Posted on 10/04/2004 8:47:44 AM PDT by Mike Fieschko
Brian Binnie (top left in image), flew the second leg of the X Prize competition in Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne.This is the final successful attempt for the XPrize. The $10 million prize is given to the first privately financed team who can make two successful manned space flights in a craft able to carry three people.
The aeronautic rules also states that the pilot must come back in good health, i.e. "survive for 24 hours after landning".
Images of the Pilots, Brian top left, and today's space flight - bottom.
"We are heading to orbit sooner than you think," Burt Rutan, the creator said earlier. "We do not intend to stay in low-earth orbit for decades. The next 25 years will be a wild ride. ... One that history will note was done for the benefit of everyone."
Rutan said he expects the flight of SpaceShipOne to have an effect comparable to a set of public demonstrations that the Wright brothers carried out in Paris in 1908.
The reason, Rutan said, is because those demonstrations showed people "that's something I can do, because a couple of bicycle shop guys can do it". In the same way, he said, this low-cost flight into space will lead people to realise that "hey, this is something for us to do now, this is not just for governments ".
Vulcan, Inc and Scaled Composites the companies behind SpaceShipOne, are of 24 companies from several countries competing for the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which will go to the first privately funded group to send three people on a suborbital flight 62.5 miles (100.6 kilometers) high and repeat the feat within two weeks using the same vehicle.
The nonprofit X Prize Foundation is sponsoring the contest to promote the development of a low-cost, efficient craft for space tourism in the same way prize competitions stimulated commercial aviation in the early 20th century.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has invested more than $20 million in Scaled Composites to create the manned program -- a fraction of what government-sponsored efforts have cost.
"Space flight is not only for governments to do," Rutan said. "Clearly, there's an enormous pent-up hunger to fly into space and not just dream about it."
The craft embodies several innovations, including a unique hybrid rocket motor, a new method of re-entering the atmosphere that requires no active controls, and the first operational space vehicle made entirely of carbon composite rather than metal.
The Eagle has landed. SpaceShipOne has won the 10 million X Prize contest, and opened a new route to Space.
The pilot, Brian Binnie, grabbed the previous Mike Melvill's torch and flew the second leg of the X Prize competition. A graduate of the U.S. Navy's test pilot school, he was at the controls when SpaceShipOne broke the sound barrier for the first time on a December test flight, which was marred when the craft hit the runway of Mojave Airport hard upon landing and veered into the brush.
Kudos especially to the emphasis on genuine space exploration well outside of low earth orbit.
I am a huge supporter of the space program but have lamented the emphasis on Low Earth Orbit missions that have dominated our space program for the last 30 years or so, as the moon missions were phased out.
Here, light this cigarette on that burning monk. SSO is awesome. I wanted to do that. Crap. I coulda been a contender. Short Intel. Kerry delenda est.
bump !!
The question is--how much demand will there be when the cachet of bragging rights diminishes? The more who cut their notches on that bedpost, the less desirable the bedding.
Keep in mind that this is not a useful and nifty little PDA (new tech), but a staggeringly expensive and fleeting "experience" that comes and goes with nothing but the snapshots to show for it.
Better-late-than-never, already-pinged-ping to my good old pal, RA.
Must one put a sarcasm tag on every sarcastic post?
Mind you, Jesus promised that the poor would always be with us so it seems that your trying to dig a hole on the beach and fill it with all the water in the ocean!!!
BTW the space program has returned $7 for each $1 spent. Not many business that can claim that ROI. The fact that you can post at Free Republic is a function of the spin-offs from the Apollo Program!
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
NASA's thrust limiters are already warming.
George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent
Election 2004 threads on FR
I was glued to the tv, cheering them on. It was the most exicted I have been about a public event in years. If I could afford a ticket I would go in a heart beat.
There was a program on the Discovery Channel about placing a clear dome on one of the smaller moon craters and building a resort, or small city. Then it went on to show after several generations of births how humans would evolve to look in the moons light gravity field.
If the fed would stop squandering our money it would be a done deal already.
Throwing money at population problems without correcting the infrastructure is like starting with 10 cats in your back yard and then just supplying food in ENDLESSLY INCREASING AMOUNTS.
You may have the cable program "Animal Detectives" that showed what happend in one such case. The man had to live in his garage, was spending $1000 per month on cat food and there were over 300 cats in his house. They were in the attic, the walls, the basement. And the smell...
Or Jimmy Carter.
Thanks for the links.
No problem. It is a rich vein of history that continues to reveal puzzle pieces without a coherent whole. Ask SunkenCiv if you want to be put on that ping list.
Nope, I don't use Google toolbar, though I do use the integrated Mozilla Google search.
Don't be lazy, learn how to search, it is not cool to ask or question what you should know and are just to lazy to look up.
I'm pretty fair at searching, though I suspect on a topic such as this there would be an inordinate number of crackpot sites to sift through in search of hard information. That's where an informed opinion helps, and FR is probably one of the best places on the net to get that.
Thanks for the heads-up!
LOL Good one!!
Thanks my friend. :-)
Check your local listings.
Documentary on now: "BLACK SKY: THE RACE FOR SPACE".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.