply copying what people did half a century earlier except getting worse performance despite greatly improved technology at their disposal, in a method that's completely unscaleable to orbit.

Right?

SeaLaunch, Orbital Sciences, and SpaceX require extensive launch infrastructure. Tell one of them "There's a runway, let's see you launch in a week", and they couldn't do it.

Right. Because they're actually going to orbit. Why, exactly, aren't you understanding the order of magnitude greater difficulty in getting to orbit than a suborbital joyride? SS1 went 850m/s. Orbital velocity is 7,800m/s. Kinetic energy is proportional to the velocity squared. Amount of fuel/oxidizer needed to reach a given velocity is exponential, with the exponent based on your ISP -- and SS1/2 inherently have very low ISPs, which can't scale up because of the fuel/oxidizer choice (and changing would require completely reengineering the engines and tankage -- i.e., almost the entire craft).

Are you starting to grasp the scale of how completely unlike actual orbital rocketry what they're doing is?

Re:Nothing to see here

[MrCopilot]

If you disagree with this statement, go ahead -- explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art.

So a private citizen designs, builds and tests his own SPACECRAFT, and all you have to say is it isn't technologically advanced enough for you. I suppose the one in your garage is ultra L33T, right.

Made by private citizens to be used by private citizens, I don't remember there even being a state of the art to be advanced. So using that metric I'd say he advanced it to START.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Please learn Rocketry 101 before you post again.

Re:Nothing to see here

[IdeaMan]

And unlike the current SS, the Space Trucks price will go down every launch.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

Before we go on, read this post. It's tangential to the topics here, but it is by far the best reply to your posts and discusses why SpaceShipTwo is important and does extend the state of the art.

Successful joyrides mean more money thrown at joyrides. Soyuz (and later Dragon) are a test of orbital space tourism.

Let us not forget that the point of SpaceShipTwo is ultimately to put people in orbit. That's not "joyrides".

SpaceShipTwo is state of the art in rocketplanes that go ~850 m/s instead of the 7,800 m/s needed for orbital rocketry (and remember, it's an exponential challenge to get more velocity, not a linear one).

SpaceShipOne, the predecessor to SpaceShipTwo delivered around 2250 m/s of delta v out of roughly 9500 m/s needed to get to LEO (including gravity losses). In a nasaspaceflight.com thread, I calculate the actual delta v of SpaceShipOne. Another poster corrects me with the 9500 m/s needed to get to LEO. Here's what I posted:

Ok, this is off topic, but I'll make an attempt to figure out the various components of delta v here for the SpaceShipOne launch. SpaceShipOne started at about 15 km up and peaked out around 100 km (to barely get into space). In the absence of atmosphere, that's a delta v of roughly 1300 m/s to get that high. Googling around, it appears that the engine fired for 65 seconds straight up. That means that in addition to providing velocity, it had to partially resist gravity for 65 seconds (subtract 640 m/s from the vertical component of velocity). At the top of the peak it had a horizontal velocity of roughly 1200 m/s (mach 3.5).

So in summary 1200 m/s horizontal velocity and roughly 1900 m/s verticle velocity make up the delta v. That's roughly 2250 m/s overall. Some air resistance had to be overcome, but it's probably pretty low (starting at high altitude). Probably less than 50 m/s at a wild guess. Initial velocity was probably much less than 340 m/s (mach 1), but we still get minimum delta v of 1900 m/s from the motor. In comparison, barely attaining a useful orbit is around 9500 m/s plus say 1500 m/s for gravity and air resistance losses. So just launching the motor from the ground would by my calculation at least 17% of the delta v. Air launch brings that to just over 20% of the necessary delta v to get in a good orbit.

As I mentioned before, I was in error about how much delta v it takes, including gravity losses, to get in orbit, 9500 m/s instead of 11km/s. So about a quarter of the necessary delta v was provided by the motor and a further 300 or so m/s by the plane. Given that SpaceShipTwo goes a bit higher and has more downrange than SpaceShipOne, it probably has a little more delta v. So you're too low by at least a factor of 2 in your delta v estimate. And there's still higher ISP fuels. For example, they can use liquid oxygen in their hybrid to boost ISP. And higher mass ratios will obviously be needed. But I see no reason orbital delta v can't be reached. I'll just mention that since the vehicle will likely be less dense than the Shuttle, its TPS needs will be significantly easier to achieve. Maybe this "feathering" can work for reentry from orbit (at least once you get to dense enough atmosphere.

NASA considers SpaceX's last launch a success, as does SpaceX, and as do most observers. All of their systems were flight qualified, which was the purpose of the launch. The only problem they had was a slightly early cutoff in the engine due to sloshing, which is a pretty trivial problem to solve (all you need is a baffle in the tank). Q1 will see a Falcon 1 with a higher performance, regeneratively cooled Merlin launch its first payload, and the first Falcon 9 will be in June. In general, SpaceX's stat

Re:Nothing to see here

[damburger]

Agreed - it doesn't add anything except a toy for people with more money than sense.

Worse, it's hype causes more important projects to be overlooked. There is almost a media conspiracy to make the phrase 'private spaceflight' mean 'corporate spaceflight'. In my opinion, the following two projects were of far more importance to mankind and to private spaceflight than SpacShipOne:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos_1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Space_eXploration_Team

Yet they have been largely ignored in favour of flashy expensive vehicles.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

You want private rocketry companies that are getting craft to orbit. There you go.

Re:Nothing to see here

[DerekLyons]

If you want small companies doing meaningful rocketry, check out SpaceX. Their Falcon 9, a rocket whose heavy version will carry as much payload as NASA's beleagured (and possibly dead in the water) Ares, including its own spacecraft that can dock with the ISS, will be launching this June.

I wouldn't bet large sums of money on it. SpaceX doesn't have a good track record of meeting it's goals - and they haven't been able to get the much simpler Falcon I flying regularly and reliably.

Re:Nothing to see here

[hondo77]

Yes...except you need to subsitute "in addition to" for "rather than for".

Re:Nothing to see here

[Plekto]

Exactly right. The advantage of the SS1 was that it was the very first craft in human history to get into orbit and come back while being fully self-contained. No booster rockets the size of an apartment building. No heat shielding to fail. Cheap, reusable, and NOT under 4500 layers of Government security clearances and red tape.

If they can even get 100Kg up into orbit for under a hundred thousand dollars per launch, it's an astounding level of economy that we've never seen before. SS2 looks to be leading to a SS3 which would possibly be able to do 1000kg loads for about the same cost. $100 per Kg into orbit is a huge difference.

And one that we NEED if we are to get into space and do things like make a base on the moon, because it's not the big things that make it difficult. It's things like food and water and spare parts.

P.S. Suddenly being able to build a satellite based upon normal hardware and not having to shave every gram makes it an entirely new ball game. Most satellites if they were made from off the shelf components would weight 4-5 times as much but cost literally tens of thousands of dollars to make. And that's just one area where low cost per pound makes all the difference.

Re:Nothing to see here

[bionicpill]

Here's how (in theory):

The project begins to make it possible to send wealthy people to the edge of space instead of another vacation to Hawai`i. The project becomes profitable and the lessons learned likely make it possible for less and less wealthy people to venture to the edge of space. Other people notice that there is money to be made in space tourism and start their own companies doing the same thing. Competition ensues and the wonderful powers of market forces kick in and innovation starts to spread like wildfire.

I agree that SpaceX is a currently a much more innovative push to get into space. But it's that way because it's found a way to make money doing so. Once space becomes a money making enterprise and no longer just a interesting place for egg-heads, then you'll see much greater advances in technology.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

a Buick is not amazing, but it's reliability is compared to a Formula 1.

Enough with the bad analogies. What you're not grasping is that you *can't* get to orbit with anything even *like* SS1/2. I don't have time to teach the fundamentals of rocketry to each and every one of you, but please, please take some time and start reading. Learn about specific impulse. Learn about payload fractions. Study some existing vehicle launch families to get an idea of how craft need to scale as they increase in delta-V. *Then* come back here and discuss.

If you really want your analogy corrected, if a Formula 1 car could go around a lap X times, for a Buick to go around the lap X times, it would have to be the size of the Space Shuttle's crawler to have enough fuel to do so.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Nyeerrmm]

For a little more detail, the first failure was a loose bolt that caused an explosion ~25 seconds into the flight, and they corrected this by implementing better checks during the launch including a 'hold-down' sequence at which if anything is slightly off-nominal the entire procedure is aborted. This happened at the second launch, although they were able to refuel and launch again in just over an hour, which is quite impressive anyway.

For the second failure when the engine and telemetry cut off as it was making the orbital insertion burn, an oscillation (slosh) developed in the upper stage fuel tank that became too large for the control system to handle. This was corrected by two methods, either of which would probably have been enough to solve the problem. First they modified to control laws so that it would be better able to handle the oscillation. Second they added baffles to the tanks (unfortunately increasing cost) in order to insure that a slosh couldn't develop in the first place.

So yes, while they've had two failures, the causes of those failures were identified and corrected, and DARPA is perfectly satisfied with this effort. Of course, the real test will be sometime in the next few months (two launches of F1 in Q1 2008 according to the website), but it seems there's good reason to be optimistic.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Sure, so long as the production model is completely unrelated to SS1/SS2..

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, because maybe there isn't One True Path? Because what Scaled and VG learn in high-tempo (comparatively) operations from SS2 will be useful? Most importantly, because of the Catch-22 of truly low-cost spaceflight, namely that high launch rates are the key to low launch prices, which can only come about if there are enough customers willing to pay for many many flights in a year. If sub-orbital tourism turns out to be a success, the incentive for high-launch-rate systems will be that much greater. At that point, VG may not be able to capitalize on that as quickly as Space-X or Orbital. That's the risk they take in approaching the sector from this direction.

In any case, I don't give a shit about who you choose to 'focus' on, which appears to be your primary whine on this thread.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

The advantage of the SS1 was that it was the very first craft in human history to get into orbit and come back while being fully self-contained

It didn't get to orbit. It didn't even come remotely close to orbit. And it's design cannot be scaled to come close to orbit.

. No booster rockets the size of an apartment building. No heat shielding to fail

That's because it needed those things about as much as your car does, because it doesn't come even close to getting in orbit

Re:Nothing to see here

[ArsonSmith]

Can't we do both?

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

"Progressively" implies continuity. There is no "progressive" approach to orbit from their current design.

This is the source of your error. Repeatedly, you make two observations. Namely that you need more delta v and that you need considerable TPS for reentry. These are known problems with various solutions. I don't see the vehicle requiring a major redesign, after all delta v is fixable by better ISP engines and a larger mass ratio. Maybe the resulting vehicle will be too heavy for a plane to carry it economically, but I doubt they'd have gone this far without figuring that out. And TPS systems are pretty well developed. It doesn't appear to me that it'll be as dense as the Space Shuttle, so they can use a cheaper and less fragile TPS system. But if the vehicle needs a redesign, Scaled Composites has the team to do that with a record of two tested vehicles. In any case, these are just engineering requirements for the vehicle. As I mentioned before, Scaled Composites has put together what it needs to solve that problem, assuming after their experiences with SpaceShipTwo, they decide to forge on.

To summarize, SpaceShipTwo may answer an important question about SpaceShipThree. Can one make money from this model of space tourism? That is far more important and difficult than how they'll come up with the delta v for orbit and the TPS for reentry.

Re:Nothing to see here

[rAiNsT0rm]

Yeah, I mean NASA is flush with knowledge and in no need of competition or innovation... How many shuttles have been in danger due to chunks of heat foam breaking off and damaging the ship again? Yeah, there is no room for improvement at all or even another set of eyes and minds.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Plekto]

According to all the major sources out there, they made it into space, though obviously at the very very bottom edge of it. It's not hard to imagine applications for this, either - possibly using the craft as a reusable booster stage for a smaller rocket strapped to its underside. The fuel requirements to lift 100kg from the lower edge of space to orbit are much less, obviously.

It's amazing in any case, and to be honest, I'll leave the determination as to whether it can be scaled up or not to the real scientists. People said we couldn't fly, couldn't exceed Mach 1, couldn't... I'm sure a way will be found to get the payloads and materials into space for less money by them if there's any way to make it happen.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Charcharodon]

ummm... SpaceX has barely gotten off the pad much less into space. I don't see why you have such a hard on for them. So far all they've got are spred sheets with projections. Until they light the fire and send some metal into space all they are is talk.

