SpaceShipOne
Posted by: ejl on 04 October 2004
Won the X-prize this morning.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/technology/04CND-SPAC.html?hp
After watching a documentary on this last night, I have to say I came away very impressed with Rutan and his project. This was some incredible shoe-string engineering coupled with balls-to-the-wall, and often terrifying, flying.
Some of the more interesting factiods:
- The ship is carbon fiber composite; i.e., cloth and glue. As a result, if it doesn't re-enter just right it will melt in an instant.
- Some parts of the ship were literally scavenged from automotive junkyards.
- flight controls are all manual gear and cable designs because the team couldn't afford anything else; no electrical motors and I'm not even sure about hydraulics (although it seems like there must be some somewhere). Remember that this thing's travelling several times the speed of sound into space.
So now three of the world's largest nations and one shoestring-budget group of 20 people can get to space.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/technology/04CND-SPAC.html?hp
After watching a documentary on this last night, I have to say I came away very impressed with Rutan and his project. This was some incredible shoe-string engineering coupled with balls-to-the-wall, and often terrifying, flying.
Some of the more interesting factiods:
- The ship is carbon fiber composite; i.e., cloth and glue. As a result, if it doesn't re-enter just right it will melt in an instant.
- Some parts of the ship were literally scavenged from automotive junkyards.
- flight controls are all manual gear and cable designs because the team couldn't afford anything else; no electrical motors and I'm not even sure about hydraulics (although it seems like there must be some somewhere). Remember that this thing's travelling several times the speed of sound into space.
So now three of the world's largest nations and one shoestring-budget group of 20 people can get to space.
Greg,
There's quite a list of people willing to pay big bucks to ride on SS1 (it carries three). Rutan's group claims they could make a profit now since their flights are so cheap. Whether this will be the case after a few people get killed, however...
There's no doubt that flying in SS1 is incredibly risky. Yet I also can't help but think that the basic design is so simple and elegant, especially in its solution to re-entry, that the safety prospects of more developed variations might be pretty good.
Let's face it, the highly-complicated space shuttle has hardly proven itself a paradigm of saftey. Indeed, its sheer complexity has required a massive engineering and administrative network to operate. That network has now proven the achilles heel -- not once, but twice.
Rutan's group now wants to build a manned orbital vehicle. If his past success is even a partial indicator of the future, he may have it more quickly than we might think.
There's quite a list of people willing to pay big bucks to ride on SS1 (it carries three). Rutan's group claims they could make a profit now since their flights are so cheap. Whether this will be the case after a few people get killed, however...
There's no doubt that flying in SS1 is incredibly risky. Yet I also can't help but think that the basic design is so simple and elegant, especially in its solution to re-entry, that the safety prospects of more developed variations might be pretty good.
Let's face it, the highly-complicated space shuttle has hardly proven itself a paradigm of saftey. Indeed, its sheer complexity has required a massive engineering and administrative network to operate. That network has now proven the achilles heel -- not once, but twice.
Rutan's group now wants to build a manned orbital vehicle. If his past success is even a partial indicator of the future, he may have it more quickly than we might think.
I'm just glad it wasn't Steve Bennett what done it.
Great show though - maybe I will get into space after all.
'Remember men, you are all over 40. You must accept the fact you will never become an Astronaut'
Stephen
Great show though - maybe I will get into space after all.
'Remember men, you are all over 40. You must accept the fact you will never become an Astronaut'
Stephen
Cliff, you're right that orbital flight is considerably more difficult for the reasons you mention (plus others like the significant extra fuel required to propel a craft to orbital altitudes).
However, SS1 is at zero velocity only at the apogee of its trajectory. After that it starts falling very quickly (negligible air resistance) and is going several times the speed of sound before it hits the heavy atmosphere. So there are still real thermal problems on re-entry, even if they are not as severe as for orbital craft.
Rutan solved the problem by creating a swinging wing design that both slows SS1 through the upper atmosphere and insures a correct angle of attack during re-entry (it also solves the otherwise deadly weight-balance problem caused by the empty fuel tanks). So because the craft's going slower (belly flopping, basically) and because the angle-of-attack on reentry is guaranteed (another major challenge for more normal space ships), SS1 gets away with much less thermal sheilding -- the sheilding doesn't need to be as thick and they know exactly where to put it.
Acheiving stability in super-sonic flight at normal altitudes is difficult by itself. Add the problem of stability in high-altitude atmospheric flight, and the further problem of stability in spaceflight, and you're looking at some major challenges for one design to satisfy (the dynamics differ in each context). The added challenges of re-entry and landing, and the enormous problems of keeping all of this under-weight and on-budget, made this project far from easy peasy (as I'm guessing you may know
).
Eric
However, SS1 is at zero velocity only at the apogee of its trajectory. After that it starts falling very quickly (negligible air resistance) and is going several times the speed of sound before it hits the heavy atmosphere. So there are still real thermal problems on re-entry, even if they are not as severe as for orbital craft.
Rutan solved the problem by creating a swinging wing design that both slows SS1 through the upper atmosphere and insures a correct angle of attack during re-entry (it also solves the otherwise deadly weight-balance problem caused by the empty fuel tanks). So because the craft's going slower (belly flopping, basically) and because the angle-of-attack on reentry is guaranteed (another major challenge for more normal space ships), SS1 gets away with much less thermal sheilding -- the sheilding doesn't need to be as thick and they know exactly where to put it.
Acheiving stability in super-sonic flight at normal altitudes is difficult by itself. Add the problem of stability in high-altitude atmospheric flight, and the further problem of stability in spaceflight, and you're looking at some major challenges for one design to satisfy (the dynamics differ in each context). The added challenges of re-entry and landing, and the enormous problems of keeping all of this under-weight and on-budget, made this project far from easy peasy (as I'm guessing you may know
).Eric