Spaceship One in perspective

"Paul Blay" wrote in message
...
"Jeff Findley" wrote ...
Google is your friend. It's amazing how fast you can find things if you
have the Google Toolbar installed. It's nice not having to first load
the
Google home page to do a search.

Mozilla Firefox has a Google box included by design. Better than an
add-on ...

And I'd likely be using it, except that the web pages that I need to visit
to do my job don't load and function properly using Mozilla. It's a shame,
really.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

(Hobbs aka McDaniel) wrote:
Spaceship one uses a heat resistant film of some sort that is coated
onto the exterior of the craft before each launch. Maybe the Rutan
team figured out something NASA hadn't or that NASA didn't bother to
use.

NASA hasn't bothered to use the system used by SS1 because NASA
doesn't have any craft that operates in those thermodynamic realms.
SS1's system, while well suited for it's flight profile, but unsuited
to anything of geater heat.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

Hobbs aka McDaniel wrote:

The pricetag -- assuming ~20 million is impressive, isn't it? Here
we'd been led to believe over the years that it takes that much
just to feed the guys working on a new spacecraft... but this
proves that's not the case. It's also impressive in that private
citizens did something even most nations including (I believe)
Japan, with its highly advanced aeronautical development programs,
has yet to achieve.

Most nations have little to no incentive to do something like this.
In a years time, private citizens of several other countries will have
done similar feats too...


-McDaniel

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

(Hobbs aka McDaniel) wrote:
The pricetag -- assuming ~20 million is impressive, isn't it? Here
we'd been led to believe over the years that it takes that much
just to feed the guys working on a new spacecraft... but this
proves that's not the case.

Yes, and no. The price tag quoted for 'feeding the guys' also assumes
that the spacecraft in question was a 'real' spacecraft, I.E. orbital
with significant capabilities. Spaceship One possesses niether. (I'm
not debating that SS1 isn't impressive or important, but clarifying
what it is and isn't. These are important to keep in mind.)

It's also impressive in that private citizens did something even most
nations including (I believe) Japan, with its highly advanced
aeronautical development programs, has yet to achieve.

That's completely false. SS1 hasn't beat what the X-15 did forty
years ago. More accurately SS1 has accomplished something most
nations haven't even bothered to try, there's little doubt that any
advanced nation who set out to do what SS1 does could do easily if not
as cheaply.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

A recent reply to this thread pointed out that rocket cannot slow down
a reentry because it has a reverse effect of reducing air friction.
The rockets can still slow down the approach before reaching the
atmosphere. Once air friction starts to build up, the rockets must be
turned off. Theoretically if you have unlimited supply of fuel, you
can compensate for Earth's gravity and descend at a constant 10mph
speed. But that is not practical, air friction is still the cheapest
way to slow down.

The SS1 already use an ablative coating. Perhaps they only need to
add a thicker layer for orbit reentry.

The Space shuttle heat tiles insulate. The ablative material on the
SS1 actually dissipate the heat by evaporating the coating material.
They are different approaches to tackle the same problem. Ablative
coating is not new, so the Space Shuttle design must have other
reasons to pick the alternative.

When the ablative material evaporates, its vapor form a gaseous
envelop around the craft, so in theory, air friction reduces once the
ablative starts working. So it is effective to prevent overheating,
but it is not effective for slowing down. However, if the material
has an extremely high melting point, then it won't kickin until the
heat really builds up. But once it kicks in, the vehicle will fall
faster and faster due to loss of air friction. Am I right?


Scott Moore wrote in message news:9xsCc.135467$3x.50365@attbi_s54...

So would an SS1 type vehicle need to fire a lot of rocket to slow down,
and so avoid reentry heating, or would it make more sense just to adopt
ablative cooling or similar ?

