ATTENTION SPACESHIP ONE AND WAR BIRD FANS

The Grand Internet ^ | 07-12-04 | PeteePie

[PeteePie]

First Flight of SpaceShipOne into Space

This is from a guy who has a rich obsession with aviation. I wish it were me but I'm not nearly rich enough to make the rounds like him...

First Flight of SpaceShipOne into Space

On June 21, 2004, I joined twenty seven thousand other people to watch the launch of SpaceShipOne, the first private-venture craft to attempt to leave the earth's atmosphere and enter space, defined as an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles). I and the other afflicted technophiles gathered in the pitch blackness of Mojave airport in California sometime after 3 AM, to await the 6:30 AM takeoff. As you can see from this photo, our particular religious devotion has its own special rituals and posturing. Various luminaries such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governator of California, John Travolta (a long-time fan of aeronautics) and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin were also on hand - but you can be sure they weren't slumming it with the rest of us!

[PeteePie]

I sure hope this hasn't been posted at an earlier date but this link leads to cornucopia of nicely cataloged airshows and a rich offering of rare warbird pics. Click on the flaming F-111 at the bottom of the page to access tons of airshow louges: http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/SpaceShipOne2004

[hedgetrimmer]

Nice! Thanks for posting the link to the pictures.

[farfromhome]

Woohoo. Capitalists in space!!

[skyman]

Great photos and narration.

Thanks

[Mycroft Holmes]

Thanks much. We were there and loved the show. Everyone was walking around with huge grins plastered on their faces.

[snopercod]

ping

[Aeronaut]

[RightWhale]

Seems SpaceShipOne is scheduled for the X-Prize attempt in late September.

[snopercod]

We didn't realize it at the time, but there were a couple of serious malfunctions as the craft accelerated to more than Mach 2.9 (2150 mph or 3460 km/h). About 7 seconds after ignition, a 60 knot (70 mph or 110 km/h) wind shear caused an unintended 90 degree rotation, which the pilot corrected. Just 10 seconds after starting its climb it reached Mach 1, and the rocket continued burning for another 66 seconds before automatically shutting down.

Late during this powered phase, one of the motors which control the trim adjustment malfunctioned and although Melvill quickly swapped to a backup system the ship wasn't quite at the right angle as it climbed. The combined anomalies put it 20 miles off course and ultimately cost about 30,000 feet of altitude.

This very nearly resulted in the failure of the test to reach its initial goal of 100 kilometers, in fact SpaceShipOne ended up getting to an altitude of 100,124 meters - only one tenth of one percent above its target altitude, and quite a long way short of the intended altitude of 108,000 meters..

[GBA]

Thanks for the link! The pictures were outstanding! And so were the ones at the photo gallery link at the bottom of the page. I can see I'm going to spend a lot of time checking out all that's there. Thanks again!

[GBA]

Thanks for the ping!

[B4Ranch]

Excellent commentary and pics!

[Brian Allen]

Awesome!

Rutan rules.

BUMPping

[Brian Allen]

ping

[newzjunkey]

Tuned in on TV for the flight, it was really a great moment. *BUMP*

[hc87]

bump

[The Libertarian Dude]

Wonder when the TSA will demand government-employee screeners be present before this thing can take off again...

NASA won't stand for it. They'll try to get Uncle Statism to put the kibosh on private spaceflight.

[Professional Engineer]

Sweeeeeeet!

[Robert A Cook PE]

A later thread quoted a statement form Rutan that they found the cause for each failure and fixed them.

He expects the next flight to be the "1st of 2" required to win the Xprize.

[snopercod]

In the shuttle program, they release jimspheres (high altitude metallic balloons for radar tracking) prior to each launch and check out the upper level winds. The idea is to look for severe wind shear areas and strong winds that would blow them off course.

Hopefully, Rutan will be doing something similar. He would hate it if SS-1 had to land on I-10 in Blythe...