just got the news that it made it into space today...

I wonder what the next step to private space travel will be.

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One nuclear bomb could wreck your whole day.

A wondrous feat indeed! That rocket plane looks exactly like something out of the Tom Swift stories I loved as a youth!

Aside: I vehemently disagree with news reports comparing SpaceShipOne to the Wright Flyer 100 years earlier. The Wrights had no computers. They worked solely with their hands and minds to construct something that, to most, was absolutely impossible. Today's feat is impressive, to be sure, but it was made a whole lot easier with CAD and simulation programs, not to mention composite materials. It cannot be compared to the Wrights' achievement.

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The Wright used the Technology available to them at the time...

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Eagle Eye Observatory

Awesome accomplishment and hard to make a comparison. Yes, the Wright brothers used no computers, but they only flew a couple hundred feet and just a little ways off the ground, not 100 kilometers up. Can we agree that they both deserve our admiration?

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Yeah. I think the comparison suffers. It would compare much better if the Wrights had first flown with their own design thirty-some years after the federal government had managed to fly several jet planes across the Atlantic.

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I think the comparison was probably meant to associate the entrepreneurial flying spirit that was within the Wright Bros. to this private venture. No one expects any bicycle shop to be a contentder in today's world.

However, spirit is probably the only fair comparison. The arguments above are still valid. A better comparison should be more in the business entrepreneurial spirit like the folks drilling the first oil well in Texas. A Gossamer Albatross comparison would be better if they do not expect much future business.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

And the best part is that most of the other X Prize teams will fly anyway! Yay!! More space travel!!!
(I missed the broadcasts 'cus I'm in school at the moment...).

=D> =D> =D> =D> =D> =D>

The X-Prize hasn't been won yet. This was merely a test flight.

They intend to notify the comittee of their desire to attempt the flights sometime in the near future.

As an aside, does anybody here know how scalable this technology is? Can the engine burn long enough to attain orbit?

Hey; I was pulling for the Canadian Arrow; but way to go Burt!! =D>

Just curious; anyone know anything about the pilot, Melville?

Also; any speculation about what the 'Bang' was?

Cheers! ;D

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

What did they do about reentry? Or was it at an altitude where it was not nessisary to worry about it?

Nice bio! He was on tv this morning before the flight. He is native to South Africa but is a US citizen now. He still has an accent.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

It wasn't the altitude, it was the velocity, or more correctly, the lack of it. At maximum altitude, the velocity was (effectively) zero.

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No. Even if you put a bigger engine in it (in which case you'd need a bigger carrier), it couldn't reenter from orbit. It's designed to win the X-prize. Maybe someday a follow-on will have orbital capabilities, but that's a much harder problem to solve.

Actually a reporter asked this same question to Burt Ratan. To be specific, the reporter asked is SS1 was scalable, Burt grinned and simply said Yes.

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Eagle Eye Observatory

Thanx.

Heh heh - must've been one heck of a ride!

WK was built as a trainer for the SS1 pilots, it seems reasonable that Rutan's intended SS1 to be a trainer for his Tier Two design (which I'd lay money on that it's already being built).

I believe the maximum reentry speed is only a little over Mach 3. You don't need much thermal protection at that speed.

Hats off to Elbert L. "Burt" Rutan and his team for once again, creating beautiful, viable and innovative designs, and being 20 years ahead of the world's conventional aviation industries. His brother, Dick Rutan (with whom Jeana Yeager piloted Voyager around the world non-stop,) is an outspoken critic of our conventional aerospace industry.

I WAS THERE!!!

It was awesome. The take off looked like a normal airplane takeoff (Duh), though the whole vehicle was larger than I had imagined from the pictures I saw. After watching it take off and spiral up I had to get to work. The cool thing was that by the time I got to work, and checked my email I wandered outside my building and with a borrowed pair of binoculars I was able to watch SS1, with the rocket engine lit, soar into the history books. For once I am glad that I live in the Mojave.