To say Scaled Composites is not "contributing" is incorrect. Who do you think came up with and has built and flown a throttleable solid rocket engine? (I'll give you a hint, It wasn't SpaceX.) They've also come up with some interesting canopy (window) designs that are fairly novel and structurally as well as visually better than what is commonly used today.

There is also the little detail that you seem to be missing, Scaled Composites isn't interested in the Space Joyride Industry, that would be Virgin Atlantic. They are interested in building inovative aircraft which they do with startling regularity. I doubt a very small contract supplying some souped up versions of their prototype aircraft is going to distract them much.

Oh also there is the little thing I bet you didn't know. Scaled Composites helps build the Pegasus air launched vehicle which regularly puts 1/2 ton satalites into low orbit, yes that's orbit with a capital "O" and have been part of building two more proof of concept lifters that have flown, along with a dozen new unique aircraft, several of which hold world records.

So yes we should be focusing of companies starting from "scatch" as you put it instead of companies that still think EXTREME/X marketing is worth a turd and a few simulated launch videos and a few ground test as achievements.

Re:Nothing to see here

[zippthorne]

Isp is specific impulse. It's a rough measure of how effective a fuel/propulsion system is, and is very useful in determining delta-v budget.

TPS is probably "thermal protection system," but it could also be the reports that need to be filed with the new cover, did you get the memo?

Although it is generally considered unprofessional to include acronyms without definition, in this case, the author was clearly intending to convey that he's so familiar with those terms that he considers them such basic knowledge that he doesn't even think about them any more, and the full terms are just too finger-expensive to type out. In other words, he read them in a magazine once and wants you to think he's some kind of space scientist.

Re:Nothing to see here

[hador_nyc]

Virgin is focusing on a specific limited mission that no one has done in a way as to open it for a large number of people. If Virgin can make money giving people these cannonball shots, then others, if not Virgin itself, will spend the money to research and develop a craft that can do orbital or even lunar missions. There doesn't need to be a linear progression from SS2 to an orbit capable craft. My analogy was fine because I don't think the Buick should be on the racetrack. They are vehicles designed for different tasks; tuned to their specific environments; just as orbital and sub-orbital missions are different. Again, all Virgin needs to do is to make money doing this. Then people will believe that a NGO can do this, and NGO orbital fights will come with a craft properly tuned and designed for that more difficult challenge. When that happens, you will see the new technology.

As to my understanding of rocket science, well, for starters, maybe you should learn manners before you return to the discussion. You're not going to convince people to agree with your opinion if you insult them first. You only come across as an idiot when you do it; regardless of how smart you may be. You also might try opening your mind to ideas that don't fit with your own narrow view of the world.

Re:Nothing to see here

[SquirrelsUnite]

If you disagree with this statement, go ahead -- explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art.

Maybe it doesn't. But the money people pay to fly on it will.

Re:Nothing to see here

[The One and Only]

SS1, SS2, etc. don't go into orbit. They only make suborbital flights. They don't reach the altitudes necessary to maintain an orbit. So that's really a different issue from what I was talking about.

Re:Nothing to see here

[STrinity]

I don't want cutting edge space technology. I want reliable space technology that won't fail catastrophically 2% of the time.

Re:Nothing to see here

[The One and Only]

SS2, as I understand, is the production model, and as far as we can tell it's well suited to its mission of suborbital passenger joyrides. I answered your basic concerns (which you began this thread with) in another comment, but I'll summarize them again here: while the Scaled Composites spacecraft do absolutely nothing to help the supply-side of the private spaceflight market, they nonetheless establish a hell of a lot on the demand side. In economic (but not technical) terms, that will help the development of orbital technologies you're concerned with.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

OTOH, are you one of those people who exaggerate the difficulty of achieving orbit and dissipating energy from reentry? I've had my fill of that in this thread. Sure getting in orbit and leaving orbit are hard problems. I imagine that's why Scaled Composites put those off. After all, the real question is "Can you make money off of this?" If the answer is a strong "yes", then the solution to these difficult problems will be well funded by revenue from SpaceShipTwo. If the answer is "no", then no need to try. The point here is that these guys aren't stupid. They know what the hard engineering problems are. They also know that they don't need to solve all of those problems right away. What I keep pointing out is that they aren't going to bother solving these problems until they have a solid, proven business model behind them. In the meantime, they're building up the experience they need to go orbital. As I see it, Scaled Composites will be ready for Branson or someone else to call up and buy a bunch of SpaceShipThrees. As I see it, this is going to be a textbook example of how to get started in the space launch business. Even if they fail.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Plekto]

***This was a very good point, IMO***
**quote**
As I mentioned before, I was in error about how much delta v it takes, including gravity losses, to get in orbit, 9500 m/s instead of 11km/s. So about a quarter of the necessary delta v was provided by the motor and a further 300 or so m/s by the plane. Given that SpaceShipTwo goes a bit higher and has more downrange than SpaceShipOne, it probably has a little more delta v. So you're too low by at least a factor of 2 in your delta v estimate. And there's still higher ISP fuels. For example, they can use liquid oxygen in their hybrid to boost ISP. And higher mass ratios will obviously be needed. But I see no reason orbital delta v can't be reached.
****
Twice the thrust is probably attainable with more engines(check) and a little more fuel that has a higher energy output(I hate acronyms - a pet peeve of mine). The ship itself that launches them can also without a doubt be made to go faster, especially not IF, but WHEN we get scramjets and similar technologies working. 4000m/sec from the module and 1-2000m/sec from the booster/plane/etc is suddenly not so far off the mark.

IME, when you start talking about engineering problems and the difference between making it happen and the prototypes is a matter of 2-3x the test results, it's a matter of figuring it out more than being in the realm of "not possible". I don't think Scaled Composites second design can get into orbit, but it's a good step in the right direction, make no mistake about it.

I have to give them props for trying at least. Their goal is to get into space and not just give joy-rides, after all.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Shotgun]

explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art.

1)Because they can turn it around and send it back up in days vs. months.

2)The SS1 program....the ENTIRE thing.....cost only $10 million. The cost was kept down by using off the shelf components where possible, instead of contracting everything out for a new design. The WK2/SS2 project should post similar numbers.

3)Rotary engines have been running commercially since the 60's. Those production rotaries started being used in homebuilt aircraft about 20years ago. The first Dyke Delta was built in 1962. The first Dyke Delta flew with a rotary about 5 years ago. Should I just give up on experimenting with what I feel will provide significant improvements power output and drag reduction, because 'it's already been done', even though it has never been done in this way?

You're idea of what constitutes a 'contribution' is extremely myopic, exacerbated by tunnel vision. There is advancing state of the art and there is applying the state of the art to useful ventures. 'Useful' being individually determined in a free society. Both are necessary for advancement, and both answer questions that the other can't. ISP and delta-V is NOT the only problem that needs to be conquered to make space flight possible, affordable, or useful to the general population. Thinking that it is will insure that we will only approach space from one angle, and guarantee that all the other issues are ignored. In other words, guarantee that humanity will eventually die out on this rock.

Re:Nothing to see here

[XNormal]

> If you disagree with this statement, go ahead -- explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art.

Other than contributions like feathered reentry I agree that it does very little to advance the state of the art.

But that is precisely the point. The state of the art does not need much advancing. Everything we really need know in order to get into space has been known for a couple of decades and has advanced very little even with much bigger budgets thrown at it by governments around the world. What we need to advance is the state of practice and Scaled/Virgin is doing exactly that.

Just one small example: an aircraft capable of carrying with proper ground clearance and safely dropping this size of load did not exist until now. It can be useful for many other applications like this one. Does this advance the state of the art? Of course not. We've known such an aircraft can be built for well over half a century. But having this kind of aircraft actually available shaves many millions and a lot of risk from the budget of projects that need it. We all know these projects are facing lots of risks and are always underbudgeted so every little bit of help they can get really counts.

So it has been funded by joyriders. Anything wrong with that? Would you rather fund such development with your tax dollars?

Re:Nothing to see here

[Plekto]

Other than contributions like feathered reentry I agree that it does very little to advance the state of the art. This of course is huge. The safety of not needing heat shielding alone is such a groundbreaking and novel development that NASA itself took notice. If we can eventually make even escape pods/re-entry vehicles that don't require head shielding, that alone would be worth the money Scaled Composites spent a hundred times over.

Plus, it all costs us none of our tax dollars. Imagine that. Their first entire PROGRAM that got them up to the edge of space cost about what TWO M1 tanks do. (insert picture of thousands of M1s in rows out in Texas for those who don't get it.) Virgin can't hardly sneeze without spending ten million by comparison.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Let us not forget that the point of SpaceShipTwo is ultimately to put people in orbit.

It is not. It's effectively SS1 with more payload.

SpaceShipOne, the predecessor to SpaceShipTwo delivered around 2250 m/s of delta v out of roughly 9500 m/s needed to get to LEO (including gravity losses). In a nasaspaceflight.com thread, I calculate the actual delta v of SpaceShipOne. ... At the top of the peak it had a horizontal velocity of roughly 1200 m/s (mach 3.5).

Whoa, where to start here. SS1 peaked at about 112 kilometers altitude, almost 0 m/s (*NOT* mach 3.5 horizontal; it's ascent was nearly vertical. You're confusing it's peak ascent speed). LEO can be roughly defined as 300km, 7800m/s. E(potential)=mgh, E(kinetic)=1/2mv^2

SS1: E(potential)=m*9.8*112000 ~= m*1,100,000; E(kinetic) = 1/2m*0^2 = 0; Total energy ~= m*1,000,000 J
LEO: E(potential)=m*9.8*300000 ~= m*2,950,000; E(kinetic) = 1/2m*7800^2 = m*30,000,000; Total energy ~= m*33,000,000 J

In other words, SS1 reached a state about 3% the energy of an equivalent mass in orbit.

Yes, SS1 suffered gravity losses. But Most observers consider SpaceX's launch a failure for one obvious reason. Because it failed to deliver the payload to orbit.

Anyone who would consider that is being unreasonable, since the mission was just a systems test, designed to to reach orbital velocity but an inclined trajectory, do one orbit around the Earth, then plunge down. It did a half orbit instead, and retired almost all of the rocket's risk (rather impressive for this early; most major rocket families have a lot more failures early on). As for "most observers", you've obviously not been to the same places I have. Or including NASA's opinion, for that matter.

Finally, the baffle should have been in the tank already

Many rockets don't use baffles in their upper stages. SpaceX used a baffle in their lower stage, but none in the upper stage because their simulations showed that it wasn't necessary. While it's still not entirely necessary (they fixed the kick problem that led to the oscillation in a way the simulation didn't expect), they're putting it in anyways.

This is one area that the development and testing cycle experience from SpaceShipOne and Two helps Scaled Composites.

As though they'll be "getting to orbit" on polybut and nitrous.

they probably would have caught the baffle problem

Once again, not every tank on every craft needs a baffle. You can't just stick safety features left and right on every component of an orbital rocket, or it'll never get off the ground. You only can afford to put in what's necessary. Or, in the case of SS1, you can do whatever the heck you like, since your performance envelope is so ridiculously lax.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Twice the thrust is probably attainable with more engines(check)

1) It's not "twice"; it's level of performance is a tenth that of what is needed for orbit.
2) Thrust is not the problem; it's ISP and staging.

and a little more fuel

Try a hundred times more fuel and a craft equivalently large enough to manage it. See OTRAG for details.

that has a higher energy output(I hate acronyms - a pet peeve of mine).

Nobody who discusses rocketry any relevant amount will spell out the words "specific impulse" every time. It's just "ISP". Insisting on spelling everything out marks you as a novice as much as I'd come across as an internet novice by constantly spelling out www as "world-wide web".

The ship itself that launches them can also without a doubt be made to go faster, especially not IF, but WHEN we get scramjets and similar technologies working.

Lol. Just, lol.

4000m/sec from the module and 1-2000m/sec from the booster/plane/etc is suddenly not so far off the mark.

What is off the mark is that Scaled is going to go from polybut and nitrous to an as-of-yet in-development technology that requires carbon-carbon panels and an extensive regenerative cooling system with typically hydrogen fuel, without completely starting from scratch to boot.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

I don't see the vehicle requiring a major redesign, after all delta v is fixable by better ISP engines and a larger mass ratio.

With an ISP this low, you need an OTRAG approach to get to orbit. Which is essentially impossible with a carrier-launched aircraft. Also, composites don't lend themselves to an OTRAG approach.

As to taking a higher ISP approach, that means turbopumps and completely different propellants, which means completely different engines and completely different tankage, which means a completely different craft.



