SpaceShipOne Makes it!

[Publishers]

One thing

One thing to think about is the money being spent on light jets like the Eclipse or Safire to certify a relatively benign design and for the Safire or Cessna Mustang, a traditional construction method. These guys are spending $100's of millions with no aircraft yet at all.

On the other hand, the concept of spending $20 million for a $10 million prize refelcts true aviation thinking.

 

[jarhead]

On the other hand, the concept of spending $20 million for a $10 million prize refelcts true aviation thinking.

Hmmmm......maybe it's something more than just the money? Guys climb Mount Everest and don't get a dime for it. The old slogan of "just because it's there" comes to mind.

 

[LAXSaabdude]

Hmmmm......maybe it's something more than just the money? Guys climb Mount Everest and don't get a dime for it. The old slogan of "just because it's there" comes to mind.

Obviously you aren't familiar with Publishers' way of thinking, then. Everything boils down to the bottom line. There is no "human" element.

LAXSaabdude.

 

[jarhead]

Hope this works.........

Here is a link to a pretty good photo gallery of today's launch and recovery.

http://www.startribune.com/images/ss/1184_0.html

 

[enigma]

Ability? No. Fairness? Yes.

Mark this day on your calenders. I agree with the pagan. Seniority may strike some as being an anchor holding the best down. I see it as a shield, protecting me from butt kissing suck ups and the managers who show them favoritism.

enigma

edit. Congrats to the entire team, especially Burt Rutan. Mr. Rutan continues to provide a light shining in the darkness that is aircraft design innovation.

 

[redd]

David and Goliath...

One of the most notable achievements by Rutan and SS1 is the fact that they were able to overcome a problem that NASA with all it's billions of dollars of funding couldn't seem to ever figure out. He did it at a fraction of the cost, and in a shirt sleeve environment.

The problem is of re-entry and the aero/thermal/speed loads that contributed the shuttle Columbia's disintegration upon entering into the earth's atmosphere.


"[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]An unusual design feature of SpaceShipOne reduces the heating loads of the vehicle on reentry. Before reentry begins, the vehicle raises the trailing edge of its wing, along with its twin tails, to more than a 60-degree angle to the horizontal. This "carefree" reentry mode, Rutan said, is designed to put the spacecraft into a "superstable" configuration that is far more forgiving to trajectory errors than the space shuttle or the X-15. The wing and tail sections are rotated back to the horizontal position at 24,000 meters to allow the vehicle to glide to a landing....The SpaceShipOne "wings are folded up to provide a shuttle-cock or "feather" effect to help stabilize the vehicle for reentry." The "'Care-Free' configuration allows a 'hands-off reentry and greatly reduces aero/thermal loads." Here's the link for this article:[/font]
http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/RLV/2003/RLVNews2003-04.html

In fact, the committee that was set up to investigate NASA and the shuttle disaster, Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), recommended that NASA figure out another way to achieve re-entry before ever sending anything manned outside the earth's atmosphere again, something which unfortunately, NASA with its incestuous culture has chosen to ignore and is unable to figure out.

Other CAIB recommendations included changing the bureauocratic political culture at NASA, which will be the hardest thing to do in my opinion. A good article analyzing the Columbia accident and the CAIB report is by William Langewiesche (son of Stick & Rudder author) in the Atlantic Monthly.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/11/langewiesche.htm

CAIB report and website:
http://www.caib.us/


Rutan is a true aviation and engineering pioneer with the the highest of motivations, and should be commended for his achievements.


"Rutan...said he is developing this private spacecraft now in the hopes of igniting a "renaissance" in spacecraft development similar to the one seen in aviation between 1909-1912. While by 1908 only the pilots had flown, by the end of this three-year aviation renaissance hundreds of aircraft types had been developed and thousands of pilots had flown. The development of a private suborbital spacecraft could create a similar renaissance in spaceflight to end the decades of stagnation in government-run programs, Rutan said....[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The unveiling is not a marketing event. We are not seeking funding and are not selling anything. We are in the middle of an important research program - to see if manned space access can be done by other than the expensive government programs. After the unveiling, we will go back into hiding to complete the flight tests and conduct the space flights.[/font]...."

 

[eddie]

The press release from Scaled Composites said he reached 328,491 feet.

 

[Kingairrick]

redd:

I'm not trying to start anything.
The shuttle begins re-entry at around Mach 25, SS1 peaked at around Mach 3. There is a slight difference in frictional heating in those two speeds. SS1 doesn't turn the air into plasma for instance.
Rutan definately is the $hit though...

 

[redd]

Exactly!

Man, but that's exactly the point, Rutan did it without the speed, the backward flight, the angle, the plasma, the heat, the tiles, the spacesuites, the funding, the masses of engineers, the huge orginization, the committees...need I go on?

Behemoth NASA hasn't changed the way a/c breakthrough and re-enter the atsmosphere since they started manned flights, and still hasn't discovered what Burt Rutan knows.

 

[jarhead]

To be fair, Rutan did not need to, nor did he ever approach speeds required for orbit. Once those speeds are reached in space, the energy must be bled off upon re-entry. I can't fault NASA engineers for not having designed the shuttle for a low speed re-entry.