SpaceShipOne News Coverage just a little rough on the edges

Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote in message o...

2. They said SpaceShipOne won the prize when it succeeded in getting to
"outer" space. I do believe only the Voyager has made it to outer space,
which is really intersteller space, not the near space, which begins just
outside the Earth's atmosphere. SSO just kissed near space at best, since
there is still enough atmosphere at 100km to make orbital flight
problematic.


Rules of the Prize are to reach an altitude of 100 kilo-meters (the
internationally recognized altitude above Earth where "outer space"
begins - as per several United Nation Treaties) with a reusable craft
twice in 2 weeks with the ability to carry three passengers.
Scaled Composites used a pilot and ballast for the other two occupants
and managed to flights within 5 days, and well above 100 kilo-meters.

Voyager is the first man-made object that has a velocity sufficent to
break away from the Sun's gravitational pull to reach interstellar
space. AFAIK the two Voyager probes are still well within the Oort
Cloud -- roughly 2 light years in radius IIRC - which generally
denotes the outer limit of the solar system. I specify man made object
because radio waves have been doing so since the late 1930's, and
Jupiter has been tossing rocks into the deep beyond with it's gravity
well for billions of years.

Then there all sorts of regions in space to consider: the edge of
space, both legally and measured by atmospheric pressure present, low
Eart orbit, high Earth orbit, geosynchronous space, near Earth space,
cis-lunar space, the inner solar system, outer solar system, Lagrange
sp points, the Greek and Trojan asteroid fields, in the plane of the
elliptic -- above and below it....

Now, how are Scaled Composites and Virgin going to make their
enterprise work in the risk adverse legal minefield of the United
States or the UK? Running a high risk adventure travel business
would more sense in another country. Like how all cruise ships are
registered in countries with lax or supportive regulatory and legal
climates.

Ted from Colorado (formerly Pennsylvania)
....with too much time on my hands today in Baghdad.
DoD #2186
'03 ST1300 in need of a superbrace and slip on pipes
'05 Victory Hammer ... on order...(I hope!)

On 6 Oct 2004 05:28:35 -0700, (Ted Reber) wrote:

Voyager is the first man-made object that has a velocity sufficent to
break away from the Sun's gravitational pull to reach interstellar
space.

Are you sure?

In message , Darren J
Longhorn writes
On 6 Oct 2004 05:28:35 -0700, (Ted Reber) wrote:

Voyager is the first man-made object that has a velocity sufficent to
break away from the Sun's gravitational pull to reach interstellar
space.

Are you sure?

He can be certain and still wrong, because Pioneer 10 and 11 were first.
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On 6 Oct 2004 05:28:35 -0700, Ted Reber wrote:


Now, how are Scaled Composites and Virgin going to make their
enterprise work in the risk adverse legal minefield of the United
States or the UK? Running a high risk adventure travel business
would more sense in another country. Like how all cruise ships are
registered in countries with lax or supportive regulatory and legal
climates.

Ted from Colorado (formerly Pennsylvania)
...with too much time on my hands today in Baghdad.
DoD #2186
'03 ST1300 in need of a superbrace and slip on pipes
'05 Victory Hammer ... on order...(I hope!)

They sign a disclaimer.. DUH!

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John Thingstad wrote:


They sign a disclaimer.. DUH!


But if they do push the passenger version forward ASAP (which Rutan
seems to indicate the plan is on The Science Channel presentation) and
something goes wrong, and they lose the ship and passengers, then the
FAA will have the perfect excuse to legislate the end of private
spaceflight. Going out there and rubbing NASA, Lockheed, and Boeing's
noses in it after winning the X Prize was tactically a very bad move on
Rutan's part; if they consider him a major threat to their space
business and funding, they'll do what they need to to stop him in his
tracks via their friends in Congress.
Rutan is a brilliant designer, but from what I saw of him on that
Science Channel show, he is also a person who may well think that he can
accomplish very difficult things with ease; and that's damn near the "Go
Fever" syndrome that got the Apollo program in trouble.
Except for the last flight, SpaceShipOne has had a long series of
abnormal flights with potentially fatal situations developing. They got
lucky, and it survived and won the Ansari prize- but the thing is more
like a GeeBee racer than a small airliner at the moment. You can fly it
successfully, but don't try it too often or the odds will catch up with you.
If he does build a passenger varient...and is shows problems like
SpaceShipOne did during its test flights... and he puts passengers into
it anyway, and loses them...then that's going be a very major blow to
the privatization of space travel.
The "Peter Principle" can apply to companies as well as individuals-
they also can rise to their level of incompetence.

Pat

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:55:54 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

But if they do push the passenger version forward ASAP (which Rutan
seems to indicate the plan is on The Science Channel presentation) and
something goes wrong, and they lose the ship and passengers, then the
FAA will have the perfect excuse to legislate the end of private
spaceflight.

....At which time we drag whoever's in charge of the FAA out of his
office, tar and feather him, then lead him about five miles away from
the nearest body of water, and then set the feathers on fire after
explaining to him that this is only a taste of the hell that awaits
him as punishment for trying to stand in the way of our next Manifest
Destiny.

OM

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In article ,
says...
But if they do push the passenger version forward ASAP (which Rutan
seems to indicate the plan is on The Science Channel presentation) and
something goes wrong, and they lose the ship and passengers, then the
FAA will have the perfect excuse to legislate the end of private
spaceflight.

