I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet.
Spaceway is (was?) a satellite based broadband internet system that it's developer, Hughes Network Services, pretty much bet the company on. The distintive feature of SpaceWay as to put a router on the satellite which had the promise of helping performance dramatically. With Murdock's purchase of DirecTV, they also got HNS. HNS is now on the chopping block. The only value of the Spaceway satellites had to Murdock was as DirectTV birds. The router will still fly, but I doubt it it will have much functionality.
The industry way waiting to see if Spaceway was the revolution that HNS promised. The odds were maybe 50/50. But I think now we won't even see how well it worked.
You can read what Spaceway was about at http://www.spaceway.com
I have a 2002 Chevy Avalanche 4x4. It has a 5.3l V8 and I get 20 mpg on the highway. I don't really measure it for city driving except for how many miles I get per tank of gas. Because there's a wide disparity between how the Avalanche gets used from day to day and week to week, there's no right answer to how far I go on a tank of gas. But I expect to see 350 to 400 miles on the trip odometer when I fill the tank. That represents 2 to 2.5 weeks worth of family use.
I use to have a 77 Chevy half-ton truck with a 350 V8 when I was a university student. It was probably 1000lbs lighter than the Avalanche. I tried hard to suck all the efficiency out of it I could. I entered an IEEE sponsored road rally to try and get the best economy in my vehicle class. I duct taped all the body gaps, and with some coroplast and more tape, covered over all the big holes, like the wheel wells. The truck box was faired over with more corplast and tape. In the end, I basically had an aerodynamic shell over the truck. On top of that, I leaned my carb out to probably dangerous levels (it was a short trip;) The best I could get out of that was 19mpg.
So I count myself lucky, that all the computer based efficiency and emission systems on my Avalanche really do a world of good. I'm still amazed that a big old SUV like the Avalanche can get 20. I've had a minivan that could barely get 20.
Burt's tactic with this vehicle is more like aircraft development that rocket development. With aircraft development, you pretty much always have a pilot. Flight after flight, the aircraft slowly goes a bit faster, higher or heavier until finally it's been into every part of it's envelope the designers intended.
In the 50's, nobody was certain that a man could survice in the space environment, so there was much more experimentation with the biological issues of space flight rather than the systems operations side of it. That's all behind us now.
X-Prize is all about risk. Rutan doesn't mind taking the risks. I've heard him advocate one way missions to Mars. If a pilot dies, I'm sure his program will be re-evaluated. But that's the choice of all those involved, including the pilot.
Estes is coming out with an X-Prize insprired product line that will hopefully include a SS1 model.
http://www.rocketshoppe.com/
Keep those model rockets flying!
In the FAQ http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/n ews/062104.htm it says that the airport will be closed to transient aircraft days in advance. You'd want to get there early. However, showing up in a Long-EZE is probably a good way to get a good parking spot.
There is no provision for a bail out. Burt contends that the double pressure hull is redundant enough. He had some exposure to pressure suits with the Proteus and I guess he didn't like them.
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I think Ecliptic does the onboard ET video. They're website is here: http://www.eclipticenterprises.com/ I would imagine they'll post video soon like they've done for other launches. http://www.eclipticenterprises.com/gallery_rocketc am.php
I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet. Spaceway is (was?) a satellite based broadband internet system that it's developer, Hughes Network Services, pretty much bet the company on. The distintive feature of SpaceWay as to put a router on the satellite which had the promise of helping performance dramatically. With Murdock's purchase of DirecTV, they also got HNS. HNS is now on the chopping block. The only value of the Spaceway satellites had to Murdock was as DirectTV birds. The router will still fly, but I doubt it it will have much functionality. The industry way waiting to see if Spaceway was the revolution that HNS promised. The odds were maybe 50/50. But I think now we won't even see how well it worked. You can read what Spaceway was about at http://www.spaceway.com
I have a 2002 Chevy Avalanche 4x4. It has a 5.3l V8 and I get 20 mpg on the highway. I don't really measure it for city driving except for how many miles I get per tank of gas. Because there's a wide disparity between how the Avalanche gets used from day to day and week to week, there's no right answer to how far I go on a tank of gas. But I expect to see 350 to 400 miles on the trip odometer when I fill the tank. That represents 2 to 2.5 weeks worth of family use. I use to have a 77 Chevy half-ton truck with a 350 V8 when I was a university student. It was probably 1000lbs lighter than the Avalanche. I tried hard to suck all the efficiency out of it I could. I entered an IEEE sponsored road rally to try and get the best economy in my vehicle class. I duct taped all the body gaps, and with some coroplast and more tape, covered over all the big holes, like the wheel wells. The truck box was faired over with more corplast and tape. In the end, I basically had an aerodynamic shell over the truck. On top of that, I leaned my carb out to probably dangerous levels (it was a short trip ;) The best I could get out of that was 19mpg.
So I count myself lucky, that all the computer based efficiency and emission systems on my Avalanche really do a world of good. I'm still amazed that a big old SUV like the Avalanche can get 20. I've had a minivan that could barely get 20.
Burt's tactic with this vehicle is more like aircraft development that rocket development. With aircraft development, you pretty much always have a pilot. Flight after flight, the aircraft slowly goes a bit faster, higher or heavier until finally it's been into every part of it's envelope the designers intended. In the 50's, nobody was certain that a man could survice in the space environment, so there was much more experimentation with the biological issues of space flight rather than the systems operations side of it. That's all behind us now. X-Prize is all about risk. Rutan doesn't mind taking the risks. I've heard him advocate one way missions to Mars. If a pilot dies, I'm sure his program will be re-evaluated. But that's the choice of all those involved, including the pilot.
Estes is coming out with an X-Prize insprired product line that will hopefully include a SS1 model. http://www.rocketshoppe.com/ Keep those model rockets flying!
In the FAQ http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/n ews/062104.htm it says that the airport will be closed to transient aircraft days in advance. You'd want to get there early. However, showing up in a Long-EZE is probably a good way to get a good parking spot.
There is no provision for a bail out. Burt contends that the double pressure hull is redundant enough. He had some exposure to pressure suits with the Proteus and I guess he didn't like them.