Many of you probably know Burt Rutan drop tested the second stage of his suborbital passenger spaceplane on August 7th. You might be interested in some of the details of this historic event. White Knight, the first stage, was piloted by Brian Binnie with Cory Bird as co-pilot. SpaceShipOne flew with Mike Melvill at the controls.
The flight report states:
The space ship was launched at 47,000 feet and 105 knots, 10 nm east of Mojave. Separation was clean and positive with no tendency to roll off or pitch bobble. An initial handling qualities evaluation was very positive, supported close correlation to the vehicle simulator and with that confidence, the first flight test cards were executed as planned. The flight provided handling quality and performance data over 60% of the expected subsonic flight envelope from stall to 150 knots. Trim sensitivity, stick forces, control harmony and L/D performance were all as expected. The on-board avionics and energy management cueing displays performed flawlessly, the gear extension rapid, and the vehicle made a smooth touchdown at 7:56 local on Runway 30 at Mojave. The entire flight, from launch to landing, was viewable from the ground and SpaceShipOne with its unique planform was intriguing to watch as it cut gracefully through the air and was put through its paces.
The test flight time was 1.1 hours for White Knight and 19 minutes for SpaceShipOne.
The biggest thing between them and a first suborbital private launch on the Wright Brothers First Flight Anniversary in December is a pile of US Government forms. These will hopefully be processed in time as the bureaucrats involved are, from what I have heard, doing their best within what the system allows.
The process was begun very late… I will not go into details as I believe Rand Simberg may have discussed this earlier in the summer.
See what free men can do!
Great!!! i am a spacerace fan and Rutan designs are cool
I hope this is just the happy start of a new, private enterprise space race.
The X-Prize is a step in the right direction, but unless America, Europe and the rest of the world gets moving again, the next time we get to the Moon, all the restaurants will be Chinese.
but unless America, Europe and the rest of the world gets moving again, the next time we get to the Moon, all the restaurants will be Chinese.
Not unless they bring along lots of cats, which will need mice, which will need cheese (good dry crumbly cheddar, one hopes). Hmm, we may have the makings of off-planet industrial infrastructure in all this…
“unless America, Europe and the rest of the world gets moving again, the next time we get to the Moon, all the restaurants will be Chinese.”
The hell with all those governments. I wish them cold rockets and unreachable skies. Space properly belongs to the entrepreneurs.
Hey, what’s wrong with us chinese and our food restaurants?
Plenty of chinese entrepeneurs around nowadays. Take a good look around. So why not into space?