And still always problematic. Ablative or tile, they're brittle, high maintenance, expensive systems.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

According to all the major sources out there, they made it into space, though obviously at the very very bottom edge of it.

Let's say it all together now: Space != Orbit. Space = Easy, Orbit = Crazy difficult

It's not hard to imagine applications for this, either

They're called "sounding rockets", and they're a lot cheaper than SS1.

possibly using the craft as a reusable booster stage for a smaller rocket strapped to its underside.

Yeay. You could go from 3% of the needed orbital energy to 6%, with a far smaller payload. What an achievement.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

It is not. It's effectively SS1 with more payload.

The point of SS1 also was ultimately to put people in orbit.

In other words, SS1 reached a state about 3% the energy of an equivalent mass in orbit.

Delta v is the correct way to analyze getting to orbit. You're wasting your time when you talk about energy here.

Yes, SS1 suffered gravity losses. But Most observers consider SpaceX's launch a failure for one obvious reason. Because it failed to deliver the payload to orbit. Anyone who would consider that is being unreasonable, since the mission was just a systems test, designed to to reach orbital velocity but an inclined trajectory, do one orbit around the Earth, then plunge down. It did a half orbit instead, and retired almost all of the rocket's risk (rather impressive for this early; most major rocket families have a lot more failures early on). As for "most observers", you've obviously not been to the same places I have. Or including NASA's opinion, for that matter.

I've been on the nasaspaceflight forums and several online blogs about this. Given that that includes a cross-section of industry experts, internet blowhards, alt.space people, and normal human beings, I figure it's a fair thing to say that most people view the launch as a failure. Delivering the payload to the desired orbit or trajectory also happens to be a consistent standard for determining success or failure of a launch.

This is one area that the development and testing cycle experience from SpaceShipOne and Two helps Scaled Composites. As though they'll be "getting to orbit" on polybut and nitrous.

Well, I doubt they'll "get to orbit" with compressed air or the telekinetic power of a million chinese either. So yes, they'll use a propellant choice with higher ISP and they'll have a greater mass ratio. Delta v problem solved.

they probably would have caught the baffle problem Once again, not every tank on every craft needs a baffle. You can't just stick safety features left and right on every component of an orbital rocket, or it'll never get off the ground. You only can afford to put in what's necessary. Or, in the case of SS1, you can do whatever the heck you like, since your performance envelope is so ridiculously lax.

As it turns out, the Falcon 1 needs an upper stage baffle. And as you keep ignoring, that lax performance envelope is a feature of SS1. They solved other things that the two problems you keep noting.

Re:Nothing to see here

[elyons]

I wouldn't go up in a Buickesque econobox. Maybe a toyota Corrola though. . .

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

As to my understanding of rocket science, well, for starters, maybe you should learn manners before you return to the discussion.

Maybe people who don't know what they're talking about shouldn't be involved in discussions about rocketry in the first place. If I walked into a hospital and started insisting that a certain medical procedure was necessary for a certain patient when I didn't know what I was talking about, I'd be rightfully kicked out.

Re:Nothing to see here

[jollyreaper]

Oooh, yeay. Another joyride that contributes absolutely nothing to space exploration.

If you disagree with this statement, go ahead -- explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art. The difference between something like this and Apollo is SpaceshipTwo's going to pay it's own freight. When you're talking about a government-sponsored science project, you can accept the idea of payoffs not reaped by the agency but shared by the public and all of the other highfalutin' ideals that people like me believe in but organizations like NASA right now are not delivering on. From my point of view, one of government's mandates is to do the necessary things that are beyond the scope of or simply impractical for businesses to attempt. Often times government can pay for the basic research no company would dream of touching on their own, providing a public sector demand for the idea until private sector revenue is great enough to allow the business to remain profitable. R&D would then continue as a cost of doing business. You never would have seen private launch vehicles and private satellites in this country if it weren't for federal funding of the space program.

Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites are going the business route where their research and development will be paid for at each step by marketable ideas. SpaceShip One got the public interest, SpaceshipTwo will carry the paying passengers, SpaceshipThree will do something else. It's harder to do it without federal funding but there's less red tape and greater flexibility. You're not going to see manufacture of the components for SpaceShip Two farmed out to all fifty states just because some cocksucker senators want to take some of the action home to their districts. You're not as likely to see the utter insanity of trying to satisfy contradictory mission requirements within the same vehicle, ending up with a compromised committee-designed piece of hardware that flies on wishes and fairy dust. Note that I say less likely, not impossible. For every 747 where the private design process went remarkably well, you also have something like that latest Airbus monstrosity. I saw a show talking about the design and construction of that basard, nominally private enterprise but with all of the headaches of a government project like the space shuttle, engineering playing second fiddle to politics.

Anyway, back to the original point. Virgin Galactic is going to turn a profit, something that cannot be said for ANY of our previous manned systems. That's a total game-changer. Anything else that comes from this can only be good for space development.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Retric]

If you want to get someone 50 feet into the air you can fire them out of a cannon or send them up in an aircraft. The problem with using a cannon is people fall back down within seconds. The is about the same gap between reaching space for a few minuets and falling down vs. reaching orbit and staying up for months.

This gap is huge as reaching space takes 1/10th the energy of reaching orbit and you need to fit all that extra fuel onto your space ship and enough fuel to lift that fuel etc. You also need to slow you ship from orbit which puts 10x the thermal load on you ship etc.

Basically space ship two is about as close to reaching orbit is my Acura is from breaking Mack 2. Now it's not bad as a 100,000$ rollercoaster but idea it's vaguely related to an orbital craft is silly.

PS: Your 100kg rocket would need save around 15% of it's fuel to orbit by launching from space ship one vs the ground. Yea they really are that far from orbit.

Re:Nothing to see here

[dpilot]

No, I don't exaggerate. It's just difficult, but it has been done. What I see as the real problem is that so far reaching orbit is so expensive that there is little true experimentation. As a result we keep repeating tried-and-true, which is a good recipe for heaving satellites up there, but isn't going to produce a breakthrough.

I'd like to see some sort of super tax incentive for work done on-orbit or beyond. There is essentially no manufacturing done out there today, though there have been experiments. So at the moment, as far as I can see, the only tax revenue from on-orbit or beyond activity is in the communications and remote sensing arenas. I would propose that new activities done on-orbit or beyond be free from taxation for some period. I'd restrict it in that you can't take something that is done well on Earth, simply move it up, and escape taxes. There needs to be some benefit, be it micro-gravity, vacuum, abundant solar energy, or even just getting something environmentally offensive off of the Earth. Meet acceptable criteria and no value-add, inventory, sales, etc tax on that portion of the final product.

My other pet thought is baloon reentry. Not a simple baloon, obviously something very durable, properly shaped, and probably a very shallow reentry. But such a high surface area to mass ratio that it does more slowing down higher in the atmosphere. In addition gas convection inside the baloon would carry heat away from the bottom to the top. Not very far developed, but I think there's a reentry profile that would make it work, safely and well.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Tyberius]

Dozens of people on this board keep telling you that you are missing the point and the only thing you can respond with is for them to learn rocketry. "They don't know ISP." "They don't know TPS." We get it, you are a rocket scientist. Still, you are missing the point. The respondents do not want your rocket. The respondents want a space plane.

Re:Nothing to see here

[mweather]

When they put a human inside, I'll be impressed.

Re:Nothing to see here

[icebrain]

If all you're considering is performance, then no, SS2 doesn't improve things. But I think the real benefit of Scaled's approach (fairly simple, reuseable sub-orbital craft) is on the operational side. On one hand, if you're building full-blown rockets and flying into orbit, you might be pushing the technology envelope, but spending a lot of money on each launch (which means a couple launches/year at most), and because the conditions of your flight are fairly demanding, you stand a good chance at losing the vehicle. On the other hand, suborbital flight is less risky, but not as demanding, and you won't be making giant technological leaps.

On the gripping hand, going suborbital lets you do a lot of flying. It's a more demanding environment than even standard high-altitude flight (U-2 etc), but because the risks and costs are lower, you can learn how to operate space-qualified vehicles on an everyday basis. Getting to the point of airline-like reliability will come a lot faster, and then you can take the engineering and operational lessons learned and apply them to something that goes higher and faster.

In my experience, it's always been easier to get the simple thing working reliably and then build off of it, as opposed to designing something really complex, then trying to make it work at all.

Re:Nothing to see here

[raduf]

If you're still here after fighting every other post for a few hours :) I do see two positive side effects from this. One is the obvious publicity, which is pretty good.
Second this may give birth to a whole range of suborbital planes, which right now just don't exist. After all, their company isn't some rocket experts making the next generation space shuttle, but some plane experts making some pretty cool planes. And they're good at it, once you get over people expecting them to reach the moon next year.

Re:Nothing to see here

[XenoRyet]

If you disagree with this statement, go ahead -- explain why you feel that a vehicle with this low delta-V, horrible ISP, and proportionally high mass that faces bare minimal reentry heating -- advances the state of the art.

Two words: Public Interest

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

1) I thought it was pretty obvious I was referring to the Ares I, since I was discussing docking Orion vs. Dragon.
2) All but for a baffle. Do you really think that's going to be an issue? In terms of testing success/failure compared to number of launches in a new rocket family, I'd say SpaceX is currently running above average.
3a) Yes, it'll be at least a year. But Orion's not scheduled to fly until 2014 or 2015.
3b) Yes, it's not in competition with NASA. But it's fair to say that it's in competition with Orion. Do you honestly think that with Dragons having spent four to five years docking with ISS that there will be any need for Orion?
4) Plenty of doomed projects keep going on momentum -- especially when congressionally mandated.

Re:Nothing to see here

[lgw]

Right, SS1/2 aren't even close. That's not why they are interesting. You don't expect a Buick to win a Formula-1 race, or even be competitive.

Further, the team isn't even *trying* to advance the state of the art in any fundamental science.

But that's why it's interesting. This is a low-tech engineering approach, with as close to commodity parts as they can manage. They're still a long long way from anyhting useful, but if they ever do get there they will have knocked a couple of 0s off the price, and significantly reduced the engineering complexity.

Naturally that provokes hostility from real rocket scientists - hey, the next thing you know, rocket science will be simple enough to outsource to India. ;) Of course, the reality is likely that the materials science is not be there yet, and one just can't build a useful rocket using low-tech parts yet, but I glad to see someone at least trying.

And the Penske team did famously win an Indy-car race with a very low-tech Buick-like engine once (pushrods for the win!), but that's a different story.

Re:Nothing to see here

[bkr1_2k]

You may know something about rockets as some of your posts imply, but you really have no idea how to make a profitable company. You simply don't put all your money into cutting edge research unless you're willing to lose it all. Companies that are privately funded generally don't get repeat funding if they lose all the money that was invested initially.

If these cutting edge companies that you mention, SpaceX, SeaLaunch, etc, don't produce anything, where will your space travel be then? The same place it is today; nowhere. If, however, an incremental design succeeds, whether the initial designs advance cutting edge technology or not, the whole industry gets advanced. Then there will be more money spent on cutting edge R&D, more venture capital dumped into the industry to fund companies like you want. More jobs, cheaper costs, better success rates, everyone wins.

Re:Nothing to see here

[lgw]

They aren't competing with you for my tax dollars - it's their money, let them have their fun.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you're posting all over this fuckin' article. You really need to calm the fuck down. It's not like they are spending YOUR money to do it, so why are you all pissed off? They see a market for it, so they are taking the risks of filling that market. If they fail, it's no skin off of your back. So how about this: STFU and don't worry about it. Maybe it doesn't contribute anything to space exploration, but maybe that's not what they are shooting for. You can't call it meaningless. You can rattle off those physics equations pretty easily, but your stupidity and ignorance outshine you.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

You simply don't put all your money into cutting edge research unless you're willing to lose it all.

You simply don't put all your money into something that you know will go nowhere unless you find "nowhere" (joyrides) to be a desirable destination. If your goal is orbital rocketry, then start on the *right* path, not the wrong one.

SeaLaunch and Orbital already *have* made successful rockets, and regularly launch them for profit. They based theirs on existing rockets, mind you, but the point is still the same. SpaceX is essentially proven; were it not for a lack of an upper stage baffle, the last launch would have been picture perfect.

Re:Nothing to see here

[lgw]

To restate the GPPs point:

SS2 is as different from a useful rocket as a PowerPoint presentation is from a working program. But the PowerPoint presentation, shown to the right analysists, is often enough to learn whether there's any sort of market for your product.

