"Far Out!"
Posted on 12/03/2005 6:44:22 PM PST by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
MOJAVE, California – XCOR's EZ-Rocket flew into the history books today. The craft made a record-setting point-to-point flight, departing here from the Mojave California Spaceport, gliding to a touchdown at a neighboring airport in California City.
The rocket plane was piloted by Dick Rutan, no stranger to milestone-making voyages. In 1986, Rutan was co-pilot on the Voyager airplane that made the first nonstop, around-the-world flight without refueling.
The EZ-Rocket is a modified Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft. The vehicle is propelled by twin 400-pound thrust, regeneratively cooled rocket engines and fueled by isopropyl alcohol and liquid oxygen.
The EZ-Rocket is able to stop and restart its engines in mid-flight, as well as perform rocket-powered touch-and-goes on a runway.
Down and safe
With Rutan at the controls, the EZ-Rocket lifted off at 11:40 a.m. local time. The craft touched down at the California City airport – about 10 miles northeast of Mojave – some nine minutes later.
Stashed onboard the EZ-Rocket were four pouches of mail, a bill with a check attached, letters from around the world, and other items.
"He's down and safe," said Jeff Greason, XCOR's chief executive officer.
EZ-Rocket: end of the road
The point-to-point hop brings to a close the EZ-Rocket's flight program, with today's flight number 25, said Aleta Jackson, an executive for XCOR Aerospace, based here in Mojave, California.
"Today's flight is the culmination of the EZ-Rocket test series," Jackson told SPACE.com. Among projects on the books at XCOR Aerospace is designing and building the first generation of X-Racers for the newly-formed Rocket Racing League.
It was announced in early October that the X-Racers are based on the design of XCOR's EZ-Rocket. Next-generation vehicles will be using an airframe provided by Velocity of Sebastian, Florida.
Record setting flight
Officials from the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) were on-site to witness the event. The NAA keeps tabs on world and United States aviation and space records. Also on hand were representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration's commercial space transportation office.
"This is a record-setting flight," Jackson said, in terms of distance and based on the rocket-powered airplane taking off from the ground, with the pilot controlling the rocket engine throughout the majority of the flight, and landing the craft.
"The other neat thing about this is that we're connecting Mojave Spaceport to California City," Jackson said. The California City airport may become an alternate landing spot if future rocket vehicles departing out of Mojave run into problems, she said.
History at Mojave
Maximum speed of the rocket plane was estimated at 200 mph, climbing upwards to some 8,500 feet.
"There was enough propellant onboard to go around California City in case somebody was on the wrong runway," said Dan DeLong, XCOR's chief engineer.
Among those witnessing the EZ-Rocket's liftoff was Stuart Witt, Mojave Spaceport Manager. This site was also the location of last year's historic suborbital treks of SpaceShipOne.
"Just another day here at Mojave," Witt told SPACE.com.
BFD
10 miles / 9 minutes = 66.67mph
WTF? I know it's a hybrid vehicle, but even a Prius can do this.
(/sarcasm)
It isn't a speed record, it's a distance record. I find it amazing that it hasn't been done before. The Germans had a rocket plane in WWII that probably could have done this but they were more concerned with shooting down B-17s than setting records.
The name RRL has a nice ring to it. Controled rocket racing, sounds cool.
I wouln't be surprised if Burt's goal isn't actually orbital flight. A suborbital space plane that can take off from an airport, fly to Tokyo, Sydney, or London in 2 hours, and land at an airport might just be something people would pay for.
LOL!!
You have the key.:)
That's what they said about the Honda Civic...
I don't think Burt Rutan is the driver of this project. Dick Rutan is Burt's bro. The plane Dick is flying there is a mod of Burt's design. Burt's gig is SpaceshipOne.
I believe Dick is one of Burt's test pilots. All one big happy family, you know! ;-)
The rockets will eventually be perfected for private access to orbit. But it is easier to test them on airplanes.Hmmm... develop a rocket-plane racing league. If you can get corporate sponsors to fund the league, they end up funding the development of the rocket engines by several competing development teams, and eventually the state of the art becomes good enough to get a rocket plane into orbit (or sub-orbit). That's an intriguing strategy!
"A suborbital space plane that can take off from an airport, fly to Tokyo, Sydney, or London in 2 hours, and land at an airport might just be something people would pay for."
That would be an orbital space plane. That I would be impressed with.
"Far Out!"
I love it. We'll be putting skateboard kids in orbit before we know it.
If the price is right. The Concorde never made a profit because it required too much fuel per passenger going at that speed.
Sub-orbitals are different because they spend most of their time above the atmosphere. Someone figured a "skip" system, where the plane re-enters and skips back into space several times would be the most economical. But we gotta listen to the bean-counters or we will just have another Concorde.
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