X-Prize. Any Expected Winners?

Back when the prize was announced I predicted that
no one would win it. At that time Burt Rutan had not
announced his intent to go for the prize (other than his
years earlier remark that when it was fully funded he
exected to win it within 18 months).

I assumed that Rutan had so many other activities on
his plate that he would not go for the prize, especially since
it would probably cost him more than the amount of the
prize. Of course, I was wrong and did not know that
Paul Allen was ready to risk significant millions of dollars
to finance Burt to attempt it.

I don't back off from predictions, so I continue to predict
that no one, including Burt Rutan, will accomplish the feat
before January 1, 2005.

However Rutan's Scaled Composites team has met the
criteria that I had set up in my mind that any competitor would
have to meet as of now to win the prize. I don't believe anyone
who doesn't have a completed vehicle ready for test at this
point has a real chance to win. Not necessarily an impossibility,
but not very likely.

I think it is very unlikely that John Carmack can pull all of the
many things he has to do within the rest of this year. He is
certainly the most forthcoming of the entire group of competitors.
If he does make great strides I am sure he will let us know and
he may very well get there eventually, I just don't believe he can
do it by the end of this year.

Burt Rutan is ahead of my milestone criteria, but is not a sure
thing. He still has a lot of incremental testing to do.

Maybe there is someone out there doing a very secretive job
of preparing for a run at the X-Prize. I read a few rumors, but
have not heard anything that sounds convincing.

I sure hope my prediction is wrong and it would be nice to
see one or more competitors come out of the woodwork and
make it a real race rather than just an attempt to get across the
line before elimination.

Any other views or information on competitors?

Mike Walsh

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 18:32:56 -0800, in a place far, far away, Michael
Walsh made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I don't back off from predictions, so I continue to predict
that no one, including Burt Rutan, will accomplish the feat
before January 1, 2005.

That's a dumb reason to continue to predict something that looks
unlikely to happen.

When I'm confronted with new evidence, I sometimes change my opinion.
Are you saying that yours is set in stone, regardless of new
information?

What is the point of X-prize?
If I remember correctly the goals are 3 humans- or at least one human
and enough weight to simulate two other people, have to be boosted
above 100km, and then the whole thing has to be done again within 2
weeks with the same vehicle. Also I believe 85-90% of the vehicle
must be reusable not counting fuel.
Something that might interest some of you is that you don’t even need
a rocket to do x-prize. It could be done with existing retrofitted
jet fighters such as the F-16 or possibly a T-38/F-5. You just need
a way for the jet to keep producing thrust as you go up; a neat idea
is mass injection, which is simply injecting some type of
fuel/oxidizer into the free stream in front of the jet compressor.
DARPA’s RASCAL uses ideas similar to this, the only things need to be
added to a fighter would be some type of ablative on hot spots and
some thrusters for exo-atmoshperic maneuvering. Seems silly to me to
invest tons of money into dangerous rockets and untested flight
vehicles when you don’t have to.
Which brings me back to the point of why to do this? NACA/NASA did
this with X-15, but it was for testing the extremes of flight,
handling at hypersonic speeds, and all the nice little issues that
come along with it. I just think there could be a better goal other
than getting a 2 minute weightless ride strapped into a seat, what is
the point of that? Other types of experiments that could be
performed on a vehicle can be done with sounding rockets or even gun
launched probes. The differences in sub-orbital to orbital are huge
and as far as I can tell there are very few x-prize entries that even
have the possibility of going orbital. If people want to be
weightless you can get a ride on the Russian version of the vomit
comet for several 30 second periods of weightlessness. If you want
to see the edge of the atmosphere and a black sky guess what you can
do that in Russia too in a M-31 fighter at mach 3 at 80,000ft. Both
of these little rides cost $5k, just seems like a better deal to me.



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In article ,
Michael Walsh wrote:

I don't back off from predictions, so I continue to predict
that no one, including Burt Rutan, will accomplish the feat
before January 1, 2005.

