SpaceShipOne made it!

[sachmo]

Awesome news! SpaceShipOne made it into space!

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

[Ragnarok-X]

very good news. Just another 15 years and MAYBE i could as well fly into space.

[Captain Kwok]

Cool. I didn't even know that it was going to be a manned flight, even cooler!

[David E. Gervais]

Now all he needs to do is get that bird up there again within 2 weeks and he can claim the $10,000,000 X-Prize. (does anyone know if a second flight is already scheduled?)

Very interesting, I hope he manages to get up there within the week, it would make the project all the more interesting. It would also prove that 'weekly' flights into space are now within the realm of possibility.

Cool stuff.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Edit: P.S. The ship also looks like a good design for a se4 shipset. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ June 21, 2004, 16:51: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

[Gandalf Parker]

I thought the X prize also required that it be 3 people. And I was surprised to hear that there are 26? other civilian companys competing for it.

-- (sig line) I always knew the future was coming.
What worries me is that every day it seems to be picking up speed.

[ June 21, 2004, 16:56: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[gregebowman]

Well, I'm glad to hear it made it too. Now if more civilian companies could do this, maybe we all can make it into space someday without shelling out $20 million. I sure would love to go, if only to the outer edge of space around Earth. Who knows, maybe even before I'm 50? (I'm 41 now.)

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by David E. Gervais:
Now all he needs to do is get that bird up there again within 2 weeks and he can claim the $10,000,000 X-Prize. (does anyone know if a second flight is already scheduled?)
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This wasn't an X-prize flight. This was just the latest in the series of test flights. It's important because this is the first to cross the 62 mile boundary. To win the X-prize they will need to have three people on board like Gandalph said.

[ June 21, 2004, 17:13: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Intimidator]

I think the way off launching is very promising, it certainly looks more futuristic than an old fashion rocket-propelled launch.

Just go up with an plane and use your rocket thrusters for the final push, not for the first 100 metre's which is consuming fuel very fast!!

And indeed very cool looking vehicle, Oh man I am certain that the pilot had a " Better than SEX experience "

Inti,

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Ragnarok:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by geoschmo:
[qb]To win the X-prize they will need to have three people on board like Gandalph said. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Edit: Forget what I said. I was misreading the page.

[ June 21, 2004, 17:24: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by Ragnarok:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by geoschmo:
[qb]To win the X-prize they will need to have three people on board like Gandalph said. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Edit: Forget what I said. I was misreading the page.

Edit 2: Stupid double post.

[ June 21, 2004, 17:24: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

[Atrocities]

Lets all forum our own company and fly into space and get the prize.

[Wardad]

Originally posted by Intimidator:

...And indeed very cool looking vehicle, Oh man I am certain that the pilot had a " Better than SEX experience "

Inti, <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">NOT POSSIBLE!!!

[EvilGenius4ABetterTomorro]

The pilot is 62 years old. Don't know if he said it was better than sex but he did say it was a religious experience. People say you never want to get behind an old man with a hat while driving, but at Mach 3.2 this old man burns rubber. Literally that's what the rocket motor burns. Rubber and liquid nitrous oxide.


Nasa surveillance telescopes did show the pilot left his turn signal on for the past 100 miles.

[David E. Gervais]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
I thought the X prize also required that it be 3 people. And I was surprised to hear that there are 26? other civilian companys competing for it. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yup, you're right. I forgot about the 3 person payload requirement for the x-prize. Thanks for reminding me. But it shouldn't be long now.

Oh, and I really think the SpaceShipOne will be the winner. but some other might swoop in with an old traditional capsule on a rocket design and grab it.

SpaceShipOne is by far the best looking of the x-prize contenders.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Randallw]

Originally posted by Intimidator:
Oh man I am certain that the pilot had a " Better than SEX experience "

Inti, <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ah, but was it a better than SEIV experience. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Edit: I just looked at a list of the other contenders and I must say they seem a bit primitive. Sure they might get into orbit, but most of them plan to parachute down again. One even launches from a balloon. I realise the actual prize isn't going to pay for development, so they mostly seem to be just an attempt to grab fame by getting in first and winning.

[ June 22, 2004, 11:29: Message edited by: Randallw ]

[dogscoff]

I hope this doesn't cause any of the other contenders to cut corners and do anything stupid in a hasty attempt to beat the SS1 team to the prize.

Many lives were lost in the early days of aviation and land-speed record breakers due to similar competitive urges...

[Raging Deadstar]

That is a scary thought... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[Will]

I thought to get the X-Prize, all a team had to do was have a manned vehicle *capable* of launching three people into orbit twice within a 2-week period. i.e., there needs to be three seats, and the weight equal to three persons added in, but not necessarily three people. To be manned, the vehicle needs at least the pilot, but the two passengers aren't a strict requirement (at least from what I interpreted). So, a pilot with two crash-dummies in the passenger seats (I think) would qualify.

[geoschmo]

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

Peter Diamandis, co-founder of the X Prize, the $10 million award intended to spur civilian spaceflight, said Rutan's vision would open the door for those with the same dream.

"This is a warm-up for the Ansari X Prize, but it's a historic moment for all Americans," he said. "[I've heard], 'If God wanted us to fly into space, he would have given us more money'. Hopefully, the technology demonstrated here today will lead to designs that are cheaper and easier."
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"> Rutan said SpaceShipOne would compete for the X Prize once the causes behind the anomalies had been resolved.

"We will be looking at all our data," he said. "We'll make a decision next few days."

