SpaceShipOne Breaks the Sound Barrier

Scaled Composite Press Release ^ | December 17th, 2003

[Frank_Discussion]

There is so much here to respond to, and you keep saying things that are so off the mark. Let me start:

"My beef is when these people just bash the underlying efforts that have allowed these private companies to create what they have created in such a brief period of time and for the costs they have."

Part of the beef is that if so much of this groundwork has been done, why doesn't NASA with all of its resources just whip up a a new vehicle to service station real quick? Because they can't seem to stick with a single design long enough to finish. SS1 has gone from initial idea to 60K feet with very little stalling organizationally, and it looks like the craft is technically ready to win the X-Prize.

"When previous Nasa and military programs have already solved the big problems, it is certainly correct and expected that the next ones out there will be able to replicate it cheaper or faster."

When NASA launches a sub-orbital twice in two weeks, then your statement will be true. You are absolutely right in that previous experience via NASA and others has been folded into SS1, but the agency isn't doing anything with it.

"about hybrid engines.. it is correct that they got scrapped, but NASA did the underlying work and has had various models operational..."

No. NASA has not powered a vehicle, or at least an operational one with a mission, that I know of with a hybrid engine.

"... so this SS1 while is neat did not start with a clean slate."

When designing ANYTHING there is no such thing as a clean slate.

"...the ludicrous claim that this accomplishment enforces the notion of private enterprise can replace government programs particularly in the areas of research and development and space exploration etc."

What's ludicrous? Of course private enterprise can replace government programs, they'll just follow the profit. Have you seen the petroleum industry, for example? The government doesn't own it, it's a huge field of work, with massive levels of scientific and industrial research. It did it by itself.

"Just don't try to claim that the private industries move to build them doesn't get a HUGE boost from all the stuff that came before..."

I don't think anybody here is really saying that, any more than they could say "naw, I don't need that Newton fella, I's gots my own fissiks!" Of course there's the previous work, no doubt about it, but NASA isn't implementing it. And that's the big achievement - a change in mindset, breaking the magical mystique of the big government space program. Somebody, actually several somebodies now, has finally turned the corner and said "Y'know, I bet I CAN build my own spaceship. Let's just build it."

There is a difference between claiming you can do something and actually doing it.

"... because that's just ideaological nonsense."

It would be such nonsense if you were correct. You're not. Everyone knows, and especially those competing for the X-Prize, there has been a large body of work before this period in history. That's where the confidence in building these machines is coming from.

There is an undercurrent, though, and I think you're misreading it. The builder of these spacecraft are finding relatively easy success, and looking at NASA quizzically, wondering what it is doing with the same information and greater resources.

NASA did Apollo when no one else could, and built shuttle when no else could, but they've rested on their laurels and it shows. The agency can do more than it is doing, but if as you say they have such a large body of knowledge to stand upon, it has no excuse for not moving forward.

[Frank_Discussion]

As an engineer working on ISS, I can tell you that it's a pretty sweet machine, even if a bit homlier than the visions of Von Braun.

[ericthecurdog]

Looks like I was wrong... look at the replies.

[RightWhale]

Richard C Hoagland opined last night that the ISS would be expanded to support building moonships and Mars-ships right there. This would be a set of new modules that weren't part of the original design, so the ISS as it would look now upon completion would have a whole new wing added, which might well dwarf what is there now. Heard anything?

[HamiltonJay]

No, this one is legit, might want to look it up, Nasa is funding research as we speak.

[Redleg Duke]

Woops! The left landing gear collapsed. We need to ground this man-killer until a government financed panel can be conviened to spend $40 million investigating this incident which has probably pushed the environment into terminal global warning.

This is a painful reminder that we cannot do anything without approval and guidance by the government.

{/sarcasm}

[Major_Risktaker]

As an engineer working on ISS, I can tell you that it's a pretty sweet machine, even if a bit homlier than the visions of Von Braun.

Cool Work!

Frank, if a space station spins can gravity be achieved and how is the inside shielded from radiation?

Thanks for the post again...

[Frank_Discussion]

Haven't heard that, but such decisions would be much higher up the food chain than me. It's plausible, though. The whole system is built with numerous common interfaces and subsystems, so plugging new modules on and switching them around is part of its intended abilities.

I'd certainly like to see it.

[Frank_Discussion]

I just saw an article the other day about using DNA assembler to build nanotubes, so things may be looking up for space elevators! (Pun intended.)

[Redleg Duke]

How the media whores can spin a success into a failure.

[Frank_Discussion]

IF you try to spin ISS, you'd have mucho barfing. There is a certain minimum spin radius inside which all human beings eventually succumb to yak-city, and ISS would be well inside that number.

But, yes, you can spin up a properly designed and proportioned station to get a force to hold you to the floor, though it's not gravity of course. That'll come along.

[Moonman62]

NASA will fund anything as long as they can spend other people's money, like anti-gravity contraptions.

[Frank_Discussion]

Oh, and the gravity shielding bit. If you're relating it to the spinning idea, it does make much difference. In general, other than x-rays, a great deal of really high-output radiation is blocked by the magnetic field of the Earth. Outbound spacecraft have two problems: The Van Allen belts surrounding the planet and the stellar wind.