Bob Kaplow wrote:

In article , "Mike Dennis" writes:

I too greatly respect Rutan's achievements, but this guy really has a big
mouth to go along with his unusually large brain. After the flight he was
bragging about how his design proved one could reenter at low speed, without
all the dangerous heat. Of course, Mr. Rutan is no fan of NASA, but he
needs to respect what they've achieved as well. If the X-Prize requirements
had been for "orbital" flight, he wouldn't be spouting off about how much
different his ideas are. I wonder what SpaceShipOne would look like after a
17,600mph reentry from 160 miles up? How about after doing it 25-30 times?

Let's not lose sight of the fact that these ballistic missions are of little
long-term value. Orbital missions (or beyond) are where the real money is.


It is clear that Rutans goals go beyond the X prize.

It occurs to me that he's positioning himself to be the prime contractor or
at lease the designer of the Next Generation Space Shuttle.


If Rutan really holds his views of goverment run projects, why would he
decide to do that ?

--
Samiam is Scott A. Moore

Personal web site: http:/www.moorecad.com/scott
My electronics engineering consulting site: http://www.moorecad.com
ISO 7185 Standard Pascal web site: http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal
Classic Basic Games web site: http://www.moorecad.com/classicbasic
The IP Pascal web site, a high performance, highly portable ISO 7185 Pascal
compiler system: http://www.moorecad.com/ippas

Being right is more powerfull than large corporations or governments.
The right argument may not be pervasive, but the facts eventually are.

"Jeff Findley" wrote:

Mozilla Firefox has a Google box included by design. Better than an
add-on ...

And I'd likely be using it, except that the web pages that I need to visit
to do my job don't load and function properly using Mozilla. It's a shame,
really.

So install two browsers... Use one for work and one for fun.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

In article ,
(Derek Lyons) wrote:

"Jeff Findley" wrote:

Mozilla Firefox has a Google box included by design. Better than an
add-on ...

And I'd likely be using it, except that the web pages that I need to visit
to do my job don't load and function properly using Mozilla. It's a shame,
really.

So install two browsers... Use one for work and one for fun.

D.

Or three: Opera
Or four: Lynx (if you're into *real* minimalism in the eye-candy
department!)
Or, if you use a Mac, five: Safari

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
Reformed Aerospace Engineer
Columbia Loss FAQ:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

In article , "Mike Dennis" writes:
I too greatly respect Rutan's achievements, but this guy really has a big
mouth to go along with his unusually large brain. After the flight he was
bragging about how his design proved one could reenter at low speed, without
all the dangerous heat. Of course, Mr. Rutan is no fan of NASA, but he
needs to respect what they've achieved as well. If the X-Prize requirements
had been for "orbital" flight, he wouldn't be spouting off about how much
different his ideas are. I wonder what SpaceShipOne would look like after a
17,600mph reentry from 160 miles up? How about after doing it 25-30 times?

Let's not lose sight of the fact that these ballistic missions are of little
long-term value. Orbital missions (or beyond) are where the real money is.

It is clear that Rutans goals go beyond the X prize.

It occurs to me that he's positioning himself to be the prime contractor or
at lease the designer of the Next Generation Space Shuttle.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD"
To reply, remove the TRABoD!
Kaplow Klips & Baffle: http://nira-rocketry.org/LeadingEdge/Phantom4000.pdf
www.encompasserve.org/~kaplow_r/ www.nira-rocketry.org www.nar.org

Save Model Rocketry from the HSA! http://www.space-rockets.com/congress.html

In article MtaCc.163035$Ly.152193@attbi_s01, Scott Moore writes:
Well, Rutan is selling the idea of suborbital tourist flights, and hes pretty
much able to achieve that. Hes talking about a 6 passenger suborbial flight,
for $15 per head. All that really counts is if people will pay that, and if
that would make a profit.

Condidering inflation, that would be cheaper than the "E" ticket from my
first trip to Mouseland.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD"
To reply, remove the TRABoD!
Kaplow Klips & Baffle: http://nira-rocketry.org/LeadingEdge/Phantom4000.pdf
www.encompasserve.org/~kaplow_r/ www.nira-rocketry.org www.nar.org

Save Model Rocketry from the HSA! http://www.space-rockets.com/congress.html