[Brett66]

I was wondering what happened to Rutan's ship. It's been 3 months since it made a flight. It probably required a bit more repair than expected after it veered off of the runway and crashed after making it's last flight.

[ChuckShick]

I thought Andy Griffith did this 20 years ago:

[glasseye]

Last December it was revealed that multi-billionaire Paul Allen -- the co-founder of Microsoft -- is bankrolling the SpaceShipOne project

Thank goodness for people with money.....part of what makes America great!!!

[NormsRevenge]

SpaceShipOne



Slung below its equally innovative mothership dubbed White Knight, SpaceShipOne rides above planet Earth, photographed during a recent flight test. SpaceShipOne was designed and built by cutting-edge aeronautical engineer Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites to compete for the X Prize. The 10 million dollar X prize is open to private companies and requires the successful launch of a spaceship which carries three people on short sub-orbital flights to an altitude of 100 kilometers -- a scenario similar to the early manned spaceflights of NASA's Mercury Program. Unlike more conventional rocket flights to space, SpaceShipOne will first be carried to an altitude of 50,000 feet by the twin turbojet White Knight and then released before igniting its own hybrid solid fuel rocket engine. After the climb to space, the craft will convert to a stable high drag configuration for re-entry, ultimately landing like a conventional glider at light plane speeds. Photo Credit: Scaled Composites

[jpsb]

From 1959 through 1968 a decade-long research program employed the North American Aviation X-15 to explore hypersonic flight and technologies needed for space flight. The X-15's pioneering flights set records that still have not been broken four decades later, including a top speed of Mach 6.7 (4,520 mph) and a peak altitude of 354,200 feet (67 miles). While doing this it gathered engineering and scientific data needed to develop new families of aircraft and spacecraft, including the Space Shuttle.

Google X-15

[irv]

I was wondering what happened to Rutan's ship. It's been 3 months since it made a flight.

Still a faster turnaround time than the shuttle.