Sticking to your predictions is good in general, but not in the face of
changed facts. I think this is a very unlikely prediction at this point.

However Rutan's Scaled Composites team has met the
criteria that I had set up in my mind that any competitor would
have to meet as of now to win the prize. I don't believe anyone
who doesn't have a completed vehicle ready for test at this
point has a real chance to win. Not necessarily an impossibility,
but not very likely.

I tend to agree.

I think it is very unlikely that John Carmack can pull all of the
many things he has to do within the rest of this year. He is
certainly the most forthcoming of the entire group of competitors.
If he does make great strides I am sure he will let us know and
he may very well get there eventually, I just don't believe he can
do it by the end of this year.

Probably true. He might surprise us, but I think more likely is that
he'll be flying to X-Prize heights sometime next year or 2006.

Burt Rutan is ahead of my milestone criteria, but is not a sure
thing. He still has a lot of incremental testing to do.

Only because he is doing very cautious (and slow) incremental testing.
If he felt there was any need, I'm quite sure the test schedule could be
accelerated substantially -- they could be in space within a month, if
necessary. Of course it isn't necessary since none of the competitors
are close. I predict they'll claim the prize in late summer or early
Autumn.

Maybe there is someone out there doing a very secretive job
of preparing for a run at the X-Prize. I read a few rumors, but
have not heard anything that sounds convincing.

Agreed.

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Something that might interest some of you is that you don’t even need
a rocket to do x-prize. It could be done with existing retrofitted
jet fighters such as the F-16 or possibly a T-38/F-5.

That's a pretty bold assertion. There's a BIG difference between even
100,000 feet and 100 km. You need thrusters to maintain attitude, and it's
a long drop back until there's enough atmosphere for the wings to become
effective again.

I think the notion that you could make some simple modifications to an F-16
and fly 100km up is a fantasy. Could you gut the airframe, build an
entirely new engine and fuel system, some sort of thermal control, add RCS
to the nose, and then do it? I doubt it, but then you'd have a mostly new
vehicle anyway, and a development cost probably greater than what Rutan has
spent.

And you still wouldn't win the X-prize, because an F-16 can only carry one
person, or two in some configurations.

However Rutan's Scaled Composites team has met the
criteria that I had set up in my mind that any competitor would
have to meet as of now to win the prize. I don't believe anyone
who doesn't have a completed vehicle ready for test at this
point has a real chance to win. Not necessarily an impossibility,
but not very likely.

I agree with this. Anyone who isn't already flying a prototype has to be
considered a very long shot.

Rutan's program, however, is very advanced. Their spacecraft has already
been through initial drop tests, tests in all flight configurations,
supersonic test, and engine test. Basically, as I understand it the vehicle
is complete and they are in the process of opening up the flight envelope.
That means they could essentially fly any time they wanted to if they were
willing to take additional risk. Since they've got a year and no one else
seems close, they can afford to do it the slow, careful, safe way.

But I hope Rutan has it timed a little earlier, for a couple of reasons -
first, it would be nice to leave enough time for a second attempt if
something goes wrong on the first try (not necessarily fatallly wrong, but
landing damage, or a systemic flaw uncovered that needs some development
before another flight is made, etc).

Also, I'd like to see Rutan do it before the deadline gets too close, to
shut down thoughts any other teams might have of making a risky attempt with
an untested vehicle. I worry a bit that safety may take a back seat with
some teams if they are six months away from completing flight test but only
have two months left before the deadline. If Rutan does it in summer, it
will remove that temptation.

Michael Walsh wrote in message ...
Back when the prize was announced I predicted that
no one would win it. At that time Burt Rutan had not
announced his intent to go for the prize (other than his
years earlier remark that when it was fully funded he
exected to win it within 18 months).

Mike, you may end up right--but primarily for regulatory reasons
rather than technical reasons. The way I read the regulations,
Burt will have to get a launch license, and, more importantly
from the delay point of view, to complete an environmental impact
statement, before he can do much more than he already has done.