After that, preparations for an official X Prize flight are finalized will take 60 days.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

[geoschmo]

And from the official X-Prize rules:

3. The flight vehicle must be flown twice within a 14-day period. Each flight must carry at least one person, to minimum altitude of 100 km (62 miles). The flight vehicle must be built with the capacity (weight and volume) to carry a minimum of 3 adults of height 188 cm (6 feet 2 inches) and weight 90 kg (198 pounds) each. Three people of this size or larger must be able to enter, occupy, and be fastened into the flight vehicle on Earth's surface prior to take-off, and equivalent balLast must be carried in-flight if the number of persons on-board during flight is less than 3 persons.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://www.xprize.org/teams/guidelines.html

So, no, they don't have to have three people onboard, only be capable of flying with three people, and no, this flight won't count as one of the two flights needed for the X-Prize.

[Ragnarok]

One down, one to go. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6126386/)

Well, this is pretty exciting. SpaceShipOne has made their flight today, the first of 2 total flights within a weeks time.

[Timstone]

Please forgive me for saying this.
I've known of this project for quite some time now. I can't say I've followed it very closely. It's good to see it finaly comming to an end. I hope the Rutan wins. He's one of the coolest planebuilders around. Go Burt!
No flames so far, heh.

Here are the flames you've been waiting for.
This flimsy "spaceship", if you can call it that, is not very cool. It looks stupid, amateuristic and far tooo small. Okay, I like the design, it's better then the boeing 7's (they all look the same), but it still doesn't look like a military grade battlecruiser.
Yeah, I know it was a contest for CIVILIANS. But still. Why don't they just put the hands together (form a huge corporation) and develop something like an extension for the ISS. From there you can build, launch and recover spacecraft. Hell, you can even launch tourists in space (don't get too close to the copper bully). I think this contest has a too narrow field of vission. Their goal is too limited.

Please don't take offense of this message, this is just my vision.

[Intimidator]

Maybe you are right, but see it as pionneers work.
I saw in the newspaper that within one month they will put tourists in space with that craft.

So as soon the big companies notice that there is a market for it they will join asap !!

Inti,

[Timstone]

I surely hope so. Coz, that's one of the few reasons why companies are willing to invest in it.

[Baron Munchausen]

Yes, good news but not nearly such a big deal as some people are making it out to be. This is a sub orbital flight. A true orbital mission needs to build up something like ten times the speed (= energy) of this flight. And then be able to bleed it off when returning! We're still a very long way from commercial manned space flight without government help.

[Randallw]

In the paper here for the Last 2 days they have stories about Richard Bransons new company "Virgin Galactic" which claims in 3 years they will start space trips for $A300,000 (which is about $US210,000) for a 4min flight. It has him holding up a model of SpaceShipOne with Virgin markings, and it says they are going to build a small fleet. One entrepenuer here (who runs an electronics store chain) says he'd be willing to do it but only if he gets to be the pilot (he's a bloke who once flew a helicopter across Antarctica)

http://www.virgingalactic.com/

[Kamog]

$210,000 US? All right, I'm going to go up in space and see the earth from space one day! That's my goal, to do that within my lifetime. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Will]

Just an update, SpaceShipOne has made it again, and Scaled Composites now has the $10 million (US) X-Prize!

Space.com Story (http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/xprize2_success_041004.html)

[se5a]

Yup, not confermed yet though. but it got up there and landed safely.
looks like it went without a hitch to.

[Intimidator]

Kamog said:
$210,000 US? All right, I'm going to go up in space and see the earth from space one day! That's my goal, to do that within my lifetime. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif




$210,000 is a lot of money but a lot of people will pay for it (I am absolutly sure about that) So a lot of new companies will emerge and the price will drop ( http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif wishfull thinking) enough in 10 years so that I can afford it (wishfull thinking again)

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[mottlee]

David E. Gervais said:
Now all he needs to do is get that bird up there again within 2 weeks and he can claim the $10,000,000 X-Prize. (does anyone know if a second flight is already scheduled?)

Very interesting, I hope he manages to get up there within the week, it would make the project all the more interesting. It would also prove that 'weekly' flights into space are now within the realm of possibility.

Cool stuff.

Cheers! &lt;img border="0" title="" alt="" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /&gt;

[b]Edit: P.S. The ship also looks like a good design for a se4 shipset. &lt;img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="images/icons/tongue.gif" /&gt;

&lt;small&gt;[ June 21, 2004, 16:51: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]&lt;/small&gt;



This was the 2nd flight http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Randallw]

Now the question is how long until Microsoft Space Simulator 2005 comes out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. What I am interested in is if it can just make it into space can it be used for long range travel?. You take a short flight into space then return and land on the other side of the world after a half hour flight, or do you have to actually make orbit to do such a thing?.

[mottlee]

NO you could go like an Artty shell, up skip out then down no reason that you could not us ANY long runway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Kamog]

I wonder if those other competitors will still go ahead with their flights, now that the X-Prize has been claimed by Scaled Composites? I thought there was another team in Canada who was going to use a balloon to launch their vehicle from... and many other teams as well.

[Ragnarok]

Kamog said:
I wonder if those other competitors will still go ahead with their flights, now that the X-Prize has been claimed by Scaled Composites? I thought there was another team in Canada who was going to use a balloon to launch their vehicle from... and many other teams as well.



The article I read indicated that they would. Why? So that they could be the first in space from their respective countries... But for others in the US I don't know if they will continue or not.

[Bill Door]

Now the question is how long until Microsoft Space Simulator 2005 comes out . What I am interested in is if it can just make it into space can it be used for long range travel?. You take a short flight into space then return and land on the other side of the world after a half hour flight, or do you have to actually make orbit to do such a thing?.



Why wait and pay for MS Space Simulator 2005 when you can get Orbiter (http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/~martins/orbit/orbit.html)now and for free? There is supposed to be a new Version coming out soon.

And yes, sub-orbital (aka, you get up there but don't go fast enough to make orbit) flights are a possible means of long distance flight.