SpaceShipTwo Mothership Makes Maiden Flight

RobGoldsmith writes "Earlier this week images were appearing on the Net showing the WhiteKnightTwo craft doing some tests in Mojave. The earliest tests showed perhaps two of the engines being used, while a later test showed all the engines working and some further testing. Today the four Pratt & Whitney Canada PW308A engines finally carried the craft into the air. The maiden flight of the WhiteKnightTwo lasted just shy of one hour and happened today at around 08:15 local time, at Mojave air and spaceport. Rumors suggest that a Beechcraft King Air was used for a chase plane. The craft will be used to position Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo craft to fly into space; this is estimated to happen around 2010."

Comments

Beauty of Capitalism

[Bordgious]

The field of personal space travel is opening up! This is the beauty of capitalism.

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[node 3]

The field of personal space travel is opening up!

This is the beauty of capitalism.

And it's only just getting there over 50 years after socialism did it.

Both socialism and capitalism have their places. Capitalism wouldn't have gotten us to the Moon in the 60s. Socialism won't get the masses into space in the 10s. A healthy society has a balance of both.

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[CarpetShark]

Capitalism is hardly responsible for it. No private company did this, until the Ansari X Prize subsidized them. That prize money was donated, making SS1 of charitable origins. Capitalism is anything but charitable. In fact, between the charity money and the academic foundation that dreamed up the whole thing, it's closer to a centralised, socialist model.

"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all." -- John Maynard Keynes

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[evilviper]

No private company did this, until the Ansari X Prize subsidized them.

That's more or less a happy coincidence. Rutan didn't set out to create spacecraft for the sake of winning the X Prize, nor could it, since it didn't exist when he started. Not to mention that the 1 Million price wouldn't be very much motivation... It was only shortly before Rutan's team was practically ready to launch that Ansari stepped in a ballooned the cash prize into something respectable. At most, the X Prize nominally sped-up the first test flights, and increased the amount of press coverage.

Everything since then has been purely, undeniably, capitalistic. Richard Branson isn't paying to develop a fleet for the sake of some subsidy, somewhere.

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[Cassius Corodes]

I would say its not socialism or capitalism that got us into space to begin with. It was nationalism, the military and propaganda. Both the soviets and Americans didn't go into space as a normal part of their economic development / output - they did it to one up each other and to explore military possibilities and advantages from having a pedestal in space. Its still plays a large part in the recent revival of national space programs.

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[lysergic.acid]

so true. the private sector won't invest in fundamental research or new and yet unproven technology. that's why you need public research to do these things that push society forward.

nothing has prevented private companies from investing in space research/travel in the past 4-5 decades. they just chose not to because it wasn't seen as "financially viable." and if we'd simply waited for the private sector to develop space technology then we would never have gotten GPS, communications satellites, interplanetary probes, the Hubble Space Telescope, etc.

but now that public research has paved the way for commercial space travel, companies like Virgin Galactic can use public research and the technology developed through public funding in order to commercialize space.

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[node 3]

You're talking about motive. I'm talking about economics.

The economic system that took us to the Moon was socialism. The economic system that is launching Virgin Galactic is capitalism.

Apollo was very much about nationalism and militarism, as you stated. It was also about exploration, science and futurism (although those alone, I suspect, would not have sufficed to draw the needed budget). But regardless the motive, it was *only* possible, during the 60s (and even to this very day) as a socialist endeavor.

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[lysergic.acid]

the Toyota Prius is hardly fundamental research or cutting-edge technology. however, the Japanese government did invest in Toyota's hybrid gas-electric technology, purportedly subsidizing 100% of its development cost.

so while there's no Toyota Government Agency, Japan does however have:

• MEXT (the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology)
• METI (the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry)

and their government actively funds science and public research through these organizations. the Japanese government also owns a large (1/3rd) share of their national ISP/telecom, NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone). and this kind of active support and funding of technology is why Japan has become a global technology leader. it's also why Japan is leading the world in FttH deployment and its citizens have access to 1 Gbps symmetric broadband connections for $0.057 per Mbps, whereas Comcast is charging $3.00 per Mbps for asymmetric "wideband" connections.

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[lysergic.acid]

if you want to call the existence of NASA "government obstructionism" then, sure. but that hasn't stopped companies like Sea Launch or FedEx from competing with government services.

that same argument has pretty much been used to lobby for the privatization of all kinds of public infrastructure, which is generally at a detriment to society. you want NASA to stop launching satellites just so an uncompetitive commercial company can have a chance to profit unobstructed, or do you want the government to push technological progress (including commercial technology as well as vital public infrastructure) forward?

