Want to go into space?

Jeslek

Jeslek

Banned
http://www.msnbc.com/news/902224.asp?vts=042020030630&cp1=1

Private manned space plane unveiled
Fully-built spacecraft, launch system developed in secrecy

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MOJAVE, Calif., April 18 — Aircraft designer Burt Rutan unveiled Friday a fully-built launch system that, if flights outside the atmosphere prove successful, would be the first private manned space program. Both the spacecraft, called SpaceShipOne, and its launch platform, a futuristic jet known as the White Knight, were developed and built in secret and have already begun tests at lower altitudes.
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One possible key to SpaceShipOne’s success is its eligibility for the X Prize, a $10 million bounty for any private firm that can build a reusable manned space vehicle, fly it to the suborbital altitude of 62 miles and then repeat the mission within two weeks. Considered a key litmus test for the viability of manned commercial space flight, the X Prize remains unclaimed after nearly a decade. X Prize founder Dr. Peter Diamandis was at the unveiling Friday and got hearty praise from Rutan for pushing to keep the momentum for a private space industry.
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Awesome.
 
But military officials watched the presentation with great interest, and indicated that Rutan’s new launch system could be adapted to other uses as well, such as launching tiny “microsatellites” and giving military space programs far more flexibility.

“It has enormous potential,” said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon “Pete” Worden, who seeks out new initiatives for U.S. Space Command. “Space has always been a rich man’s business. Now it would be more like airplanes.”
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http://www.scaled.com is the project home page.

Some pictures: (click for bigger pic)

 
I've always said the smartest way to orbit is to piggyback your payload to altitude with wings. Then launch.
 
Professur said:
I've always said the smartest way to orbit is to piggyback your payload to altitude with wings. Then launch.
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Another one of those "Why is this concept so difficult to understand?" questions. I used to wonder why they didn't use hot air balloons for altitude either. There are clearly cheaper, less complex ways to get out of the gravity well. I guess it's probably politics that keeps us doing it the way we do.
 
chcr said:
Another one of those "Why is this concept so difficult to understand?" questions. I used to wonder why they didn't use hot air balloons for altitude either
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THe balloon would have to be huge to carry the payload that we're talking about here...that and...what happens to all the balloons after they're used? Recovery is the issue, as is re-useability...not just cheap.

Prof's idea's not bad, but the whole fly it up there then launch has it's own problems...it takes a lot of material to protect something you're going to fly up on the outside of the plane...

I always liked the space elevator idea...still in conception phase, but viable using some of the new materials for it's tether.

The idea of a magnetic accelerator to cannon objects into orbit sounds best to me, if you can get around thee shielding.
 
using a track to launch piloted spacecraft from Earth is impractical because of

Earth's atmosphere, which causes friction heating of fast-moving objects

Track length needed to accelerate a ship to Earth escape velocity (11.2 kilometers per second) at a level of acceleration tolerable by the crew. A track permitting acceleration equal to 10 times Earth's gravity, for example, would have to be 600 kilometers long.

However, neither of these constraints apply to lunar cargo launches. Clarke calculates that cargo could be accelerated at 100 gravities to lunar escape speed (2.3 kilometers per second) on a track only 2 kilometers long. He then proposes reducing space travel costs by making rocket propellant on the moon from lunar minerals and launching it into space in expendable containers to refuel passing spacecraft. Orbital mechanics dictate that a container launched by the accelerator will intersect the lunar surface. However, a "trivial" rocket burn could nudge it into a circular lunar parking orbit. Alternately, the accelerator could launch the container into a long elliptical path needing several days to fall back to the moon, during which time a spacecraft could refuel from the container. Clarke points out that launching fuel from the lunar surface to Earth orbit requires only about 20 percent more launch velocity than launching it to lunar orbit, so a spacecraft in Earth orbit could be fueled "more economically from lunar sources than from the planet only a few hundred kilometres below. . .No spaceship need ever be designed for any mission more difficult than the entry into circular orbit round the Earth, since refuelling would be possible both in circum-terrestrial and circum-lunar orbits. . ."
 
wasn't burt rutan the one who developed the solar driven airplane which flew around the world non-stop as well?
 
62 miles isn't exactly space. Granted the view would be much better than in any aircraft but still the lowest orbit of any earth satellite is 100 miles. Granted also that it's pretty difficult to get 150 miles up in a non-rocket propelled craft.
 
space starts at app. 60 miles...officially if i'm not mistaken :)
it has something to do with the amount of oxygen particles per cubic meters at a certain point if i'm correct....


but you're right about the satellites...
 
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