The Cellar Image of the Day

Voila, the SpaceShipOne, or SS1 for short. It looks small, but it carries three people.

And there's the whole load of what will be needed to shoot that bugger into space, including the White Knight (WK), the catamaran-looking plane behind the SS1, and some humans to show you the scale of it all.

This is all designed by famed aircraft designer Burt Rutan. A lot more photos here of the whole thing. (Warning, those photos are HUGE.)

The concept is that the plane carries the SS1 as high as they'll go, 50,000 feet, and then the SS1 will separate and ignite the big-ass rocket to carry itself up to 62.5 miles. That's high enough so you're in space.

You don't spend much time there before heading back down; the whole trip is supposed to be only 30 minutes. You don't enter orbit - you just get way way up there.

If it works, it'll be the first private vehicle to make space and will collect a private $10M prize.

(I ain't going anywhere in that thing myself. It looks too much like a toy.)

Hat tip to 'spode again for pointing to it. full story here.

Don't forget Rutan's Voyager, which carried his brother Dick and his then-S.O. around the world, nonstop and unrefueled.

Burt is a bright boy, I'd climb in anything he designed without hesitation and ride it for all it is worth.

Looks like a GulfStream to me. That's where Rutan keeps the in-laws.

I like those ads -- "GoRVing." "What the hell is gorving?" heheh.

I wonder what Burt's aim is here. It can't be all about a lousy 10 million. He's not really achieving space travel, pictures can be had from a number of web sites and the shuttle is too small to allow a true appreciation of weightlessness. Where does the 62.5 mile high trajectory figure come from. I wish he would collaborate with Moller and give us the practical, affordable flying cars science fiction has promised us for decades.

Suborbital is a reasonable baby step to full orbital, private, reusable vehicle spaceflight, I think. Plus, it is likely to be the thrill ride of the next decade if all goes well. Burt *will* make money, over and above the $10 Million prize being offered.

Sometimes, people just do it because it is interesting to see if it can be done. Sometimes, they do it for that AND money.

Why not give the 10 million to the NASA r&d dept. Surely they're way ahead of the competition. Let them come up with a design, drawing on their vast experience of what does and doesn't work, then sell it to privateers along with exclusivity rights. If all he wants is a view he can go to Russia and buy one.

NASA would chew up $10 million in ink and paper costs alone for such a project. Besides, the prize is specifically designed to stimulate *private* space access. Some people feel that the government shouldn't have sole control of space, and I tend to agree.

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Originally posted by Elspode
NASA would chew up $10 million in ink and paper costs alone for such a project. Besides, the prize is specifically designed to stimulate *private* space access. Some people feel that the government shouldn't have sole control of space, and I tend to agree.

I'd like to see NASA return to a small crew transport vehicle, like Apollo. Russia is/was able to put up several Soyuz to our one shuttle launch. If Rutan can help out, I'm all for it. The Vari-Eze is what I remember Rutan for.

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Originally posted by novice
Why not give the 10 million to the NASA r&d dept. Surely they're way ahead of the competition. Let them come up with a design, drawing on their vast experience of what does and doesn't work, then sell it to privateers along with exclusivity rights. If all he wants is a view he can go to Russia and buy one.

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Originally posted by argonaut
Riiiiight, because NASA has developed how many new space launch systems in the last 25 years? Zero?

Of course, they did blow through over a billion dollars on the X-33 and X-34 reusable launch vehicles, which were never completed and never will be.

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Originally posted by tw

Actually the Delta Heavy and I believe the fifth version of Titan - both complete new designs - were developed since Challenger. Also a number of smaller rockets. In the meantime, France is into, I believe, its fifth version of Arianne - the world's most successful commerical launch vehicle.

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NASA's problems are not based in NASA. They are directly traceable to government. So the many calls from White House that are suspected to have pushed for a Challenger launch for Reagan's "Teacher in Space" speech in the State of the Union address. Or function of a Space Station Freedom, also ill conceived by a White House more interested in image than in science. X-34 was necessary for that space station. But suddenly government was no longer interest in spending money now that the Cold War purpose of a Space Station was redundament.

Even Space Shuttles had no productive purpose. Disposible vehicle technology was quashed by Reagan Administration that ordered all domestic launches to be put on Space Shuttle - even though that was stupid, technically naive, and expensive. So when Challenger exploded, the US inventory for launch vehicles was almost bare. Then a Titan exploded. Then the "always works every time" Delta exploded. NSA was said to be down to
their last spy satellite because available launchers were zero.

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And if that were not enough reasons to point fingers at Reagan's White House - then there was a private company in TX trying to get into the low cost launcher business. Reagan administration put the death knell into that venture as well.

Much of NASA problems are directly traceable to strategic objectives force upon it by political government officials who could not see science if it was put up their nose.

In the meantime, a science project that had serious and necessary objective - Super Collider particle accelerator in TX - was trashed by the George Sr adminstration so that money could be put into a useless Freedom Space Station.

And did we happen to mention Reagan's Hypersonic Airplane. At least when Kennedy directed this nation to great scientific accomplishments, he first made an effort to learn if it could be done. NASA is a victim of technically ignorant politicians whose legalized bribery is more important than the advancement of science. Science is what a properly directed NASA is suppose to be about - not political boondoogles and pork.

The Shuttle is hardly the epitomy of reusable. It costs such a tremendous amount of money to refurbish the Shuttle between launches that I've heard that it might actually be cheaper to use disposable capsules.

I have the feeling that NASA is a bureaucracy that is slowly being killed by Congress. Bizarre demands are set, pork barrel projects are demanded, and the cash flow is being constrained. NASA is being hollowed out until there is nothing left but crufty middle-management.

Give Jet Blue four or five billion and let them figure it out.

They'll probably go with a european design, but it will turn a profit and the astronauts will ride up in leather seats while watching movies on their own private screens.

Archer

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