Burt Rutan at 211,400 feet

[falcon20driver]

Pretty cool http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...s/incapitalventurerocketreachestheedgeofspace

 

[njcapt]

Bert is such a stud. Now I gotta come up with a hundred grand to get a ride on the thing. I wonder if that's an allowable withdrawl from a 401k?

 

[sstearns2]

His name's Burt and I recommend waiting until the thing is well proven. I'd persoanlly rather goto Russia and fly a Mig 29 for a couple hours. Running canyons at 600 knots sounds a lot more fun that going up really high. It's probably a lot safer too.

Scott

 

[jarhead]

211,400 feet devided by 5280 feet in a mile, puts it up at 40 miles AGL While high, it's not quite the edge of space, IMHO. The apogee of most orbiting satelites will rarely get lower than 100 miles, and never below 90 miles, or the orbit wil decay.

Yup, high, but no fear of getting hit by a sputnik of some kind

 

[ez_driver]

OK, just think about it....

Mike Melville, the pilot who flew the flight, remarked about watching the sky turn from blue to black, and how it was the highlight of his career with scaled and he would pay a million bucks to see it again.

Imagine looking out of the window of the spaceship one and seeing the earth's curvature.

This is fantastic stuff.... Civilian pilots realizing it. It is a milestone, and on a budget of around $25million. Ask NASA what that will buy you.

Ez_driver

 

[Publishers]

Incredible

This was incredible and did not get the pub it should have. A private company went to space and back landing just like you could at any airport in the country.

In these times of news that makes you want to vomit, what an accomplishment.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

Here's the official website:
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/flight_data/flt_data.htm

Highlights of Powered Flights:

Dec-1st powered flight-15 seconds of engine burn.
68K feet and 1.2M

Apr-2nd flight-40 seconds of engine burn
105K' & 1.6M

13 May-3rd flight-55 secs. burn
211K' & 2.5M

They're on the way to winning the X-Prize!!!

CLiff
LRD

 

[SDCFI]

The SpaceShipOne rocket carried 62-year-old test pilot Mike Melvill to heights usually reached only by astronauts and MILITARY (my bold) pilots.

Do they know something about our military aircraft we don't?

Great accomplishment for a civillian company.

 

[Jedi_Cheese]

X-15 made it to space I think.

 

[UnstableAviator]

X-15 made it to space I think.

After a 5 second google search....


According to NASA's site, the X-15 made it to 354,200' (67 miles) on 8-22-63.

 

[EagleRJ]

Space is recognized to start at an altitude of 100km (about 62 miles). Several of the X-15 pilots received astronauts wings, since their flights broke that barrier.

I think Scaled Composites is very close to reaching that and claiming the X-prize. It's quite an achievement, but after this, we need to start a competition to be the first civilian team into orbit. That would be a goal with practical applications other than taking rich tourists for a short flight.

 

[Publishers]

XR71

I do not know if the XR71 ever got to the 200k plus but it went up in the same 100k plus area.

 

[saabcaptain]

check out the view these guys have on the way to 62.5 miles up... WOW!!!

 

[saabcaptain]

LOOK AT THIS!!!

PS: this photo is from the second to last test flight which reached apogee nearly 100,000 feet lower than the latest flight. can you imagine what the pictures look like from the most recent flight... i haven't found any yet.

 

[Publishers]

feather

Do any you understand how the "feather" concept works or how it is used?

 

[saabcaptain]

From what I understand the whole wing pivots 90 degrees to the body so the front of the wing points downward. the aircraft then makes a near verticle decent until near 40,000 feet when the wings return to normal position and a glide is established.

I think.

 

[ez_driver]

Take a look at the Scaled website and look over the info on Space ship one. For example: http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/New_Index/data_sheets/PDF/Posterboard - SpaceShipOne.pdf

There is 3 drawing on this page that show the three flight configurations.

There is a hingeline about 2/3 of the way back on the wing. The tails are attacted via booms from the wingtips back. When in feather mode, this hingeline folds nearly 90 degrees. This forms a V with the front 2/3 of the wing and the back 1/3 of the wing and tail feathers. The vehicle decends with a very nose high attitude with the flight surfaces now forming a V. Burt likens this configuration to a badminton shuttlecock. This is a high drag configuration with a very stable equilibruim. This was Burts way of avoiding the precise trajectories that the X-15 and all other spaceships use.

If this can be adapted to an orbital vehicle, it will be truly revolutionary.

Ez_driver

 

[saabcaptain]

all of this is to the tune of $25 million, with research starting in 99, building in late 01, and flying in 03. if they can put a aircraft in space (albeit not orbit) for that kind of money it puts our goverment and NASA to shame.

as someone else said... ask NASA what $25 million buys. NOTHING.

we need to explore space, explore Mars etc. i just have lost faith our goverment can do it anymore, perhaps dreamers like Burt Rutan can.

 

[EagleRJ]

Correct, the feather position is to limit the airspeed during the descent. There's so little aerodynamic resistance up that high that it would be too easy to build up a whole bunch of speed and reach a much higher Mach number. That would cause aerodynamic heating that the composite structure couldn't take.

This design can't be adapted for orbital flight. You would need so much heat shielding to protect the composites that it wouldn't be practical. The thin tailbooms would be impossible to protect from the heat, too.
Any orbital designs will probably be a capsule or lifting body design like those already flown, with an ablative heat shield or reusable silica tiles like the Shuttle.