I dont believe that government funded space programs are going to do anything cool (again) in my lifetime. Private space programs might. The fundamental question there, of course, is how could manned space flight possibly pay for itself. *That's* the fascinating resaerch these guys are doing.

The other private groups are to focused on boring satellite launches to image that they'll ever do anything cool, so we look to Scaled Composites for a glimmer of hope.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

ummm... SpaceX has barely gotten off the pad much less into space.

~300km/~5000m/s is "barely off the pad"? In what universe? It'd have easily been 7,800 m/s if they just had an upper stage baffle.

Who do you think came up with and has built and flown a throttleable solid rocket engine? (I'll give you a hint, It wasn't SpaceX.)

I'll give you a hint: It wasn't Scaled. They flew a hybrid rocket. One that got them a mere 3% of the energy of an equivalent mass in orbit and cannot scale to orbit.

They've also come up with some interesting canopy (window) designs that are fairly novel and structurally as well as visually better than what is commonly used today.

Read: Pretty and unscalable. That won't work with a TPS.

Oh also there is the little thing I bet you didn't know. Scaled Composites helps build the Pegasus air launched vehicle which regularly puts 1/2 ton satalites into low orbit

Yes, they make its tail fins. Color me impressed.

and a few simulated launch videos and a few ground test as achievements.

Wow, you really know absolutely nothing about SpaceX, don't you?

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The problem is that the space industry is locked in a vicious cycle: launch rates are down due to high prices, but mass production and many competing design options can't exist with low launch rates. We need a breakthrough, which will take investment and incentives.

You also know your stuff with balloon reentry. Did you read about that or come up with it on your own? The Russians have been experimenting with it, as it lets you lose velocity in the extreme upper reaches of the atmosphere and gives you a huge surface area to radiate the heat (like you note). Hopefully this research goes somewhere. Another option I've read about is gas/plasma injection on the craft's skin to help restore laminar flow and thus reduce heat transfer to the craft. Of course, better spacecraft design alone would help; smaller, less dense spacecraft (i.e., opposite of the shuttle) is good, as is using a frame that can run hot (titanium alloys, for example).

Re:Nothing to see here

[lgw]

They carrier vehicle idae isn't a bad one though. A reusable carrier that just reached 100Km or so (but faster than SS1 when it got there) could be a great first stage, because it's at the limit of what you can do without needing heat shielding for reentry, could provide 1/4 of the delta-V to reach LEO (and therefore far more than 1/4 of the fuel), and could use air-breathing engines for most of the trip.

Trying to re-use the stage that re-enters was a bad mistake IMO, but people are so in love with SSTO and disposable capsules just aren't sexy. If we were doing anything real in space, however, we'd be thinking about how to get the *real* spacecraft (which would never re-enter) into orbit and a reusable carrier would be a great piece of that puzzle.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Delta v is the correct way to analyze getting to orbit. You're wasting your time when you talk about energy here.

It's all about getting gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy to your spacecraft. I'm not talking about the energy of the fuel. The delta-V for launch involves the gravitational potential energy, the kinetic energy, and the gravity losses. As noted, the first two are only 3% of that on an orbital craft. Gravity losses are a few hundred m/s. Summary: the performance of SS1 is pathetic.

I assume you're acknowledging your mistake in assuming that SS1 had relevant horizontal velocity at the top of its nearly vertical ballistic trajectory?

As it turns out, the Falcon 1 needs an upper stage baffle. And as you keep ignoring, that lax performance envelope is a feature of SS1. They solved other things that the two problems you keep noting.

It's not a feature of SS1; it's a feature of only being capable of suborbital joyrides.

So yes, they'll use a propellant choice with higher ISP and they'll have a greater mass ratio.

Sorry, doesn't work that way. You can't just swap out your fuel and oxidizer in a rocket and be done with it. It requires a complete redesign, engines to tankage (and becomes far more complicated). Meanwhile, the TPS require a complete redesign of the cockpit. Net result: complete redesign of the entire craft.

Re:Nothing to see here

[RexRhino]

No, we want private rocketry companies that put people in orbit cheaply.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Chris Burke]

Oooh, yeay. Another joyride that contributes absolutely nothing to space exploration.

By the same logic, commercial aquariums contribute nothing to oceanic exploration. Oh, wait, that's completely wrong. The commercial aspect funds the oceanic research which by itself produce significant returns. Could "joyrides" perhaps provide Scaled Composites with the financial ability to tackle bigger problems? Or would jumping straight to re-usable human-rated orbital vehicles be the wisest financial choice for a startup? Oh, sorry, financial solvency isn't 'advancing the state of the art'. I guess we'll wait for the Boeings of the world to do it then.

It really seems as though you're assuming that the only thing Scaled Composites is capable of is creating up-scaled versions of Spaceship One. I think you're selling Rutan and team incredibly short. Rutan has contributed a large number of advancements to the state of the art in atmospheric craft and now to sub-orbital space craft. This was how Spaceship One came to be in the first place. To assume that nothing further can come from him seems short sighted. Or is it just that he seems to want to get a paycheck for his work in the meantime? Well sorry, but Virgin footed the bill for SH1, and they want their SH2.

In another way, I do think SH1 has contributed something to the state of the art -- a craft that can perform re-entry from literally any orientation. That kind of built-in safety is exactly the kind of thing I like to see. Before you counter with the obvious, of course this won't literally work as-is in scaled-up fashion for a re-entry from LEO. Yet, just like Rutan applied principles he learned from aircraft to apply to sub-orbital spacecraft, if he can carry the principle into orbit and get a craft that has even an additional 5% margin of error on reentry would be a dramatic improvement.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Rei]

Goal: Demo launches to flight-prove Falcon 1 systems by Q1 2007 in preparation for upcoming commercial and military launches
Result: 90% of systems flight-proven by Q1 2007. Not only has its craft been seen as reliable enough by its partners to continue on with its military and commercial payloads, but helped earn them an huge contract with the USAF. All but one of the eight anomalies in the second flight were minor. The non-minor one, upper stage roll, has been dealt with in two different manners, each of which on its own would be sufficient to address it.

Goal: Meet all COTS milestones on schedule.
Result: So far, has met all COTS milestones on or ahead of schedule

Not bad for having to move aside whenever someone else wants their launch facilities. What goals are you thinking that they haven't met, exactly?

and they haven't been able to get the much simpler Falcon I flying regularly and reliably.

That's what the demo launches are for. Look at the track records of other new rocket families in their initial testing launches (*orbital* rockets -- the ones that actually have to deal with the challenges of orbital rocketry). 1 failure and one near success during testing is reasonably good. They're paralleling Ariane V's track record currently.

Re:Nothing to see here

[RexRhino]

Look, the U.S. government is still going to piss away 20 billion dollars a year on dead end space programs, so don't get your socialist pants all wet and stinky.

Some very rich people who can't compete properly in a free market still want to make tons and tons of money, and they will alway be very good at convincing saps like you that they are providing a "public good". And the politicians realize that things like a "space race" are good at keeping the saps distracted from domestic economic problems, foreign wars, etc., and that they get kickbacks from the corporate boys for the effort. Space programs make for good nationalistic propoganda theater. So don't cry too hard, the space program isn't going anywhere!

Libertarians can dream about a day when the average person can afford a cheap space flight... and Socialists can dream of the day when the government sends some military guy on a propoganda mission, proving national superiority, at the cost of trillions. The future has room for cool people and assholes!

Re:Nothing to see here

[rokkaku]

Right. Because Mercury and Gemini were simply copying what people did half a century earlier except getting worse performance despite greatly improved technology at their disposal, in a method that's completely unscaleable to orbit.

If SC isn't pushing the state of the art, then why did they manage to win the X Prize? If you could just take COTS equipment and make a pair of suborbital flight with three people for $10M (or, to be accurate, $20M), then why didn't Boeing or some other space contractor do it? If there is money to be made through cheap space tourism, why weren't these guys all over it years ago?

You seem disappointed that they aren't solving the problem you want them to (orbital flight), but that wasn't the problem they addressed. As it is, SS2 & WK2 look like some amazingly elegant engineering work. Why not celebrate that instead of complaining?

Re:Nothing to see here

[DerekLyons]

What goals are you thinking that they haven't met, exactly?

It doesn't matter how many systems you 'prove'- if you haven't met the operational spec. It doesn't matter how many demos you fly- if you haven't demonstrated you can meet your advertised performance.
 
Exactly how many payloads has Falcon I orbited?
 
And no, Falcon I isn't on schedule. It's years behind it's original advertised availability date.

Re:Nothing to see here

[geekoid]

Absolutely production improvements in low ISP vehicles can add to high ISV vehicles.

More efficient manufacturing, more efficient management, implementation of machine maintenance, testing. Improvement in any of those with either type of vehicles improves the other.

Re:Nothing to see here

[putaro]

So what if it can't get to orbit? Can you name another craft that will do a sub-orbital pop-up like it does with multiple passengers?

I think that the aerospace community has been way too fixated on making the perfect machine. It's just not possible in one go. Look at what happened to Venturestar. Instead of doing some intermediate, *flying* prototypes it was a big bang approach and they sunk how many billions into it? With *nothing* to show.

SS2 won't make it to orbit. And, many of the technologies in it aren't relevant to making it to orbit. However, Scaled Composites is gaining a lot of knowledge about how to build rocket propelled craft, about how to build ferry craft and do air launches. Burt Rutan is one hell of an aerospace designer. When he's ready to build an orbital craft I would bet money on him to make it happen.

Re:Nothing to see here

[The Breeze]

Amen.

Infrastructure and corporate organization comes first.

Here's a good analogy. It's the early days of aviation, and you want a plane that can cross the Atlantic in 8 hours. No plane can cross the Atlantic at all at that point in time. What do you do? If you are bound by economic reality, you realize that if you build a functioning route structure with existing tech, and build it with future development in mind, it will be less of a jump from that than simply magically building a plane.

Continental airlines started flying mail and one or two passengers. Using that, over a couple of decades they built a route structure and employee organization that could barely - just barely - support the purchase of four jets. It worked. Prior to that, everyone said "you can never, ever run jets at a profit unless you have a fleet of at least ten." Continental did it. They made it profitable. And it never would have happened if Bob Six, CEO of Continental, had just showed up with a pile of cash saying "I want to build jets."

All the scientific people who are posting stuff on here about why "Scaled Composites doesn't make sense" don't get it. They think that aircraft fly because of Bernoulii's principle, they think that physics and technology make rockets and aircraft fly.

In reality, aircraft and rockets and spacecraft fly on money. Or, as the movie "The Right Stuff" pointed out, "no bucks, no Buck Rogers!"

Scaled Composites thinks that if they build a gradual business that provides enough excitement and entertainment that people want more then they might be able to use that ground infrastructure to build something better. They think that the next logical step after that, perhaps, will be sub-orbital hops to Europe and Japan. And then, when some big business realises there's something that might be profitable to do in orbit, Scaled Composites will step forward and say "We can build something like that. When do you need it?"

And, big business will listen, and treat them seriously...because well, hell, that company has been in business for a while and they build spaceships, they have shipping product so to speak, we're just asking them to build a bigger one.

Money is all.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Anonymous Coward]

> You build up to it with progressively more sophisticated launch vehicles and extensive testing at each step.
> Unlike the other "alt.space" players like SpaceX, Blue Horizon, SpaceDev, etc, Scaled Composites probably
> turned a small profit with SpaceShipOne, its first space vehicle. And I bet it's turning a profit
> with SpaceShipTwo as well. If SpaceShipTwo doesn't get the hoped-for business, then Scaled Composites
> can walk away from it all. The thing that gets ignored is that Scaled Composites has economically one of
> the soundest projects in the space business.

Yes, I absolutely agree.

And think about what will happen if the first couple of flights are successful!

Virgin will be for a while the only provider of the most prestigious holiday experience money can buy.
And it is even cheap by comparison - a hundred thousand dollars will hardly buy you a low end
Winnebago Motorhome.

Hundreds of people spend an amount in this range for a try at climbing the Mount Everest each year - except that
this is much more cumbersome, dangerous and, above all, time consuming.

Even if Virgin's Space business is not profitable by itself, it is priceless as a marketing instrument.

Therefore, the only thing their competition can try to do to regain attention is to try to top them.

And the easiest way to top them - marketing wise easy, not engineering wise easy - is to go higher.

