SpaceShipOne Sucessfuly Launches!

[vf-xx]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/21/suborbital.test/index.html

Woot!!! We now have our first privately funded spaceship! Burt Rutan rocks!

[Jeffy-CanCon]

Very cool!

[Hasty8]

It also landed and lfew a perfect mission. It reached an altitude of 62 miles which is 2 miles above the accepted border between atmosphere and outer space.

I wonder what this means for future large-scale commercial stellar flights.

[PyRo]

62.5 miles = space

[MaChu]

AWESOME Commercial space flights to the moon here we come, but why would we want to go there, you got me. Nothing but rocks and dust....AND CHEESE!!!! WOOT count me in!

[Hasty8]

You're right. I mesread the article. Still they hit the requirement for the Ansari X prize.

[aaron_mag]

What I really want to know is if they found a cheaper way to do it than NASA. That would be great!!!!

[MaChu]

If you read, Rutan funded the whole project with $20 million. Considering that one of NASA's launches cost like some $100 million, just for a launch, that doesn't include the building, research, etc in developing what Rutan did. NASA sucks, Rutan rocks!

[Hasty8]

If you read, Rutan funded the whole project with $20 million. Considering that one of NASA's launches cost like some $100 million, just for a launch, that doesn't include the building, research, etc in developing what Rutan did. NASA sucks, Rutan rocks!

You forget one very important issue in your calculations.

The economy of scale. In this case, the basic size of the two programs. Rutan did this with just a handful of people and built a tiny little thing whereas NASA employs hundreds of thousands of people and built the luxury car of the stars so far.

I'm pretty willing to bet that if Rutan wants to compete on actual size then it will cost him a similar amount.

[PyRo]

Your also forgetting this isn't getting into orbit. The shuttle goes about 3x higher than SpaceShipOne.

[aaron_mag]

You forget one very important issue in your calculations.

The economy of scale. In this case, the basic size of the two programs. Rutan did this with just a handful of people and built a tiny little thing whereas NASA employs hundreds of thousands of people and built the luxury car of the stars so far.

I'm pretty willing to bet that if Rutan wants to compete on actual size then it will cost him a similar amount.

I'm not disagreeing that the shuttle does more than the Rutan ship. But you should know, however, that economy of scale means the opposite of what you posted. The per unit cost should go down as production goes up...

[Hasty8]

I know. I meant to put quotes around the term. T'was a typographical error, which if you read most of my posts are frequent.

Also, I meant to say that I agreed with you that should Rutan go for the big version he will prolly be able to do it cheaper than the gov't has.

I'm just busy eating my salad.

[brianlojeck]

My wife is an Aerospace Engineer, and because of this I once had the chance to take a tour, lead by the owner, of a company here in SoCal that designs and makes disposable (non-reusable) rockets for putting satellites in orbit and whatnot.

A perfect example from this tour of how small companies can build stuff so cheaply is this. In the space shuttle they need to be able to bring up LARGE items (like ISS parts), so the shuttle has to be over 150 feet tall (it's WAY over 150 feet tall). This makes it heavier, so you need bigger thrusters, which also make the craft heavier, so you need BIGGER thrusters. Also, once the craft gets over 150 feet tall (why I chose that as a reference point) you can't get into it with a cherry picker, so you need a dedicated launch tower, so you need support staff, etc... it's a big spiral.

A lot of that Nasa cost isn't waste, per se, it's a natural funtion of what they want the craft to do. If you are only sending up a few people with no appreciable cargo you can do it cheaply in a small craft.

of course, some of it is waste. Rocket engines need to Gimbal to steer the craft. Nasa custom-engineered a gimbal at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and each one is a one-off construction. This guy who's factory I toured buys the Union joint from a Mack truck's driveshaft .

Rutan's craft will be GREAT for tourists and ISS crew transport, but I shudder to think how big Knight1 will have to be to carry a craft large enough to store a week's worth of food and piss tanks.

[nippinout]

I'm very disappointed with the coverage of the event.

CNBC, FOX, CNN, Headline all had some coverage, but they were very weak. Of the takeoff, all they showed was some taxi action and takeoff. Barely saw any coverage of the rocket engine, and the entire landing sequence was just the actual touchdown.

Such a historical event, and barely any coverage.

[Dryden]

Some good points, too many that I'm not going to quote everyone, just throw in a couple of opinions/observations.

Low altitude (relatively speaking) orbits have been commercially available for decades. The lack of a human payload is the only thing that keeps lauches from being front page news. Rockets from the USA, Russia, China, Japan, and other countries have been putting communications satellites into orbit with daily regularity. Much like NASA's shuttle program, it's become so commonplace, that only the spectactular failures warrant any news coverage.

Scaled Composites hasn't won anything yet, as the real "prize" is awarded for taking 3 passengers into space twice on the same craft within a two week window. Dumb luck (e.g. Mother Nature) has a lot to do with anyone accomplishing this feat. It's also not mentioned often enough that the X Prize competition's rules (Rule 4) require, "the winning flight vehicle should exhibit sufficiently low per-flight costs such that the flight vehicle will support low-cost space access." Of course this is entirely subjective. What is a "low-cost" ticket to outer space? $500? $5,000? $50,000? The question is whether or not a company like Scaled Composites can take the White Knight/SpaceShipOne concept craft and make a 100 passenger version of it. While their flight today is an amazing accomplishment, I wouldn't award them the X Prize until I can afford a ticket without having to sell my car, house, and soul to afford one - at least not by the X Prize's own guidelines.

I think the successful test of SpaceShipOne and the eventual launches from other companies like Armadillo Aerospace will send some rumblings through NASA and Congress. NASA, I think, will either have to apply the privately developed principles to their own program, license or sub-contract the construction of the vehicles, or abandon a large part of what is their most visable accomplishment, the STS Shuttle program. Deep-space radio observations, solar system probes, and the JPL projects aren't nearly as glamorous, save for three wildly successful Mars rover missions in the past five or six years, but unless NASA says, "We're going to land a crew on Mars in 2020," there's little reason for them to pursue manned flight, particularly at the cost of the current program and in light of the Columbia disaster.

My rhetorical questions from this.

How many years will it take for Scaled Composites to meet NASA's current standard of range, duration, and payload capacity, especially considering how quickly they got from concept to successful test, apparently with ZERO failures? Obviously, they're no threat to NASA yet, but I wouldn't underestimate the engineering talent at Rutan's disposal.

How many years before someone else (Armadillo, da Vinci, Canadian Arrow, etc) gets a craft higher than 150 feet off the ground and poses a legitimate business threat to Scaled to force competitive prices?

How many failures will occur before the FAA shuts down the whole concept?