Spaceship One

[den]

Spaceship One re-entry configuration test800x600 jpg

More photos and the results of flight tests here. Spaceship One has done 10 glide tests, The most recent was on Dec. 4th.

Burt Rutan is my hero.

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

I did read that, and I was very impressed.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[thewatcher.livejournal.com]

Was channel surfing before the cricket started at about 10:30 or 11 this morning (looks at time) correction yesterday morning and flicked through SBS which had the russian news on.

Now as my Russian is a little bit rusty past Da. and Dos Vadanya ;-) I couldn't be sure exactly what was going on but you know what they say about a picture and the whole thousand words thing.

It appeared to be a Russian space vehicle. It looked very much like the ill-fated Buran. It didn't appear to have any name or logo or particualrly identifying marks on it although thinking about it now MTBKA seemed to be significant.. might have to google for that.

Not having a clue what was being said I'm not sure how far along they were or any of the technical details. But say what you like about the Russians but two things are true they are a very practical people and they have the space experience.

Two things come to mind MTBKA sounds rather familiar, wouldn't be surprised if it was a Russian deisgn bureau a la MiG or Sukhoi or Yak. the other thought there is that I'm thinking of MBB the German outfit.

Either way thought it was interesting sorry I didn't have more details.

-TW

[dwaggie.livejournal.com]

Is that a Monaro dashboard in the icon? ;)

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

yep! It's my rev-head/technical icon. 8)

[camstone.livejournal.com]

Burt rutan is a master of engineering. I see what he does and while not beyond the stands of conventional engineering... he indeed gets every bit of my respect and admiration.

REgardless, I have reasonable concerns with privitation of space. Not so much that it's not possible - but that we have so heavily "Nasa-ized" it, that any company willing to make the investment - will be paperworked to death before they can make the first real flight. Fortunately, for Dick Ruttan, he's taken a short cut that no one else thought of... build it first, and they will come. They, being congress. Congress after this got started, quietly told NASA and the Air Force to help and learn from what Burt was doing... and don't interfere. Probably one of the few times COngress did something right.

Not quite right...

[yasha-taur.livejournal.com]

I seriously doubt that there were any such instructions given to NASA, and if there were, it further shows the incompetence of Congress, since what Rutan is doing has very little to do with what NASA does.

NASA implemented its 'faster-better-cheaper' program about a decade ago. It has had several spectacular successes (Mars Pathfinder, Mars Odyssey, MGS and NEAR to name a few). And when pushed too far into the faster and cheaper range, a few miserable failures.

Obviously there will be some serious regulations on any real space flight. The X-Prize entrants are just making a sub-orbital hop. The energies needed to go up into orbit, and the energies you need to dissipate to come back, are much greater than any of the X-Prize guys are even close to approaching. Plus, to do anything 'serious' in space, they are going have to scale up, and that means a lot bigger rockets, etc... And as the Colombia disaster showed, if you don't manage these energies correctly, not only can they destroy the spacecraft but also potentially endanger the population over a wide area. (unless they do all climb-outs and re-entries over the oceans. Ooops, there's a regulation.) You can bet there will be lots of regulations. Hmmm, begins to sound a lot like what NASA faces.....

If it sounds like I'm dismissing Rutan, I'm not. What he's doing (and the other X-Prize entrants) is wonderful, imaginative, and a needed step in getting better access to space. But what they are doing is a 'baby step' compared to what NASA already does. And being the no-nonsense guy he seems to be, I'm sure that Rutan would be one of the first to admit that. Rutan probably will succeed with his X-Prize entry, but after that, what does he DO with it??? This is more a tech demo than a space program. NASA hasn't developed a 'public space program', but then they were never told to by Congress.

As too few politicians have learned, the laws of physics don't care about politics or economic philosophies. If going to space was easy, we wouldn't have only a few countries with satellite launch capabilities, and only three with manned launch capability. As was pointed out recently, the US and the old USSR combined have launched a few dozen probes to Mars, and less then half have been successful. And you sure can't blame NASA for what the other countries are NOT doing. But doing space successfully is hard to do.

BTW, if all goes well, NASA has a comet fly-by on Jan. 2nd, a Mars landing on Jan. 4th, and another Mars landing on Jan. 24th. Then in July, Cassini reaches Saturn, and in September a craft will return to Earth with collected Solar particles.

[kelloggs2066.livejournal.com]

Go Burt!
Go Burt!
Go Burt!

:D

Scott

[twoolfe.livejournal.com]

I had a Great Uncle Elmer Rosen who said his life was a wonder. He had lived a span which had allowed him to see both wagons crossing the northern plains and a man walking on the moon.
I remember newsreels of destruction caused by the V2. I remember getting hooked after reading Rocket Ship Galileo the first time, and closing down an entire business to gather around the radio for mission control describing the Mercury shots. I saw the shuttle at Edwards. And maybe, just maybe, I'll see commercial space flight and the beginning of the next era. I hope so.
Go Burt, Go.
T.