If SS2 launches every weekend some day, then I would expect orbital space tourism within ten years.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

As to taking a higher ISP approach, that means turbopumps and completely different propellants, which means completely different engines and completely different tankage, which means a completely different craft. I don't get your point. Sure you're right about the current propulsion system. It's not going to get them to orbit. But as I pointed out elsewhere, it does deliver a considerable portion of the delta v they need. If they need to make a new vehicle, they can do so. Frankly, I don't see the propulsion system causing a redesign of the vehicle from scratch. They already have room allocated for a propulsion system, and you can just plug something else with higher ISP in. The TPS may force a complete redesign, but we'll see how their design survives that problem.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

It's all about getting gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy to your spacecraft. I'm not talking about the energy of the fuel. The delta-V for launch involves the gravitational potential energy, the kinetic energy, and the gravity losses. As noted, the first two are only 3% of that on an orbital craft. Gravity losses are a few hundred m/s. Summary: the performance of SS1 is pathetic.

This matters for energy dissipation when reentering. But again, you are wrong when you speak of the difficulty of getting to orbit in terms of kinetic and potential energy. To give an exmaple, SpaceShipOne's stage provided 25% of the delta v required to get to orbit, but it only achieved around 3% of the kinetic energy to do so. So the question is whether it would take 4 stages or 30 stages to get to orbit? The answer is that it would take 4 stages. That's still collectively way too high a mass ratio for an air-launched vehicle, but it's far closer than you are implying.

assume you're acknowledging your mistake in assuming that SS1 had relevant horizontal velocity at the top of its nearly vertical ballistic trajectory?

Not a chance. That part of my calculation was correct. As it turns out, it didn't have a nearly vertical trajectory and there was no mechanism up there (like air resistance) to convert vertical motion to horizontal motion.

And as you keep ignoring, that lax performance envelope is a feature of SS1. They solved other things that the two problems you keep noting. It's not a feature of SS1; it's a feature of only being capable of suborbital joyrides.

And your point is? Remember the bottom line is that making a profit on suborbital joyrides is a huge step forward in space development. Going bankrupt while trying to make an orbital vehicle is not.

So yes, they'll use a propellant choice with higher ISP and they'll have a greater mass ratio. Sorry, doesn't work that way. You can't just swap out your fuel and oxidizer in a rocket and be done with it. It requires a complete redesign, engines to tankage (and becomes far more complicated). Meanwhile, the TPS require a complete redesign of the cockpit. Net result: complete redesign of the entire craft. Look. You don't just swap out engines and magically have everything work out. But the Scaled Composite designs do have some flexibility in the dimensions of the engines they accept. That is, the engine is a cylinder that plugs into the rear of the vehicle. And it can be somewhat longer and heavier before center of mass (and of pressure) is sufficiently messed up to make the plane risky to fly. There's nothing about liquid propellants or turbopumps that means that the engine no longer fits that slot. And obviously, the vehicle is going to need TPS, remove the belly windows, and maybe come up with some aerobraking mechanism other than "feathering". So a complete redesign may be necessary. But having said that, what's the big deal about a redesign? Part of the point of this whole exercise was to blood the design team on a real space vehicle. Scaled Composites appears ready to me to do such a redesign.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

Absolutely. I couldn't have said that better.

Re:Nothing to see here

[khallow]

Maybe the grandparent knows more, but I dimly recall that there's been some NASA experiments in inflatable lifting bodies (including some sort of supersonic deployment) at least since the 60's. That's sort of related to this. I don't know the outcome of the tests, but just that someone did something in this area.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Charcharodon]

Let's see Falcon 1's first flight lasted all of 29 seconds.

The Second test flight lasted 6 minutes and and technically reached space, but considering they lost the craft and the payload, I wouldn't exactly call that a success, maybe a productive failure.

How many people have SpaceX put into space again?

That's is my interest, putting things into orbit is not all that hard at government or megacorp levels. SpaceX looks to be just retracing the same path, minus all the management and government bagage normally is involved. If they can bring the price per kg down good for them, but I don't ever seen them offering a service to you, me, or average Joe other than maybe sending a 1/4 pound container of Grampa to orbit.

Now back to Scaled Composites. When some smart guys with a limited budget in a little shit town in the California desert can build something in a few small hangers and put people into space and bring them back alive then you can color me very impressed.

Re:Nothing to see here

[XNormal]

> This of course is huge. The safety of not needing heat shielding alone is such a groundbreaking and novel development that NASA itself took notice.

Feathered reentry has nothing to do with not needing a significant heat shield. The reason SS2 does not need a heat shield is because it only reaches a speed of a couple of machs, nowhere near orbital speed.

Feathered reentry is about not having to reenter the atmosphere at a very precise angle and tumbling out of control if you don't get it exactly right. It happened to one of the X15s which flew a suborbital profile similar to that of SS2.

Re:Nothing to see here

[peragrin]

yea I noticed you ignored anyone who held up evidence that your wrong.

Name one thing that is physically impossible about Single stage to orbit vessels?

It may not be currently possible, with fuel weights, and technologies, but but regular suborbital flights will lead to regular commercial suborbital hops to go from London to Tokyo in just a few hours. REgular commercial suborbital flights will lead to orbital flights.

Jet engines weren't developed by the wright brothers. in fact neither of them lived long enough to see a practical jet engine. So one day we will figure out scram jets, aerospikes, and then we will find a way to get to space with only a small booster rocket for the last 200km. The easy part.

One small step at a time. Spaceship2 is just one small step.

Re:Nothing to see here

[sambira]

I'm sorry but it appears that the F9 and Dragon are being funded by NASA so why is this better than SS1/SS2 which is a private for profit venture? There is also nothing new in the F9/Dragon concept from the Gemini/Apollo spacecraft. Even the method of landing, heat shield and design are basically the same. So what is so "meaningful" about this?

Pilot

[Stanistani]

Good to see Brian Binnie in the simulator - if I could afford this, I'd want him piloting my flight.

Please do NOT click on this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Spaceship3 will take off when they find a way to ignite the methane gas emanating from the orifice of this structure.

I think I'll wait...

[CodeMunch]

for SpaceShipXP Service Pack 4.

Cool, but..

[91degrees]

What's it for? Is it only to get rich tourists to a high altitude to see what shape the earth is?

Re:Cool, but..

[jellomizer]

Well yes. But that was the simular excuse back in the 1500's Trans contental travel was not cheap back then, nore was it mostly risk free. Much like Space Travel is today. Today the average middle class american person who saves some money can take a cruse around the world, if they liked, back a few hundred years ago that was only reserved for the super rich or a governemnt. Space Travel is starting to get to this point now... Except it needs to be far safer then the Trans Contental Sea Voyages were back then. Once the Super Rich get they jollies from the space ride in time the technology will become more common and afordable first to the Rich then down to the middle class, then most anyone could take a trip... I may take a few hundred years but overall it is worth it.

Re:Cool, but..

[Farmer Tim]

Is it only to get rich tourists to a high altitude to see what shape the earth is?

I can think of the odd oil baron who would be genuinely surprised to find it's round...
 
Come to think of it, perhaps a bit of perspective wouldn't hurt those on the rich list: I sometimes think that some people really need to be reminded that no matter how much money they have, they're still inconsequential bugs destined to be squashed on the windscreen of time.

Re:Cool, but..

[4D6963]

Sorry, I know nobody likes a grammar Nazi, but I've gotta do this, it's for your own good.

That's "similar", not "simular"
That's "1500s", not "1500's", and you get a bonus point if you say "the 16th century" instead, and a bonus cookie if you can write that in Roman numerals.
That's "transcontinental", not "Trans contental"
That's "nor", not "nore"
In English, country names, nationalities and languages start with an uppercase letter, so that's "American" not "american"
That"s "cruise", not "cruse"
That's "government", not "governemnt"
When you're comparing two things and that you hesitate between "then" and "than", it's "than", not "then"
"their jollies", not "they jollies"
That's "affordable", not "afordable"
That's "mostly anyone", not "most anyone"

Also, you don't need start every noun with an uppercase letter, only Germans do that. And to the rest of you who are about to suggest me that the parent poster may not be a native English speaker, look at his website, his name sounds awfully Anglo-Saxon and it says he studied in Connecticut (and no need to point out an eventual typo I may have made, I'm dysgraphic, I can't type a sentence right without proof-reading).

Oh, and I'm not a native English speaker, actually, I'm French. Ouch, I know, it hurts.

Re:Cool, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

And furthermore transcontinental isn't right, regardless of spelling, because that would mean travel across a continent, which isn't possible by ship. What he wants is intercontinental, which would mean travel between continents.

Re:Cool, but..

[91degrees]

Okay. So, prices go down. Everyone can afford a trip up, and then down again. We're still not exactly in orbit. We're just in a place arbitrarily define as "space". What are people going to do up there?

Re:Cool, but..

[jellomizer]

Well you up and down again for cheap so the High End Super Expensive may be visiting the moon while middle class is in orbit... Once a high tech technology becomes common we often raise the bar for the high end.

Great!

[Quiet_Desperation]

I wish these effort well. We need more celebrities and boy band members in space.

Re:Great!

[kellyb9]

We need more celebrities and boy band members in space. Agreed - better having them in space then on earth.

Re:Great!

[BosstonesOwn]

Yeah unfortunately none of these damn things crash when useless people are on them.

Re:Great!

[Farmer Tim]

We need more celebrities and boy band members in space.

Not on this rocket: it's designed to come back.

Re:Great!

[xanthines-R-yummy]

You were modded Informative? I would've thought your comment was spectacularly obvious! *ZING!*

Parallels and Perspective

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

For a bit of perspective I wanted to see what progress looked like back in the early days of aviation.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/top10/wright-flyer.jpg Here is the wrights' "space ship one"

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/786/506847.JPG Here is what the aircraft started looking like 4 years after the Wright's first flight.

It took 30 years for Jet technology to appear, I wonder if it will be a similar amount of time before we get private orbital cabability.

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[Rei]

First off, almost all orbital launches are private. Most are completely private except for government funding in the development stage and government launch contracts; the launches are run for-profit by companies like Boeing and Lockheed. Even for ones run by NASA, like the shuttle, the craft itself was largely built by private companies. If you want to rule out "large" private companies, there's SeaLaunch, Orbital Sciences, etc, who've developed and run for-profit their own rockets. And if you want rockets developed largely from scratch, look no further than SpaceX and their Falcon rocket (with soon upcoming Dragon spacecraft).

Why cheer for irrelevance? Cheer for what actually matters.

By the way -- I'm not sure the analogy with early aircraft is the one you're going for. Just ignoring how little capital it took to build an airplane versus what it takes to make an orbital spacecraft, you should realize that early airplanes suffered major crashes at very regular intervals. The pilots typically survived because the performance of said aircraft was so low. The first cross-country flight took weeks and involved dozens of crashes. For the first around-the-world race, the US strategically placed replacement parts and even entire replacement airplanes for its pilots to use.

Even if that was an analogy you wanted to use, you should be comparing early aircraft with early rockets (V2, Redstone, etc), not with SS1 and their "repeat what's done decades ago in a way that we know damn well won't scale to anything". SS1 isn't developing new technology or pushing the envelope; they're making craft that don't advance anything except people's ability to have a joyride.

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[samkass]

I'm not sure what your second picture is of, but it doesn't look like a Wright flyer to me... here's a pic of the Flyer III about 2-3 years after first flight: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Wright_Flyer_III_above.jpg/225px-Wright_Flyer_III_above.jpg . The Flyer III was the first one that had reasonable enough handling that it was really "usable" by a mere mortal, and the design didn't change that much for 5 years after that.

It was Curtiss that took the Wrights' ideas and extended them into more simple-to-manufacture designs (such as aerolons instead of warping wings), and that's when you'll start seeing planes that look a lot like a modern plane.

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[nasor]

Any comparison of space flight to aircraft flight development is just depressing. It took about 30 years to go from the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk to the DC-3, a commercially-useful passenger aircraft that any reasonable person would feel safe flying in. In rocketry, on the other hand, it's been 50 years and it still costs thousands of dollars to put a kilo in orbit - and you still have something like a 1 in 50 chance of dying in the attempt.

But of course, there was a readily-apparent market for aircraft (people want to get places) and continuous pressure from competition to improve (people can always take a train/blimp/car/ship). Not so with space travel.

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[everphilski]

Watch these guys:

Armadillo Aerospace
Masten Space Systems

Both are working on smaller vehicles right now, but both have their eyes on orbital space.

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[roystgnr]

It took 30 years for Jet technology to appear, I wonder if it will be a similar amount of time before we get private orbital cabability.