As I read the October agreement between the aviation and
space launch parts of FAA, our latest Condor-X concept--perhaps
alone among the X PRIZE concepts--could be flown under experimental
aircraft rules that do not require an environmental impact
statement. Unfortunately, we have not been able to raise
any outside funds for our concept. Even my optimism runs
out with less than a year to build, test and fly. Accordingly,
we have withdrawn our "sports book bet" offer to accredited
investors under SEC Rule 504, which we had hoped would get us
$1 million of the $2 million we needed.

One side of me is cheering Burt on; the other side of me
is looking for a competitive advantage. However, the clock
keeps ticking. January 1, 2005 is too close for me from the
technical point of view. It may be too close for Burt from
the regulatory point of view.

PanAero is shifting our focus back to orbit--particularly
toward our post-RASCAL F-14 satellite launch vehicle. We have
an expendable upper stage concept that should be able to put
about 200 kg into an Iridium orbit for significantly less than
RASCAL's recurring cost goal for a 75-kg payload. We hope
to publish this concept on our web site in a few days; the concept
currently shown calls for a higher-risk, more complex reusable booster
launched from the F-14. The newer expendable upper stage appears
to be significantly more promising. Incidentally--while we had
been forced to postulate extensive changes to the F-14 to meet
DARPA/RASCAL goals, our post-RASCAL appproach is much simpler,
and requires only modest modifications to the F-14.

Methinks you worry too much about technical barriers--and not
enough about regulatory barriers. IMO, security regulations tend
to encourage ENRON's and WorldCom's. However, they stop
entreprenuers dead in their tracks. The emphasis should be on
prosecution of fraud, not the impossible task of never allowing
fraud to occur.

For one thing, I think our government should be able to trust
taxpayers to take the incredible risk of investing perhaps ten
percent of their tax bill in some crazy entrepreneurial space
launch system as an alternative to the almost sure waste of
collecting the money involuntarily to spend on something like
a Space Shuttle--which was prima facie fraud from day one with
respect to state cost goals.

Best regards,
Len (Cormier)
PanAero, Inc.
(change x to len)
( http://www.tour2space.com )

I assumed that Rutan had so many other activities on
his plate that he would not go for the prize, especially since
it would probably cost him more than the amount of the
prize. Of course, I was wrong and did not know that
Paul Allen was ready to risk significant millions of dollars
to finance Burt to attempt it.

I don't back off from predictions, so I continue to predict
that no one, including Burt Rutan, will accomplish the feat
before January 1, 2005.

However Rutan's Scaled Composites team has met the
criteria that I had set up in my mind that any competitor would
have to meet as of now to win the prize. I don't believe anyone
who doesn't have a completed vehicle ready for test at this
point has a real chance to win. Not necessarily an impossibility,
but not very likely.

I think it is very unlikely that John Carmack can pull all of the
many things he has to do within the rest of this year. He is
certainly the most forthcoming of the entire group of competitors.
If he does make great strides I am sure he will let us know and
he may very well get there eventually, I just don't believe he can
do it by the end of this year.

Burt Rutan is ahead of my milestone criteria, but is not a sure
thing. He still has a lot of incremental testing to do.

Maybe there is someone out there doing a very secretive job
of preparing for a run at the X-Prize. I read a few rumors, but
have not heard anything that sounds convincing.

I sure hope my prediction is wrong and it would be nice to
see one or more competitors come out of the woodwork and
make it a real race rather than just an attempt to get across the
line before elimination.

Any other views or information on competitors?

Mike Walsh

That's a pretty bold assertion. There's a BIG difference between
even
100,000 feet and 100 km. You need thrusters to maintain attitude,
and it's
a long drop back until there's enough atmosphere for the wings to
become
effective again.


