Posted on 09/02/2003 3:52:27 PM PDT by Young Werther
The first "feather" conversion of Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne rocket plane was achieved during its second gliding flight on Aug. 27 (AW&ST Aug. 18, p. 32). Officials plan to make the first showing of inflight video at the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP) symposium in Los Angeles Sept. 25-27 (www.setp.org).
After being dropped from its mother ship at 48,200 ft. and 105 kt., pneumatic actuators raised SpaceShipOne's aft wing and tail booms up to a 65-deg. angle, placing the vehicle in a high-drag angle of attack of about 70 deg. in a near-vertical descent exceeding 10,000 fpm. This high-drag configuration is intended to slow the rocket plane in the upper atmosphere as it returns from a 100-km. (328,000-ft.) vertical space journey.
The body attitude initially pitched up steeply as the tails continued to fly straight, then slowly dropped to near horizontal as the flight path fell. The pitchup caused the most "pucker factor" of the flight. "It didn't seem like it was going to fall away," general manager and test pilot Mike Melvill said. There was some rolloff during the feather entry but it was easily controlled and he felt any residual angle would be damped out by the stable configuration. He reported that rudders were most effective in turning the aircraft but differential elevator (aileron) also had an effect, and that normal elevator had little effect on the stable flight path. There was buffeting, which was expected. Indicated airspeed was about 60 kt.
After about 70 sec., Melvill commanded the actuators to return the vehicle back to normal glider configuration, which made the nose drop about 30 deg. below the horizon and airspeed increase to 120-125 kt., at which point the feather downlock was actuated. The feather maneuver was started at 43,000 ft. and 90 kt., and ended at 30,000 ft. It was preceded by a full stall test, which showed a 70-kt. stall speed at 19-deg. angle of attack at a forward center-of-gravity light weight with no propellant on board.
The remainder of the busy 10.5-min. flight included expanding the envelope to 200 kt. and 3.4g, and performing a 360-deg. roll. A wind shift prompted a change in landing runway from 30 to 12, which was handled readily by the avionics providing guidance to the new high key point. The winds shifted again, giving a slight tailwind on final, and Melvill used the brakes for the first time on rollout, reporting that they had good directional control.
From LEO everything else is gravy. And once someone like the Chinese or even the Brazilians puts someone in orbit for reasons other than national pride (e.q. war or money) there will be a mad scramble by the rest of the world to catch up.
Watch. You'll see. It may take twenty years or so, but it will happen.
I believe the speed at altitude will still be relatively slow. Remember, they are going into space, not orbit.
But even our own military has given up on the idea that manned spaceflight is militarily advantageous. The Brazilians only interest in rockets is to get into the nuclear blackmail business. If the Chicoms ever get a man into space it will be on Russian hardware, and forty years behind schedule.
You obviously don't want to go bad enough to get rich enough to make it happen either through buying a ticket on a Soyuz or investing in many of the struggling commercial space launch companies trying to make space access more affordable.
Blindly supporting doomed NASA programs is pushing you away from your alledged goal of traveling into space.
They'll change their minds when they realize that a couple guys in a decent space plane or shuttle, can knock out half the satellites we have in a few days.
Or when someone brings home some minerals drilled out of asteroids, and starts shooting at anyone else who tries to do the same thing.
Been there, done that. In '65 I was actually in the space program. It's somebody else's turn.
It's going to hit the atmosphere at 3000 mph. That would strip the chrome right off the front bumper of my Chevy.
It was worth being part of then. Thank you for having put in the effort.
There are two choices, dominate the high ground, and slavery.
Hard to guess when, but certainly sooner or later! Twenty years or less seems about right.
Spaceship One may be controllable on reentry with very slight movement of the hinging rear assembly, giving lift enough to fly at the edge of the atmosphere at 18,000 miles an hourwith those high cord wings, flying higher to avoid over heating and lower as speed drops, a Sanger "Antipodal Bomber" reentry, with none of this 3,500 degree reletively low altitude, high air turbulance reentry of the Shuttle!
Spaceship One may be controllable on reentry with very slight movement of the hinging rear assembly, giving lift enough to fly at the edge of the atmosphere at 18,000 miles an hourwith those high cord wings, flying higher to avoid over heating and lower as speed drops, a Sanger "Antipodal Bomber" reentry, with none of this 3,500 degree reletively low altitude, high air turbulance reentry of the Shuttle!
And remember Zenit is ready to be launched by the six huge turbofans of a Antonov 225, way, way cheaper per ton than the Shuttle to LEO! We can do this now!
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