Jet technology was also originally a military technology, but got pushed out to the private sector pretty enthusiastically.

Orbital rocket technology isn't going to see the same level of cooperation. Where you or I might be interested in "cheap access to space" leading in the longer term to "colonizing the solar system", governments tend to reasonably focus on the more short-term consequences of "cheap access to intercontinental ballistic missiles" leading to "we're all screwed".

It's unfortunate, but intercontinental missiles are by nature simpler to build than orbital spacecraft, and nuclear warheads are simpler to build than nuclear rockets. On my more pessimistic days I think those two facts are enough to explain the Fermi Paradox.

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[Shotgun]

Why the hell would I cheer for SpaceX? Are THEY going to enable me to get a joyride to the edge of space? Why would I cheer for the irrelevance of OTHER people going to space?

At least Scaled is the approaching the problem in a manner that won't subject me to an extended period of high G acceleration.

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[raduf]

Don Quijote :) Btw, if you ever find a better forum, let the rest of us know. I've been looking for years.

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the analogy to use should be based around two milestones in "consumer" flight. When acceptance of a new paradigm reached the masses. Perhaps the old "Empire" flying boats versus one of either the "Comet", or "Concorde". The Comet because commercial use taught us that consumer demands can test material as much as "edge of the envelope" stuff, and Concorde because it had ambitions still relevant to today.
In any case the ubiquitisation of space does have a benefit - it raises the dull, mundane bedrock and loam foundation from which future, more adventurous efforts will launch themselves. You have to decide the "surly bonds of earth" are binding, before you start getting the nagging itch to "slip" them...
Cant wait till kids on SpaceShip33 are whining "Are we there yet?".

Re:Parallels and Perspective

[flyingsquid]

By the way -- I'm not sure the analogy with early aircraft is the one you're going for. Just ignoring how little capital it took to build an airplane versus what it takes to make an orbital spacecraft, you should realize that early airplanes suffered major crashes at very regular intervals. The pilots typically survived because the performance of said aircraft was so low. The first cross-country flight took weeks and involved dozens of crashes.

OK, I'm a little skeptical here. When one of the later Wright Brothers models crashed in 1908, plummeting from a non-spectacular height of 150 feet, Orville broke his leg and several ribs, and his passenger, an Army leutenant, cracked his skull open and died. The Wright aircraft were not exactly high performance. And let's not forget Otto Lilienthal, another aviation pioneer. In 1896, he nose-dived his glider from about 60 feet up and ended up breaking his spine, which killed him the next day.

So I find it difficult to believe that both a pilot and an aircraft could cross the country and survive more than 24 crashes (as the word "dozens" implies). Any citations?

The crux of the biscuit

[j-stroy]

Luckily Frank Zappa has detailed its correct usage in an easy to use LP format.

Re:The crux of the biscuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean "it's" usage?

Re:The crux of the biscuit

[Anonymous Coward]

no, objects don't get possessive apostrophes. you just said, "don't you mean "it is" usage?"

Uh.....why is this modded down?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to try clicking on that link before you mod him down.

First thing that comes to mind re. WhiteKnight II

[blind biker]

"Snap!"

Design Changes

[j-stroy]

It looks to me like the hinged portion of the wing tips is different than before. I'm sure they've done their job, but given the corkscrew trick the last one did, I'd think a lot of stress could be on that area.. It looks not so robust there to me. IANARS

Re:Design Changes

[geek2k5]

I believe that the corkscrew problem of the first of the two X-Prize flights might have been due to pilot error or something easily correctable.

The second flight, by the ex-Navy pilot, didn't have the problem. In fact, the pilot broke the unofficial altitude record held by an X15.

(Of course, on an earlier test flight if my memory is right, the same pilot landed SS2 a bit hard, causing the landing skid to collapse. Embarassing, but not a disaster. But that is what doing test flights is about.)

More pics here

[TappedOut]

More pix: http://www.virgingalactic.com/pressftp/

May the ships be built better than the server was

[Ellis D. Tripp]

, cause that sucker is going down in flames....

Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.flightglobal.com.nyud.net:8080/articles/2008/01/23/221031/pictures-virgin-galactic-unveils-dyna-soar-style-spaceshiptwo-design-and-twin-fuselage-white-knight.html

Hey Moderators! LICK MY SALTY NUTSACK!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you click on the link, it takes you NOWHERE. So how is the parent a troll? Eat that, douche-bag!

Manufactuering line

[WindBourne]

Few of the space systems are based on a manufacturing line. Almost all are based on onses. The goal is to build a fleet of these, and then to change the line into building true space ships. In addition, it is about VERY low costs flights. Sending cargo is not that pricey (and will probably get cheaper as we look at some of the launch rails). But live cargo is VERY expensive. If that can be lowered, then the total price is cheap. Saying that this does nothing for Space exploration is like saying that Saturn V did nothing for space exploration. In the end, it had the same concept as the Titans and Deltas; just to put mass in space. It just put more up there.

I'm bloody well not risking my life...

[Anonymous Coward]

on any contraption that was inspired by something on Stargate SG-1 (see Redemption Part 2). Next Richard Branson will be installing booster rockets underneath London to make it into a flying city like Atlantis.

Rich being wastefull

[GHynson]

Just more ultra rich people waving thier dicks around.

Have to say

[MacarooMac]

I'm surprised at the amount of scepticism over this project, esp on /. Let's face it, commercial designs such as SS2 are the only way any of us down here will be getting 'up there' in our lifetime.

FYI, from el Wiki: "More than 65,000 would-be space tourists have applied for the first batch of 100 tickets to be available. The price will initially be US$200,000. However, after the first 100 tickets are sold the price would be dropped to around $100,000. Then deposits after the first year will drop to around $20,000. The duration of the flight will be approximately 2.5 hours, and weekly launches are planned.

In December 2007 Virgin Galactic had 200 paid-up applicants on its books for the early flights, and 95% were passing the necessary 6-8 g centrifuge tests"

Re:Have to say

[DerekLyons]

I'm surprised at the amount of scepticism over this project, esp on /. Let's face it, commercial designs such as SS2 are the only way any of us down here will be getting 'up there' in our lifetime.

Folks are skeptical because they are looking at the hard numbers, rather than cheerleading because SS2 et al are the 'only way'.
 
It's not how many people who sign up in advance that matters - it's how many actually show up at the counter and plunk down cold hard cash, and having people continue to do so on an ongoing basis. After two years of availability, having only 200 people paid up isn't a positive sign - it's a worrisome one, especially with 65k applicants on the books.

Re:Have to say

[falconwolf]

It's not how many people who sign up in advance that matters - it's how many actually show up at the counter and plunk down cold hard cash,

Ah but people are "plunking down cold hard cash". The cost of a ride is $200,000 and half of that has to be put down as a down payment.

Falcon

Re:Have to say

[Jarik_Tentsu]

It's a step in a right direction. Money from space tourism will mean more development and competition in the area, meaning more funding and new technology which'll eventually give way to more commercial applications of sending humans into space for cheaper and longer periods of time IMO.

~Jarik

Re:Have to say

[MacarooMac]

Finally someone with an open mind has cracked it! In addition: more public awareness of the sci & tech involved; inspiration to kids (who think becomming a NASA spacemen is beyond them); R&D into aerodynamics, avionics and propulsion technology that could benefit other commercial enterprises; and ultimately give NASA and the Govt a prod in the butt.
And all for litle or no tax $$$ whatsoever! There's no pleasing everyone is there.

Getting Slashdotted to hell...

[Anonymous Coward]

VirginGalactic's website is getting the crap beat out of it right now. Not quite smoking yet, but just about there.

Congratulations everybody. I bet Branson's webmasters are laughing their asses off right now.

Re: apples to oranges

[colinnwn]

"Sorry, but SeaLaunch, Orbital Sciences, and SpaceX already beat you to it, and they're doing *relevant, orbital rocketry*."

This is true for commercial payload operations. But Scaled Composites's goal is humans to suborbital and eventually LEO. This is a much more expensive and time consuming goal. I haven't heard anything about Scaled Composites interest in payloads. Of the 3 companies you mention, only SpaceX has expressed interest in human space flight, they only have the Dragon planned for this, and they have no forecast date of its first manned operation.

Scaled Composites is also planning on operating on an order of magnitude less revenue. The 3 companies you mention will see millions of dollars in revenue launching commercial payloads and will still be cheaper than using government launch services. Scaled Composites/Virgin is talking about providing individuals in the lower upper class flight experiences costing tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Right now only the stratospheric upper class can afford a suborbital or LEO trip.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

Not really

[WindBourne]

Probably half or more of the posters here are from America. If you check a number of polls, many Americans believe that NASA has been a waste. Sadly, they also believe that Science is a waste. It comes down to the more that politicians declare that science projects like Genetic Engineering, Stem Cell research, Global Warming Research, etc is bad for the world (and America), then by extension, then RD efforts like NIH, CDC, and even NASA must be worthless. Out politicians are killing us. It is no wonder that we see our RD labs torn down.

Re:Not really

[everphilski]

Probably half or more of the posters here are from America. If you check a number of polls, many Americans believe that NASA has been a waste. Sadly, they also believe that Science is a waste. It comes down to the more that politicians declare that science projects like Genetic Engineering, Stem Cell research, Global Warming Research, etc is bad for the world (and America), then by extension, then RD efforts like NIH, CDC, and even NASA must be worthless. Out politicians are killing us. It is no wonder that we see our RD labs torn down.

90% of the "this-is-bad" posts are from Rei, and his/her point is that it's just a suborbital hop. It isn't advancing the state of the art. And s/he's completely correct. The propellant mix is unimpressive, the vehicle goes very slow relative to orbital velocity and the "feather", while useful for suborbital reentry is useless for a hypersonic orbital re-entry.

(yes, I'm an aerospace engineer ... who is from America, actually thinks NASA is useful, and enjoys most of what science bring us. Thanks for another lets-bash-America post, Windbourne!)

Re:Not really

[WindBourne]

Well, I am also from America, and have worked for NASA (on MGS), CDC(in early 80s) and a few RD labs in the USA. In what way have I bashed NASA, or America? I point out what is happening in America ACCORDING to polls ( as well as what I have seen), and you say that it is bashing America? I guess that is simply shoot the messenger?

Re:Not really

[hondo77]

...and the "feather", while useful for suborbital reentry is useless for a hypersonic orbital re-entry.

Um, so it's a good thing it's being used for suborbital re-entry, eh? Hello?

Re:Not really

[SquirrelsUnite]

I'm not from the US and I believe NASA's manned program has been a waste since the lunar landings. Of course I still got a pretty good show for a reasonable cost (nil for me) but if my government, or more realistically the EU, was spending $4bn a year on an exploration program that never left the orbit of Earth I'd be pretty pissed. Of course NASA does a lot of interesting science. Just nothing that has to do with manned spaceflight.

Re:Not really

[everphilski]

Read the paragraph in context. Thanks.

Re:Not really

[WindBourne]

Well, I do not think it was a total waste. It has done a number of things. In particular, it has allowed us to see what works and what does not. When we went to the moon the first time, it really was via a shoestring. The landings were all manual, and several nearly did not make it. A big part of the reason why Nixon killed colonizing the moon was to give us time to develop infrastructure (but I do not agree with his reasoning, but there you have it) as well as lower costs. Since then, we have learned how to do automatic landings on mars, robotic and remote control, etc. The ISS has been slow to develop but that was not due to the ISS but the fact that the shuttle should never have been, and then should have been replaced (apparently, even the DOD wanted the x-33 though it sat in a hanger for a number of years before being torn apart just recently). Now, we are re-developing the apollo program. But the ISS itself, has taught us how to survive in space, as well as how to work with other nations. Having a problem here, is tough, but generally survivable. Having it on the moon or mars probably would have killed the program. One of the nicer items to come out of ISS is transhab/bigelow ba-330. Yes, it is not ready. Yet. But it, spacex, and either armadillo or blue origin will be used to hit the moon within 10 years. I am guessing 7-8, but I am an optimist.

Re:Not really

[jollyreaper]

Probably half or more of the posters here are from America. If you check a number of polls, many Americans believe that NASA has been a waste. Sadly, they also believe that Science is a waste. Hey, we're not all stupid, just the religious ones! *ducks, runs*

No, seriously, NASA as it currently exists is not all waste but there's still a ton of inefficiency. I love computers but that doesn't mean there isn't something wrong with Microsoft, right? The politics at NASA strangle dreams and ambition. The entire shuttle program was something that seemed like a good idea only it turns out it wasn't. It's a damn shame, a waste. NASA lost it's way when it lost the moon missions. There's so much more they could be, should be doing. That's where our criticism is coming from.