Re:Beauty of Capitalism

[__aapspi39]

To me it is plainly ludicrous to think that free market capitalism will contribute toward space exploration in any meaningful way - unless you seriously think that pleasure trips into low earth orbit for rich individuals are what its all about that is.

The only way that capitalism can really help out here is by continuing to wreck the planet to such an extent that people need to buy themselves an escape. Even here there is the problem that the inability of capitalism to see or plan ahead is what makes them so effective at polluting - and terraforming requires very serious planning, if it can ever work at all that is.

Even when capitalism had a global superpower behind it, it seemed to bogged down by its own shallow goals and could never really produce the goods. If you look at the contrast between the goals of the two respective programmes (US vs USSR) then this is borne out effectively.

For example, even to a child without the benefit of hindsight, I could never see the point of going to the moon, unless you're engaged in pointless showboating.

It seemed to me that the US reacted to the fact that the USSR had gotten the satellite into space, the first man into space etc and needed a publicity stunt to try and convince the public that they were keeping up.

While the US went on to quietly forget about the moon and tried to get somewhere with the increasingly disastrous shuttle, the Russians pushed ahead with their space station Mir, which was by all accounts a huge success.

I do not eat babies

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a socialist and I approve of this message

Mojave?

[contra_mundi]

This needed a Mojave test to ditch all the negative association? Now I'm a only a bit less certain about not flying there, than my wallet.

Universe?

[evilviper]

It is these spaceships that will allow affordable sub-orbital space tourism for the first time in the history of the universe.

That's a little presumptuous, don't you think? In the multi-billion year history of the Universe, and all the innumerable planets that have ever existed in it, you're really SURE that there hasn't ever been any affordable space tourism?

No technologically inclined species on a small planet with rather low gravity? No planets with super-volcanic mountains that peak just slightly shy of orbit? No species of living beings robust enough that they can handle the massive G-forces of being fired out of a cannon on the ground? etc.

Boy is your face going to be red when the Quixblarxians land their space ship in the parking lot of the nearest courthouse just to sue you for defamation of their space tourism industry...

Re:Universe?

[lgw]

And the cat would always observe whether the cat was dead or alive.

I just love this...

[sockman]

I don't know why space flight is so fascinating, but this is just incredible. I'm really sad that I was born too late to experience the moon landings, so attempts like this to pick up the slack of the once dominant leader in space exploration are just exciting.

Re:I just love this...

[Lavene]

I don't know why space flight is so fascinating, but this is just incredible. I'm really sad that I was born too late to experience the moon landings, so attempts like this to pick up the slack of the once dominant leader in space exploration are just exciting.

Isn't it funny... I'm sad I was born too early to experience a (manned) Mars landing.

ob Canuck joke

[Hognoxious]

the four Pratt & Whitney Canada PW308A

For readers in the USA, the equivalent model is the PW308.

Re:ob Canuck joke

[robinesque]

PW308 "eh?"

Re:Man those Burt Rutan planes sure are ugly

[node 3]

Besides, I don't think it's ugly at all.

Neither do I, but on to your main point...

Would you prefer it work well, or look good?

Both are generally possible.

Unless, of course, it's designed to reach (sub)orbit by being repulsed by the Earth.

Re:Odd to use a King Air

[Moofie]

Raytheon (Beech's parent) scrapped most of the Starships. I believe one or two are still airworthy, despite Raytheon's aggressive attempts to get them all out of the sky. The last owners have amassed a large stockpile of spares.

It's a shame. The Starship was truly the Way of Things To Come in aviation. It never performed quite as well as hoped, but it paved the way for large composite structures in commercial aviation.

Capitalism doesn't mean that

[SteveFoerster]

No private company did this, until the Ansari X Prize subsidized them. That prize money was donated, making SS1 of charitable origins. Capitalism is anything but charitable.

Oh, please -- if you knew anything about capitalism you wouldn't be quoting Keynes as an authority on it.

Simply put, there's nothing whatsoever that's anti-capitalist about private charity, in fact quite the opposite. It's the coerced "charity" of the welfare state with which capitalists disagree. But if something's voluntary, capitalists are fine with it.

Disco Stu

[clarkes1]

the actual video of the launch is here: WhiteKnightTwo launch