Alas, all too likely.


Going out there and rubbing NASA, Lockheed, and Boeing's
noses in it after winning the X Prize was tactically a very bad move on
Rutan's part; if they consider him a major threat to their space
business and funding, they'll do what they need to to stop him in his
tracks via their friends in Congress.

But they won't. Big companies are notorious for not recognising
competition from below until it is too late. At the moment, nothing
Rutan can build is a competitive threat to the any commercial airliner,
nor to any orbital launch vehicle. So the big guys will ignore the
little guy. With luck, they'll ignore him long enough for Rutan or
someone like him to build a cheap orbital system.


Rutan is a brilliant designer, but from what I saw of him on that
Science Channel show, he is also a person who may well think that he can
accomplish very difficult things with ease; and that's damn near the "Go
Fever" syndrome that got the Apollo program in trouble.

It is also the source of the dedication and can-do attitude that
eventually made Apollo succeed.


Except for the last flight, SpaceShipOne has had a long series of
abnormal flights with potentially fatal situations developing. They got
lucky, and it survived and won the Ansari prize- but the thing is more
like a GeeBee racer than a small airliner at the moment. You can fly it
successfully, but don't try it too often or the odds will catch up with you.

The think is called Spaceship *One*. This implies that Rutan does not
think it is perfect. We should expect Spaceship Two to be better.


The "Peter Principle" can apply to companies as well as individuals-
they also can rise to their level of incompetence.

I won't disagree with this in abstract, but we have yet to see to see
Rutan's incompetence. Perhaps he can't do cheap-access-to-Mars, but only
cheap-access-to-orbit. That would still be an important accomplishment.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

After that, I believe, I undertook to take apart and assemble the clocks
of my grandfather. In the former operation I was always successful, but
often failed in the latter. -- attributed to Nicola Tesla

Pat Flannery wrote in message ...
John Thingstad wrote:


They sign a disclaimer.. DUH!


But if they do push the passenger version forward ASAP (which Rutan
seems to indicate the plan is on The Science Channel presentation) and
something goes wrong, and they lose the ship and passengers, then the
FAA will have the perfect excuse to legislate the end of private
spaceflight. Going out there and rubbing NASA, Lockheed, and Boeing's
noses in it after winning the X Prize was tactically a very bad move on
Rutan's part; if they consider him a major threat to their space
business and funding, they'll do what they need to to stop him in his
tracks via their friends in Congress.

I tire of hearing how diplomatic Rutan should be. If the US choses to
stifle its space industry, then the business will go elsewhere. That
threat will eventually keep these organizations in line. Also from my
viewpoint, given the vast amount of investment that's been made in
these organizations, it would be more to the advantage of the US, if
these organizations can be reformed rather than destroyed. Humiliation
might trigger true reform.

Rutan is a brilliant designer, but from what I saw of him on that
Science Channel show, he is also a person who may well think that he can
accomplish very difficult things with ease; and that's damn near the "Go
Fever" syndrome that got the Apollo program in trouble.
Except for the last flight, SpaceShipOne has had a long series of
abnormal flights with potentially fatal situations developing. They got
lucky, and it survived and won the Ansari prize- but the thing is more
like a GeeBee racer than a small airliner at the moment. You can fly it
successfully, but don't try it too often or the odds will catch up with you.
If he does build a passenger varient...and is shows problems like
SpaceShipOne did during its test flights... and he puts passengers into
it anyway, and loses them...then that's going be a very major blow to
the privatization of space travel.
The "Peter Principle" can apply to companies as well as individuals-
they also can rise to their level of incompetence.

While I'm uneasy at the apparent risks that Scaled Composites took
with SpaceShipOne, you should keep in mind that Rutan has never
indicated that his company would enter the space tourism business, but
merely that they would license (and perhaps manufacture) these
vehicles. That seems to render most of this argument irrelevant.


Karl Hallowell

"Kevin Willoughby" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
But if they do push the passenger version forward ASAP (which Rutan
seems to indicate the plan is on The Science Channel presentation) and
something goes wrong, and they lose the ship and passengers, then the
FAA will have the perfect excuse to legislate the end of private
spaceflight.

Alas, all too likely.

Would the FAA even be allowed to ban private spaceflight? According to the
principles of free enterprise and healthy competition, it would just be
obvious to any observer that the US govt is merely protecting its monopoly
on space travel, which may turn out to be illegal. Private ventures evicted
from space by government fiat, and their lawyers, would have a field day
over something like that.

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In article
,
"Neil Gerace" wrote:

Would the FAA even be allowed to ban private spaceflight?

I'd have to look up the enabling legislation again to give you a
precise quote, but generally speaking, the FAA has jurisdiction over
pretty much any civilian activity in the atmosphere over the U.S., it
territories and possessions, from 5,000' above ground level up,
except over airports where control goes down to ground level, and in
certain other restricted areas.

Since civilian spacecraft have to fly through the atmosphere on the
way up and the way down, the FAA has authority. Some time back I
posted some of the legislation and regs pertaining to civilian
suborbital flight. They're pretty scant at this point, but I don't
expect that situation to continue. Sooner or later Congress will
pass more enabling legislation and the FAA will propose and adopt a
more comprehensive regulatory scheme. It remains to be seen,
however, what form that scheme will take.
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