Re:Not really

[SquirrelsUnite]

Oh, I don't mean it was a complete waste. Just a huge waste. Compare the operational costs of the Shuttle to the amount NASA spent on R&D related to manned spaceflight. I claim that at least 80% of the amount spent on the Shuttle in the last 20 years were actually wasted. If the US had had no manned spaceflight capability in the last 20 years not much would have been lost. And if only half of that had been spent on developing a new vehicle manned spaceflight would be better off.

But the real problem is that it is hard to set a realistic goal for "space exploration". "Building infrastructure" is worthwhile but politically inconvenient. A lot of people work on servicing and operating the shuttle who would basically become useless in a program that is centered on developing new technologies.

The really interesting goals, like extending human presence throughout the solar system and beyond, are horribly expensive. You can advance in small steps but, as it turns out, just staying at the same place costs a large chunk of money. If you want to stay on Mars there has to be a good reason for it. How are you going to justify the billions spent every year on supplying a Martian base? If you can't it will just be abandoned and you'll be back on square one (Earth orbit, at best). Until someone comes up with a program to "put a Woman or a Man on a moon of Jupiter before the end of the century".

That's what makes space tourism intriguing. That it has the hope of sustainable development. There's no such hope for government funded spaceflight in this century in my opinion.

Re:Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sadly, they also believe that Science is a waste."

You mean the half of slash dot posters that are American? Care to back that up with any form of statistic that shows ALL AMERICAN SLASHDOT USERS BELIEVE SCIENCE IS A WASTE?

I dont think you'll be able to. That was a rhetorical question. I spell that out because I think you are stupid. I say that based solely on your above post.

Why not just get it over with

[kannibul]

and build Spaceball 1?

Article

[llZENll]

For those who can't connect...

PICTURES: Virgin Galactic unveils Dyna-Soar style SpaceShipTwo design and twin-fuselage White Knight II configuration
By Rob Coppinger
Virgin Galactic has unveiled a SpaceShipTwo (SS2) design, created by Scaled Composites, that harks back to the NASA/USAF Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar glider of the 1960s, while Scaled's carrier aircraft, White Knight II (WK2) has been given a twin-fuselage configuration.

To be launched on a Lockheed Martin Titan III rocket, Dyna-Soar was for hypersonic flight research but the programme was cancelled before the first vehicle was completed. Some of its subsystems were used in later X-15 flight research and Dyna-Soar became a testbed for advanced technologies that contributed to projects, including the Space Shuttle.

  Above: SpaceShipTwo is carried between the two fuselages of White Knight II

Virgin Galactic's commercial operations will now start from New Mexico's Spaceport America in 2010 and not from Mojave air and space port in California, as originally planned, but the WK2, SS2 launch system will be test flown by Scaled at the Californian port.

At its 23 January press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York city Virgin Galactic described SS2 as using the same basic technology, construction and design as its predecessor SpaceShipOne (SS1), as 100% composite and twice as large as the $10 million X-Prize winning vehicle, SS1.

  Above: SpaceShipTwo transitions into feathering mode for its reentry

The SS2 is 18.3m (60ft) long, has a wingspan of 12.8m, a tail height of 4.5m with a passenger cabin that is 3.66m long and 2.28m in diameter. Despite being so much larger than SS1, SS2 will still use a front nose skid, and not nose gear. Released at 50,000ft (15,200m) by WK2, the rocket glider's apogee is expected to be up to 110km (68 miles).

  Above: SpaceShipTwo is under construction at Scaled Composites

The carrier aircraft, WK2, is now 23.7m-long, it still has a wingspan of 42.7m, with a tail height of 7.62m and its integration is now 80% complete - with the assembly of the wing underway in preparation for its mating with the twin fuselages.

The WK2 will have four Pratt and Whitney PW308 engines, as revealed by Flight in September last year. And as Flight has also reported WK2's crew and passenger cabin will be the same; for training purposes.

  Above: White Knight II under construction with its twin fuselages being fitted with their tail fins at Scaled Composites

Virgin Galactic also announced that the SS2 simulator is now operational, ahead of the previous March 2008 date that had been given. It is already being used for pilot training.

  Above: Brian Binnie, Scaled Composites pilot, sits in the SpaceShipTwo simulator

Conversion error

[jmauro]

60 miles or 100km, not 60 km. Don't cheat the SS1 out of it's success.

Re:Conversion error

[khallow]

My apologies. I knew that, but forgot the conversion of miles to km. The current definition of space is after all at 100 km and they were looking to barely exceed this.

Nose Skid

[BobPaul]

Despite being so much larger than SS1, SS2 will still use a front nose skid, and not nose gear. Can someone please explain what a "Front nose skid" is and how it might differ from "nose gear"?

Re:Nose Skid

[phrostie]

typical nose gear includes a wheel which gives you more control but adds weight.

a skid just keeps the nose off the ground and is probably replaced after each flight.
if you need to turn or adjust course on landing, you would probably use differencial braking or flight controls.

Re:Nose Skid

[everphilski]

Imagine a ski, versus a wheel.

It's simpler and more lightweight. Less moving parts. Also probably a lot easier to package.

Re:Nose Skid

[Shotgun]

And if the main gear are moved very close to the center of gravity (CG), more than sufficient, and will reduce the need for high power breaks. Many airplanes still fly with a tailSKID, and many gliders still use skids.

This flies directly in the face of the early poster that claims SS2 doesn't push the state of the art. SOA applies not only to new materials or designs that have never been seen before. It also applies to using old techniques in new ways, or in places that they weren't used before. It's not only reaching out for new things, but includes reaching back to make the old new again.

NASA, SpaceX, et.al., all have one approach....payload on top of a huge roman candle. Scaled is exploring an alternative approach.

And doing it with STYLE, I might add.

A LOT to see here

[Somegeek]

This is not about advancing the state of the art in rocket design, no one ever claimed that it was.
They are learning how to build an infrastructure that could take paying customers to orbit.

They are gaining experience carrying passengers and a spaceship up to the edge of space.
They are gaining experience dealing with novice 'astronauts' and what it takes to prepare them and what they should expect from them in a weightless environment.
They are gaining experience designing and building and flying carrier aircraft.
I would imagine that the next generation will use a different rocket design, go significantly faster, and start using heat shielding, with yet a bigger carrier aircraft.
Once they have that in place, the next generation can upgrade the 'spaceship' to something with serious rockets that have the capability of reaching orbital speeds.

Or should they have gone for orbit first and hope everything else works at the same time?

Re:A LOT to see here

[Fzz]

I could also add:

• They're gaining experience with aerodynamics at mach 3.5 or so. For comparison, the Space Shuttle jettisons the SRBs at roughly this speed and MaxQ (maximum aerodynamic stress) is somewhere around mach 1.5.
• They're gaining experience with maintaining attitude using orbital manoeuvring thrusters. Sure it has the feathering system to provide fail-safe attitude when re-entering, but they still use thrusters to maintain attitude before that.

Now clearly SS2 is never going to reach orbit - nowhere near enough delta-V and no minimal thermal protection ensure that. But I agree the experience gained is non trivial. And if it is a financial success, maybe they'll get to use that experience for the next step.

Re: apples to oranges

[Rei]

As though a cockpit is somehow the most challenging part, or even a relevantly challenging part, of rocketry.

A capsule carrying people is just a payload. The cost and challenge is in the launch vehicle.

(and let's not get into the term "man-rated", which nobody can seem to define outside of a few general concepts that most rockets can easily be designed to meet, such as limited Gs and not blowing up every other flight)

Can they ever recover?

[heroine]

Can Scaled Composites ever achieve this now that they've lost lives & been cited for neglecting safety? If they don't train their fabricators, do they train their pilots? It's been 4 years since their last flight. Their website hasn't been updated in 2 years. They better be releasing computer renderings, because that's as close as they're going to get.

Re:Can they ever recover?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Every failure always looks like a dumb mistake in hindsight. Risking failures is part of the path to succeeding. So, assuming that they learned from their mistakes, I'll cheer Scaled Composites on for actually doing things, even if they sometimes make mistakes. To quote Teddy Rooseveldt: "The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything."

...or, quoting Rooseveldt in more detail:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

--Theodore Roosevelt.

Why do think...

[Simian Road]

...space has been declining in popularity? There was a time when the idea of Space Travel excited the entire country, nowadays people just dismiss it as a waste of money. As peoples interest in space decline, surprise surprise, so does NASA's budget.

If you want to get more serious cutting edge space science done, then you need to make the whole concept popular again. That is why I think this whole Virgin Venture is worthwhile, not because it's an eccentric joyride for the rich.

Don't Be a Party Pooper

[iamlucky13]

I'm way, way more excited about SpaceX than Scaled Composites/Virgin Galactic, but it's still cool to see them finally building hardware, even if it is low tech, pressure-fed rockets. It's also interesting to see how much different the actual SS2 and WK2 are from the concept art, which was basically just SSI et all built a little bit longer. I noticed WK2 is going with four smaller engines rather than two large engines, presumably for redundancy. And the wing and nose on SS2 are much different than we saw before, with apparently a fully upright pilot seating position (high windshield) and a low, rather than mid-mounted wing. As flightglobal noted, it looks a lot like the old Air Force Dynasoar concept.

On two slightly related notes, something that didn't get mentioned in the article is that OSHA is fining Scaled Composites for not providing sufficient training to the technicians killed in the H202 explosion a couple months ago. Just a little business tidbit. As expected, the accident was caused by improper handling. Also, if anyone wants to really see where SpaceX is at the moment, go to their website and read the latest update. There's a ton of fascinating information in there about the construction and testing.

The Ares 1 is beleagured only because Congress is consistently failing to provide the funding needed to meet the milestones set two years ago. I'm convinced the vibration issue mentioned last week is being overblown. Yes, it's a problem because they were counting on not modifying the casings structurally, but it's fixable without fundamental changes to the concept.

I doubt the Falcon 9 will actually launch in June as scheduled. Things always come up in big projects, as the Falcon 1 flights have shown, but I'm sure we'll see it go up this year, and hopefully the first commercial payloads for the Falcon 1, as well.

Re:Don't Be a Party Pooper

[Rei]

I think your assessment in general is right on the mark (delays always spring up -- although at least with the Falcons, there's a pretty fast turnaround, so I wouldn't expect launch any later than July or August, but you have to expect that not everything will run perfectly). I do think, however, that the problems with Ares I, the classic topheavy stick, are just beginning. I've always felt it was a bad design, and the vibration's hardly the start of it. They've had to keep reducing its payload as they've run into one problem after another, and this is going to lower it further. I can't imagine what this is going to do to Orion. :P

It's not the joyrides that are most relevant

[roystgnr]

It's the rocket engineering making them possible.

SpaceX is starting with designs that already have enough performance to reach orbit, with a goal of later incrementally improving the reusability and turnaround time/cost in order to make those designs more reliable and affordable. Scaled Composites is starting with designs that are already completely cheaply reusable and easy to test, with the possibility of incrementally improving their performance until they can reach orbit. Coming at the design space from more than one direction makes it more likely that at least one of them will succeed.

On the other hand, I agree with you that SpaceX probably has the better plan. Suborbital spaceship R&D is the sort of thing NASA should have done more of but it's not an attractive place for a private company to be. If Scaled Composites only succeeds at suborbital rockets, at best they'll have a tourist attraction / research prototype. If SpaceX only succeeds at expendable rockets, they'll still have a good shot at taking over the whole launch market.

Re:It's not the joyrides that are most relevant

[Rei]

with the possibility of incrementally improving their performance until they can reach orbit.

No, they are not. Google OTRAG, and then think about the fact that SS1/SS2 have about the same performance as the OTRAG stages. And you can't just change out fuel/oxidizer (i.e., improve the performance, the ISP) without redoing the entire craft from engines to tanks. And the cockpit needs to be redesigned for the TPS, so that really leaves nothing left.

Scaled knows this. Anyone involved in rocketry does. But they're playing on the public's lack of awareness of the extreme difference between "getting to space" and "getting to orbit" to get themselves publicity.

Re:It's not the joyrides that are most relevant

[falconwolf]

Scaled knows this. Anyone involved in rocketry does. But they're playing on the public's lack of awareness of the extreme difference between "getting to space" and "getting to orbit" to get themselves publicity.