The former is a very dense region of radiation surrounding us, and will definitely fry you if you hang around too long. Apollo dealt with this by simply ripping through it quickly, so the crews only got a few hours' exposure each way. The Solar wind is something else, and will require techniques we haven't used yet, like water tanks, hydrogen tanks, or engineered magnetic fields for shielding.

[RightWhale]

The design lifetime of the ISS is 15 years, but with new modules constantly being attached it seems the lifetime would get kind of fuzzy. They would have to have a station in LEO anyway for the moon and for, possibly, Mars if they expect to run regular shuttles with any kind of cost-effectiveness, and they can either build yet another station or expand the ISS. The cost might be the same, but the psychic impact of a new station might perturb the anti-space crowd unduly. With constant renewal the lifetime would become indeterminant, and the ISS would have a use more in line with what we see in the movies, so ISS expansion would probably be much more palatable in Congress.

[Moonman62]

As an engineer working on ISS, I can tell you that it's a pretty sweet machine, even if a bit homlier than the visions of Von Braun.

I stopped paying attention after they closed the astronaut's logs because there were so many complaints, and I looked at the $100 billion price tag. I wish they'd crash it into that target in the Pacific so I can get myself a free taco.

[HamiltonJay]

Frank,

For the last time, Nasa has developed SEVERAL hybrid engines... your claim otherwise is quite frankly false. it is correct they never attached them to an airframe, but that hardly is some stroke of genious. SS1 did not develop a hybrid from scratch, taking an existing engine and attaching it to an airframe is not a great leap.

Engine designs are far far more complex and costly than airframes.... taking an proven engine and bolting it to an airframe is not something that I'm going to say "they replaced the R&D at NASA etc..." They didn't they just took something that had already been built and applied it to an airframe.

As to your comments about access, again, as I stated before, when has NASA's mission ever been about putting a sub orbital 3 man vehicle to the upper levels of the atmosphere? Never... and frankly why should it be? Your continued attempts to compare apples to oranges is befuddling.

NASA has never been chartered and never will be chartered to provide you and your family with a cheap method to go into orbit for a vacation. So the fact they haven't focused on that is hardly astounding.

The X project requires 3 people to 65 Miles above the earth, 3 times... big whoop. This is great for private sector to be exploring this if its profitable, but its not something that undmines NASA or Military research.

I agree NASA suffers from lack of a plan, largely because its subject to the whims of congress... the Shuttle should have never really been built based soley on costs... they knew going in the thing was going to be more expensive to operate than simple single use vehicles... but the push was done to do it anyway for political reasons... show up the Russians, and frankly force them to waste their resources trying to duplicate it. Which they did hook line and sinker, even thought the ruski's own engineers called the US spade for exactly what it was, it didn't stop the USSR from a massive attempt to copy it... simply because if the US is doing it it must be a good plan... of course it wasnt.

2 Spectacular failures, huge costs to fly and maintain, etc etc etc.... NASA now has this albatross around its neck, and a congress that largely doesn't really see space exploration as anyting to be funding... so yes, the entire organization has become a somewhat bastard child... However NASA and the Military are doing research that most of the public knows little about... and there is not a rocket or hybrid engine being built today that doesn't ride HUGELY on the backs of the research and developments done at Nasa and military labs.

Now the cold war is over, and we don't need to show up the russians, and Nasa is largely forgotten and space is pretty much passe.... NASA does need a vision, and it is quietly doing things today that if they pan out, will change the world in many ways.... IN fact there is a lot of government research not only space related, but in all areas going on that the public in general doesn't know squat about... I work for a company know that is doing research for various government agencies including NASA, and the stuff they are doing is pretty darn cool.

Stuff that would never be touched by the private sector, because they couldn't afford it. The payoffs will be huge, but private enterprise can't spend BILLIONS of dollars to research something and not know how it will pay off exactly fiscally, if they could then hey great, but reality is that they can't... so those BIG BIG BIG issues get driven by government/military and then down the road that research pays off indirectly in numberous ways.

If congress had given the thumbs up to a replacement vehicle for the shuttle like they should have a long time ago, it would be flying now.. (Or better yet had not allowed politics to dictate the space program in the 70s the shuttle would have never been built) but we all know they didn't.

[Frank_Discussion]

TANSTAAFT!

[My2Cents]

Ah well...I have found it wise not to question the collective knowledge of Freepers. But I would have thought the BD-10 had gone supersonic, too.

[RightWhale]

All true, but beside the point. The private sector wants access to space and it isn't happening through government programs. Some in government have been throwing up roadblocks all along as only bureaucrats can do. Rutan's suborbital ship isn't access to space and no one is claiming it is. But what comes after SpaceShipOne, and at considerable expense even if not at government levels, will provide access to space for the private sector.

Will SpaceShipTwo use a hybrid motor? That's just technology; the orbiter will use whatever motor works and is within budget.

[sandydipper]

What's the symbol? and the present per share cost?