SpaceShipOne Breaks the Sound Barrier

Scaled Composite Press Release ^ | December 17th, 2003

[hopespringseternal]

replicating an accomplishment is always less costly and achieved faster than the the original accomplishment took.

Unless the government is replicating its own accomplishments. Then you have to do everything the same every time.

That is why spaceflight is not fundamentally different or cheaper than it was 40 years ago.

[RightWhale]

SPDV. Not that anyone should consider that a sound investment. Pure speculation and just to own a piece of the space program to talk about when the relatives come over for Christmas dinner.

[RightWhale]

Repeating something that has already been done cheaper and faster does not prove a thing

Like replicating the Wright Bros first flight, except tripping over a curb and crashing in a puddle. Oh, well.

[My2Cents]

Reference to the fate of the BD-10, from the Bede website: http://www.bedecorp.com/info.htm

"In 1984, he commenced working on the BD-10, the world's first high performance personal jet. The BD-10, in addition to its significant general aviation market, has many versatile military applications as a primary and proficiency trainer. Micro Systems Inc., one of the foremost aerial target command and control companies, has selected the BD-10 (dubbed the Micro Systems Aerial Target, MSAT) as its entry in the next generation target drone market-place on the basis of the plane's supersonic capability, range, superb performance characteristics and low cost."

No reference to the plane ever actually achieving supersonic speed. It appears its main commercial value is that of a TARGET DRONE.

[Frank_Discussion]

"...Nasa has developed SEVERAL hybrid engines..."

I guess I'm going to have to look this up. I think, however, that your definition of 'hybrid' and the one that's being discussed are two different things.

"... it is correct they never attached them to an airframe..."

Which is the point you are missing. If NASA decided to build one, it probably had an intended target mission, upon which they DID NOT FOLLOW THROUGH. Sorry to yell, but that is a major problem with all failed endeavors, lack of completion. I know what I'm talking about here. NASA will not develop a subsystem without an intended use, and they would not have built the engines without a endgame mission to use them on. But please note: the INTENTION is not substitute for ACHIEVEMENT.

"...but that hardly is some stroke of genius..."

Nobody said the technology was the genius, it is more the fact that somebody just decided to do it. Anybody! I would be just as happy (well, almost) if it were NASA's achievement. Actually, it isn't even a question of genius, it's more a matter of intestinal fortitude, perseveres, and focus.

"SS1 did not develop a hybrid from scratch..."

You're absolutely correct. Another private company took the concept (and not a completed design) of a hybrid engine and built one for the SS1.

"Your continued attempts to compare apples to oranges is befuddling."

You're inability to see the big picture seems to be the source of your befuddlement. I'm saying that NASA is doing very little with spaceflight of ANY KIND, versus several companies doing a whole bunch. And NASA holds the keys to space? I don't think so.

I am not comparing exact vehicles and missions, I am commenting on NASA doing very little while the private sector is starting to find its pace.

"I agree NASA suffers from lack of a plan, largely because its subject to the whims of congress..."

While I'm not going to comment on the whole paragraph, I will say I agree. Once again, as I've related a number of post back, I really love NASA. When it has a mission, it kicks serious technological and historical butt.

I hope we get a new mission soon, and I expect when we do it will be at least to the Moon, and probably with a bigger goal of Mars.

Truce? (I gotta get back to work.)

[hopespringseternal]

STS is less costly than the Apollo program on a per astronaut or per flight basis.

That is misleading. A direct comparison is hard to do because the mission for each is so different. The shuttle has far less lifting capability as far as payload goes, but it is a mini-space station in itself. Not that such a thing is a good idea.

[Frank_Discussion]

"Nasa has developed SEVERAL hybrid engines..."

Here's a link:

http://www.hawkfeather.com/rockets/hybrids1.html

NASA Wallops Flight Facility mounted hybrids to the Hyperion 1A sounding rocket four times and launched them. And by the definition given, I know that Apollo used hybrids, hypergolics in this case, for the attitude controls and the LEM main engine. Hybrid in this thread (I thought) was referring to solid/liquid hybrids, true hybrids of solid fuel and liquid oxidizer.