I admit I know next to nothing about "getting to space" or "getting to orbit" but if Scaled is doing things wrong why is Richard Branson, who's one the world's wealthiest people and can afford to hire experts, and his Virgin Galactic investing so much in Scaled?

Falcon

Re:It's not the joyrides that are most relevant

[Aenoxi]

Because Virgin Galactic exists to make money - not 'to boldly go'. Assume that the service lifetime of the SS2 family is about a decade. Ask yourself, is there a good chance that they will make a healthy profit on their investment within that lifetime? That is what their shareholders will be asking.

When asking the question, you need to bear in mind that getting to orbit is hard and expensive. Yes, a handful of tourists have taken orbital flights, but at an enormous cost. The higher the ticket price the lower the pool of tourists willing/able to pay. Even the most efficient state-of-the-art systems today are so costly per pound that orbital tourism in any volume is not going to be a viable proposition for at least a decade.

In contrast, building 'affordable' sub-orbital tourist systems like SS2 is far less capital and time intensive and given SC/VG's head start, they can start pretty quickly. This presents an obvious window of opportunity to make money by being the lead/only provider in the field selling sub-orbital flights at a order of magnitude cheaper than
orbital flights for at least the next decade until orbital flight systems have advanced sufficiently to be viable for reasonable volume tourism (100s per year rather than 1 every few years).

  Porche salesmen still make good money even though Lambourghinis are more desirable .

From a purely engineering point of view I can understand where Rei is coming from in terms of SS2 not being an incremental step towards orbital tourism. Very little of the R&D work going into SS2 has any major relevance to orbital flight. It's a bit like saying that my jetski could get to Europe if only I could upgrade the engines and add bigger fuel tanks. By the time you've finished modding your jetski/SS2 to make the longer journey it becomes clear that the only part of the original vehicle remaining is the pilot's chair.

However, from a business point of view, what VG are doing *is* an incremental step towards orbital tourism. It generates public interest, generates investor interest, results in the building of infrastructure which can be reused for orbital flights, kick-starts the regulators into starting to create certification and regulatory frameworks, is a first step toward getting insurance companies interested, and builds public confidence in safety. SS2 may be a dead-end as a product offering, but you can bet that if it is succesful, a true orbital tourism project is more likely to be funded and built by VG or others.

Re:It's not the joyrides that are most relevant

[Plekto]

Scaled Composites thinks that if they build a gradual business that provides enough excitement and entertainment that people want more then they might be able to use that ground infrastructure to build something better. They think that the next logical step after that, perhaps, will be sub-orbital hops to Europe and Japan. Imagine that - sub-orbital flights AND you can go safely from Los Angeles to say, New Zealand or Tokyo in an hour or less. Even doing this would be a huge benefit as the mighty Concorde won't do close to SS2s speed. Carrying ten or twenty people eventually halfway around the globe in an hour... "When you gotta be there in an hour, there's Scaled Composites!(sm)" :)

Even being able to cross the Atlantic for a couple of cents on the dollar compared to current supersonic passenger jets(what's the planned Condorde's replacement going to cost? A few billion?) is astounding. Building a craft like that out of common materials and making it work is something almost everyone in the industy is amazed at and a bit proud of.

I know, because I have friends and family in the aerospace industry and they love the small guy maverick approach to it, because that's where most of the big companies they work for started 30-50 years earlier. No red tape, no tax dollars, no security clearances or big brother breathing down your neck over everything, and low cost.

Yes, it's a big deal. Nobody cares if it's getting into orbit anytime soon, because it doesn't have to. All it has to do is get people interested in space again to have been worth it many times over to the rest of the industry.

Re:It's not the joyrides that are most relevant

[falconwolf]

Because Virgin Galactic exists to make money - not 'to boldly go'. Assume that the service lifetime of the SS2 family is about a decade. Ask yourself, is there a good chance that they will make a healthy profit on their investment within that lifetime?

So in other words they wouldn't be doing things wrong. Also if I recall right Branson wanted to open a hotel on the moon, if so then Scaled maybe be able to get him there. It appears my memory may be off, it appears Branson wants to open a hotel near the moon not on it.

Falcon

OTOH, REI's opinion is irrelevant to Scaled

[marcus]

I guess I have to inform you that you do not decide for the world what is relevant to what and what is not. You say that suborbital joyrides are irrelevant to orbital(you left out the 'manned') spaceflight. I say that they are relevant, period. Who cares? What it boils down to is: is the post relevant to Slashdot?

Scaled does not care if you think their work is relevant to orbital(you left out the 'manned') spaceflight or not. What they do care about is making a profit on manned spaceflight(I and they left out the 'orbital').

Later,

why should it?

[Quadraginta]

Er...this is a private venture, undertaken to make money (for Branson) and to have fun (for his customers). If these reasons are good enough for Branson and his customers, what business is it of yours or mine? Why should Branson be expected to compromise his goals, whatever they are, to address yours? You don't compromise yours to address his, do you?

Don't look a gift rocket in the nozzle

[snowwrestler]

Cheer for the rocketry not matters, not the irrelevant joyrides. Those aren't the only options though. I'd rather have either of those than C) Don't cheer for any rocketry at all, or D) Cheer against all rocketry.

I doubt that Virgin Galactic has to lose for SpaceX to win. I'd guess it's more likely the opposite--any private rocketry success lends greater credibility to all the other startups.

If you think SpaceX is more deserving of funding than Virgin Galactic, then go ahead and put your capital there. But really I don't see the point of shouting down enthusiasm for private rocketry.

Walk before you run...

[AnomaliesAndrew]

This makes the experience a lot more accessible to the public and paves the way for copycat companies. It also generates hype -- look no further than the space race to see the value of this? It's only at a proof of concept stage right now, basically. Once this goes to the final retail stage, it will grow exponentially, not just in popularity, but also in capacity. Bigger ships. Greater range. Free-market competition! It's even in their name, SCALED composites. I mean, we're not going to just go from Space Shuttle to "Beam me up, Scotty" overnight.

Remember the Wright brothers?

Probably all they're taking for now

[Quila]

200 people at 1 flight a week at 6 pax per flight = 33 weeks (8 months) of flights already paid for. And $40 million already in the bank.

Only a small percentage of current applications actually paying still means regular paid operations. Just 5% is already 10 years of flights if they only keep using one ship. But they'll need more ships, as they can only make $31 million a year with the current schedule and reduced rate.

That's why this is so important

[Quila]

But of course, there was a readily-apparent market for aircraft (people want to get places) and continuous pressure from competition to improve (people can always take a train/blimp/car/ship). Not so with space travel.

Space travel will now be in the realm of commercial interests, and the continuous pressure from competition will make it improve. There's a parallel to Apple Computer here, where Woz's technical brilliance with Job's marketing and business acumen revolutionized computers. So goes for Rutan and Branson revolutionizing space.

Taxes

[Quila]

Plus, it all costs us none of our tax dollars

The space station in NM is heavily subsidized by taxes. But the state will probably make it back when it becomes the center of space vacations for the decades to come.

Profit

[Quila]

In my opinion, the following two projects were of far more importance to mankind and to private spaceflight than SpacShipOne:

But they're going nowhere without tax supports. The point of this is to make manned space flight profitable. As soon as it's profitable companies all over the world will be scrambling to make their own profit and practically unlimited resources will be poured into manned spaceflight. They want us all to choose space instead of a cruise in the Bahamas. When that gets common, they'll want us all to stay on their space station hotel for a week, then on their moon base, then vacations on Mars. There's no limit when there's profit to be made.

pwned!!1!one

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a flaming asshole, and am jealous of all you Libertarians, because YOU'RE SO FUCKIN' COOL. My problem is that I'm too stupid to see that, although this entire project is not much more than the US government was doing 60 years ago it is being done with private funds. Hey, maybe in another 60 years private industry will bring us a "reusable space plane" built using private funds and done a whole lot cheaper than the current gummint. Wow, that would be so fuckin' cool cuz when the Libertarians finally do get into office, we will have respect for them and start referring to them as "the government" rather than using overused, childish misspellings..

There, fixed that for ya.

Re:It is not NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

What we are tired of is the government, NASA, and the aerospace industry making all these pretty plans that never pans out. that, and relying on the shuttle way to much. Research is fine.

In Dilbert Terms...

[StCredZero]

Virgin Galactic. Allowing pointy hairs to see that the earth really is round, since the early 00's

Buick? How about a VW Bug with wings?

[StCredZero]

The spacecraft in "Chile Puede" looks like a VW bug with wings!

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1351338107&channel=1214718128

Re:Or a VW Bug "without wings"?

[Portfolio]

Or how about an example of technology we can use *already*, inspired by Space Ship One. A VW Bug without wings: http://www.aptera.com/

Re:Nothing to see here - Marketing!

[geek2k5]

The contributions to space exploration on the hardware side may be minimal, but when it comes to marketing, SS2 is going to have a big impact. Thousands of people will be able to have a taste of suborbital space akin to what the X15 pilots and the first Mercury astronaut had.

That joyride will encourage people to want more, creating a market AND a track record for airline style space flight. Both the market and the track record will encourage traditional lenders to provide cash for orbital flights.

You might also consider the possibility that frequently flown SS2s can provide a database for what to expect in terms of general wear and tear for part of an orbital launch and landing sequence. It won't show the full effect of the higher stresses of an orbital launch and landing, but it can provide some guidance to future designs. (I suspect that Boeing and others check the maintenance histories of older models when designing newer ones. This would be similar.)

I wouldn't be surprized if WK2 is used as a launch platform for what might be called SpaceShipThree, an orbital version using different launch and landing technologies. SS3 would be like SS1, going into orbit and landing with a minimal payload to prove that it works. Once SS3 is proven, SS4, the production version, gets built. That then starts to replace SS2 as both joyride AND materials transport.

Setting things straight

[Anonymous Coward]

SpaceX is making a legacy-free version of legacy technology, with legacy engineers stolen from legacy prime contractors. Not new, just different.

Scaled makes the wing on the Pegasus, not the tail fins. Scaled is helping to make space tourism more like taking a commercial airline flight, by choosing efficient trade-offs for the current mission. Future missions will require different trade-offs.

Orbit isn't everything, although I can understand the appeal for someone who spends so much time in his mother's basement.

Then don't complain....

[DrYak]

We need more celebrities and boy band members in space.

...if the SETI never catches no answer from any alien at all, after we throw all this garbage at them.

VSS Enterprise

[jsewell]

Another poster mentioned the additional pics on http://www.virgingalactic.com/pressftp/

If you check the picture in the second row, second from left you see something very interesting. Look under the picture of the Virgin "Galactic Girl" on the forward fuselage. It's faint, but you can make out "VSS Enterprise". It's a big image so you might have to zoom in on it.

Is this a Star Trek reference or are they following the US space program tradition of calling the first Shuttle Enterprise? Although that was in response to outcry from trekkies. Anyway, interesting none the less.

Re:VSS Enterprise

[Phydaux]

Hehe, you're right, good spot.

It may just be the guy who fabricated the image trying to add a trek reference though, and not something Virgin planned on calling their craft.

Dates

[GNUThomson]

In early 2005, soon after winning X-prize, Burt Rutan announced that SS2 will be operational in 2007. Last year Virgin Galactic promised to start regular flights in 2009. Now we are reading about 2010. Funny pattern emerges: Date of service start = current year + 2

Next step in reality shows and cheap entertainment

[Dasher42]

...sending one of those rare extremes of dogma, the flat-earther, in one of these. I'd pay to see that reaction.

Next up, flyovers of the Apollo landing sites on the moon. Pack some cameras for those footprints. I just want to see those nuts crack.

Economics are as important as Ballistics

[tm2b]

You're looking at it wrong. It's not Rutan who's the pioneer here, it's Branson.

The challenge in getting private passengers into space is not primarily a technical one - we know that if we throw enough money at mass, we can get that mass to orbit and back safely. What we don't know is that we can get a stream of big private money for joy-rides.

The challenge is a business and marketing one. Once Branson proves that he can get people off the street (very rich streets, but populated nonetheless) lining up to hand him bales of money to get into space for fun, it won't matter that orbital trips will use little-to-none of the technology that Scaled Composites is deploying for these suborbital trips. He will then be able to finance seriously big research - He'll have proven that people will drop a couple hundred kilobucks for a couple of hours in space - that is what we call a test marketing plan.

It's not exciting that SpaceShip Two is being tested and deployed, it's exciting that Virgin Galactic's business plan seems to be working.