Actually there isnt that huge of a difference between the two
altitudes. The test bed for most of X-15's flight control systems
for exo-atmospheric flight were done on the NF-104 (I believe thats
the number) which was a f-104 with a rocket hanging out the back end
above the jet engine. It "only" achieved altitudes of 120k/ft. The
additon of the H202 thrusters was seen as a minor modification in any
event. Also the raw data from these tests is readily available to
the public on the NACA server, this is also the same server where
Rutan is getting a lot of his experimental flight data to use on
Space Ship One.
As for wings, they are a necessary evil for almost every
horizontally landed X-prize contender and they all have to deal with
the thinner atmosphere. The Modified fighter would rely on pure
engine thrust above 90k/ft just like a rocket, the wings are just
dead weight, until you need to glide back (or better yet restart the
jet and fly back).


I think the notion that you could make some simple modifications to
an F-16
and fly 100km up is a fantasy. Could you gut the airframe, build an
entirely new engine and fuel system, some sort of thermal control,
add RCS
to the nose, and then do it? I doubt it, but then you'd have a
mostly new
vehicle anyway, and a development cost probably greater than what
Rutan has
spent.


I dont understand this point the F-16 would be mostly intact you are
only gutting the things you dont need; the engine would be
essentially stock with the addition of higher temp compressor blades
and a relatively simple addition of the mass injector in the main
intake. I dont know why you would think we would need to gut the
whole aircraft. It would not have to be an F-16 either I just
picked that fighter as an example because it has a very good thrust
to weight ratio. you could use a lighter fighter such as an F-5 or
T-38 and hopefully achieve the same results. The cost question is
hard to nail down but if we use RASCAL as a reference cost is not
determined to be a show stopper and better yet you are already using
a PROVEN flight vehicle with some modifications. Rutan has even said
himself that it would cost 10's of millions of dollars to certify
BOTH of his aircraft for the commercial market and he has no plans to
do so. SS1 is a one show deal, simply designed to win X-prize and
show it can be done but its already insanely expensive and not a
viable commercial vehicle for sub-orbital tourism, this, at least to
me, seem contrary to what X-prize is all about.
My major point was not the technology to achieve 100km altitude
but simply there is no viable reason to do so. As stated earlier you
can simulate weightlessness in a "normal" airliner like the
vomit-comet. It's probably better simulator than an X-prize vehicle
which will be small and you will necessarily be tightly strapped into
your seat with little room to move. And as for "the view" arguement
earth at 80,000ft looks remarkably similar to 300,000ft its dark and
you see a pretty blue atmosphere and some big land forms underneath.
And as stated earlier any experiments performed in a x-vehicle could
be done cheaper on sounding rockets or the vomit-comet. There is no
real market for this, no real economic vehicle that will accomplish
it--silly goal.



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On Sun, 01 Feb 2004 17:43:38 -0800, in a place far, far away, Michael
Walsh made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I don't back off from predictions, so I continue to predict
that no one, including Burt Rutan, will accomplish the feat
before January 1, 2005.

That's a dumb reason to continue to predict something that looks
unlikely to happen.

When I'm confronted with new evidence, I sometimes change my opinion.
Are you saying that yours is set in stone, regardless of new
information?

I think it is unsporting to change relatively close-in
projections based on new evidence. I think it is quite proper to leave
them "set in stone".

I think you confuse predictions with wagers.

Rand Simberg wrote:

On Sat, 31 Jan 2004 18:32:56 -0800, in a place far, far away, Michael
Walsh made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I don't back off from predictions, so I continue to predict
that no one, including Burt Rutan, will accomplish the feat
before January 1, 2005.

That's a dumb reason to continue to predict something that looks
unlikely to happen.

When I'm confronted with new evidence, I sometimes change my opinion.
Are you saying that yours is set in stone, regardless of new
information?

I don't believe my prediction is necessarily wrong as Burt Rutan has
not yet won the prize and I don't believe it is unlikely to happen.

I give Burt about a 50-50 chance of winning and I hope I am wrong.

As for predictions, I think it is unsporting to change relatively
close-in
projections based on new evidence. I think it is quite proper to leave
them "set in stone".

In this case I really hope I am wrong.

Mike Walsh