Just FYI.

[Brett66]

A look at SpaceShipOne's mishap:

[King Prout]

do that again and I'll show you my "o-ring" face :)

[King Prout]

maybe you can answer a question for me then, one which has been annoying me ever since the ISS design was approved: What point is there in spending all this time and money on an orbital station if it has no capacity to serve as a graving dock for assembling space ships capable of shuttling between LEO and HEO or further?
Hmmmm?
As it stands, this ISS is nothing but MIR crossed with SpaceLab and dosed with a little Friendship stupidity. It's a friggin PR stunt, that's all. An abhorrently wasteful one, too.
NASA has lost its soul.
Anything sent into space must serve as a REAL stepping stone towards REAL interplanetary travel and exploitation. Otherwise, what's the point?

[RoughDobermann]

do that again and I'll show you my "o-ring" face :)

Yeah, yeah. Promises, promises. :-)

[Jeff Gordon]

Nasa sure isn't planning....

That sums it up nicely. The new NASA is all talk and no action.

[LibertarianInExile]

Well said.

[RightWhale]

no capacity to serve as a graving dock

ISS is modular. Construction capability may be added by sending up appropriate modules, which it seems will be done once NASA is redirected.

[XHogPilot]

AHEM. Someone forgot the Bede Aircraft BD-10…

Jim Bede's BD-10 was an awesome concept, but not successful. The first company developing it lost it's president in a BD-10 flap assymetry crash. The company that then took over lost it's president in a BD-10 structural failure crash.

[irv]

Which is what the government should have been doing for the past 20 years.

If they did that, how could they get the big budgets and important sounding titles? One of the biggest problems with bureaucracies is they are self-prepetuating.

[Final Authority]

History says that Goddard did indeed make the first liquid fuel rocket but to say that he had much influence on the Saturn V and prior manned space flight from 1960 on, would be to say that since the Chinese invented solid fuel rockets they designed the SRMs of the Space Shuttle. According to the history of rocketry as I know it, Goddard was designing primitive rockets before 1941 when he designed his first turbo-pumped rocket while the Germans had already flown a turbo-pumped rocket in the '30s. Goddard died in 1945.

Werner von Braun, a German engineer, became a US citizen, was the technical head of the Marshal Space Center from 1960 to 1970 and led the design teams putting man on the moon. He was supported by dozens to hundreds of German trained engineers and technicians working for the various contractors of NASA.

My concern about the collapse of the space program after 1970, at least with regards to manned space flight and heavy lift capability, is the politics of recognizing the influence of Germans (some former Nazi's) and the fact that instead of the due recognition some were deported, some retired, some died and few went on to mentor future engineers. I believe there has been a generation lost in technical knowhow to be successful in running a space program. I hope now that Scaled Composites can be a driving force behind the redevelopment of a successful program. BTW, engineers at about the time of the inquiry into a reusable space plane wanted a system much like Scaled Composites is developing, that is, a mother plane to take the vehicle to high altitude before using rocket propulsion. For some reason I remember a German scientist being the principle advocate of such a system, but I may be wrong.

[Light Speed]

A Documentary aired recently on the Rutans ...indepth..with a large segment afforded to early test pilot days.

Burt did lay it on heavy when Nasa was brought up..but he did mark the breakup of focus from the test pilot years into several commands and corporate interst.

Basically..it killed the inventive momentum which was occuring in the 50's and 60's.

Burt marked several key points...they were allready going over MACH 2.5 in those days..puking thier guts out under high G load.

Sarcastically ..Burt commented that if you put a late 50's early 60's test pilot in a Joint Strike fighter..he would say you haven't achieved anything in 40 years.

[AgThorn]

Love it!!

[mvpel]

Seems like construction of a spacecraft would jostle the various microgravity experiments around and foul up those big fat crystals they keep trying to grow up there.