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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.
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.
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
for SpaceShipXP Service Pack 4.
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.
"Is Donald Trump a racist? I'll let you decide 'Yes' for yourself."
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).
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
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.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
More pix: http://www.virgingalactic.com/pressftp/
Maybe we should all chip in and buy them one of these: http://www.angryflower.com/aposter.html
Help find a cure for cancer!
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
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
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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.
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"
"He Who Dares Wins"
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
We need more celebrities and boy band members in space.
Not on this rocket: it's designed to come back.
Blank until
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
and build Spaceball 1?
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
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.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
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?
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
...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.
Imagine a ski, versus a wheel.
It's simpler and more lightweight. Less moving parts. Also probably a lot easier to package.
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?
"Is Donald Trump a racist? I'll let you decide 'Yes' for yourself."
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.
Yes...except you need to subsitute "in addition to" for "rather than for".
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
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.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.
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.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
I don't want cutting edge space technology. I want reliable space technology that won't fail catastrophically 2% of the time.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
***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.
> 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?
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
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.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
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.
"Is Donald Trump a racist? I'll let you decide 'Yes' for yourself."
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.
;) 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.
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.
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.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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?
"Is Donald Trump a racist? I'll let you decide 'Yes' for yourself."
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.)
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.
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.