Posted on 06/02/2004 10:46:44 AM PDT by alnitak
Awesome!
Thanks for posting this, Girdle.
Hope there's room on the ramp at mojave that day. I'll fly out (providing they don't close the airport).
Ping.
Please take me off this ping list. Thanx.
There will be about a million people there at the spaceport. It looks like nobody else is in the race, even though there has been some activity here and there. SS1 will fly to altitude with the pilot, then will have to fly with a passenger or two. But SS1 will have to fly to altitude with two passengers twice with a turnaround of two eeeks. There is still a ways to go.
They can fly ballast instead of the other 2 humans.
They can fly for the prize with only one pilot and ballast. The ship just needs the ability to carry three people.
3. The flight vehicle must be flown twice within a 14-day period. Each flight must carry at least one person, to minimum altitude of 100 km (62 miles). The flight vehicle must be built with the capacity (weight and volume) to carry a minimum of 3 adults of height 188 cm (6 feet 2 inches) and weight 90 kg (198 pounds) each. Three people of this size or larger must be able to enter, occupy, and be fastened into the flight vehicle on Earth's surface prior to take-off, and equivalent ballast must be carried in-flight if the number of persons on-board during flight is less than 3 persons.
> There is still a ways to go.
And the prize expires at the end of this year (2004).
Even if Scaled wins it, it probably won't be a profit-making accomplishment. I suspect the backer (Allen) has invested more than the prize already.
Then the question becomes: ok, now what?
Paying passengers would be a next step, maybe not the very next step. Rutan would also be designing a ship to go even higher and faster. Orbit is a long ways off.
Rutan designs kit planes, so perhaps a kit would be coming soon. Wouldn't that be something, to build an EZ-Spaceship.
After watching 'A plane is born' and 'a chopper is born' on Discovery Wings, I can't imagine building something like White Knight. Would take 15 years on your own. I suppose it would be possible with a team of 5-10 people over awhile though.
Maybe they'd have local clubs that could build one?
Super cool.
White Knight and Stretched White Knight would be a problem for amateurs, but SS1 would be a task worthy of the effort. You should be able to build an EZ-SS1, and transport it to the Mojave Spaceport where the White Knight could be hired by the launch. Not cheap, but what use is all your money you've been squirreling away for a 4X4 you won't be able to get gas for anyway?
Since when does a suborbital trip qualify as space flight?
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