Space Ship One and the X-Prise

Looks like the era of cheap suborbital flight is almost upon us. So what's
next? We need an X2-Prise, we should raise the bar, and the prise money to $25
million next time around. Spaceship One can reach space. We need to raise the
bar and have another competition. Suborbital transportation if you can go
somewhere while at the same time reach space. A suborbital flight from New York
to Los Angeles might be a good start. The next would be a suborbital
transaltantic flight from New York to London. Basically the ship would leave
the Earth's atmosphere and follow a ballistic journey toward its destination
and then reenter the atmosphere just before landing. If cheap access to
suborbital flight of this sort can happen, we wouldn't need to develop
supersonic aircraft. There would be no one complaining about the noise
generated or about destruction of the ozone layer as the suborbiter would be
above it all.

Tom

Tkalbfus1 wrote:
Looks like the era of cheap suborbital flight is almost upon us. So what's
next? We need an X2-Prise, we should raise the bar, and the prise money to $25
million next time around. Spaceship One can reach space. We need to raise the
bar and have another competition. Suborbital transportation if you can go
somewhere while at the same time reach space. A suborbital flight from New York
to Los Angeles might be a good start. The next would be a suborbital
transaltantic flight from New York to London. Basically the ship would leave
the Earth's atmosphere and follow a ballistic journey toward its destination
and then reenter the atmosphere just before landing. If cheap access to
suborbital flight of this sort can happen, we wouldn't need to develop
supersonic aircraft. There would be no one complaining about the noise
generated or about destruction of the ozone layer as the suborbiter would be
above it all.

Tom


Go up a few threads earlier than this one:
"Robert Bigelow to announce ..."

Your proposal isn't raising the bar as much as Bigelow's. Perhaps this
is a more realistic short term goal.

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

Go up a few threads earlier than this one:
"Robert Bigelow to announce ..."

Your proposal isn't raising the bar as much as Bigelow's. Perhaps this
is a more realistic short term goal.

--
Hop David

Yeah, we need to get space travel to the point where you can make a profitable
business out of it. If one can make a spaceship that can do the work of an
airplane with a similar cost structure as an airplane, then you've started a
new business that can be profitable and will attract investors. I think
creating a spaceship that can compete with an airplane would set the bar low
enough so that investor money and entreprenuership will bring us the rest of
the way to orbit. We won't be dependent of the lastest government space vehicle
development program.

That said, government can get down to the business of exploring the Solar
System.

(Tkalbfus1) wrote:
There would be no one complaining about the noise generated
or about destruction of the ozone layer as the suborbiter would be
above it all.

You are right about the noise, wrong about the ozone layer... The
suborbiter has go through it going up and coming back. Any exhaust
products it leaves in the ozone are a concern.

That said, government can get down to the business of exploring the
Solar System.

The goverment should get out of that business. "The role of the
Goverment in space should not be to go to Mars, but to make it
possible for National Geographic to go to Mars."

The are failing signally on all counts.

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

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 22:27:33 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

That said, government can get down to the business of exploring the
Solar System.

The goverment should get out of that business. "The role of the
Goverment in space should not be to go to Mars, but to make it
possible for National Geographic to go to Mars."

Dang.

I *knew* I should have copyrighted that.

You are right about the noise, wrong about the ozone layer... The
suborbiter has go through it going up and coming back. Any exhaust
products it leaves in the ozone are a concern.


How much time does a spaceship climbing into space, spend in the Ozone layer?

The spaceship is going up through the ozone layer and then out of it. Now
compare that to an airplane travelling the same distance. The airplane will
release exhaust products over its entire journey. The Spaceship only releases
exhaust products while its accelerating. Once it achieves the velocity it
needs, the engines shut off and the ship follows a ballistic trajectory over
the atmosphere. I think a spaceship will do less damage to the ozone layer than
an airplane whose engines are always on, just to maintain its cruising speed.

That said, government can get down to the business of exploring the
Solar System.

The goverment should get out of that business.

What else is government good for? Government certainly isn't good at developing
a spaceship that private enterprise can use.

"The role of the
Goverment in space should not be to go to Mars, but to make it
possible for National Geographic to go to Mars."

What difference does it make who sticks a flag in the ground once the spaceship
lands on Mars? The hard part is getting to Mars. Sending National Geographic
writers, and photographers to Mars instead of Astronauts, doesn't make it any
cheaper. Besides, if you want to set up a colony, you need government to do it,
that is unless you want Mars to be a corporate state. Whoever colonizes Mars is
going to end up being the government of Mars, this doesn't matter whether it is
the United States Government or a private corporation.

Tom

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 00:13:14 GMT, Rand Simberg
wrote:

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 22:27:33 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

That said, government can get down to the business of exploring the
Solar System.

The goverment should get out of that business. "The role of the
Goverment in space should not be to go to Mars, but to make it
possible for National Geographic to go to Mars."

Dang.

I *knew* I should have copyrighted that.

In a sence they have. By making a moon base the first priority.
Manned Mars exploration has been pushed so far ahead I doubt I will ever
see it.
(I am 37)

--
Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

In article ,
"John Thingstad" wrote:

The goverment should get out of that business. "The role of the
Goverment in space should not be to go to Mars, but to make it
possible for National Geographic to go to Mars."

In a sence they have. By making a moon base the first priority.
Manned Mars exploration has been pushed so far ahead I doubt I will ever
see it.
(I am 37)

Well, make your cryonics arrangements then, and you might see it yet.

But the focus on the Moon is very much the right thing to do. We've
already seen what comes of *six* (count 'em) unsustainable manned
missions to a planetary body. I see no point in doing one more.
Instead, let's go back to the closest, most reachable one, and set up
some sustained presence and infrastructure. Down the road, when we can
do the same for Mars, *then* it's time to go. Flags and footprints are
a colossal waste.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'

In a sence they have. By making a moon base the first priority.
Manned Mars exploration has been pushed so far ahead I doubt I will ever
see it.
(I am 37)

So am I. I suppose I can expect to live to be 72 on average, hopefully longer
than that, but for a conservative estimate, lets say that I live to be 72 years
old, that's 35 more years or about the year 2040. I'm at an equal distance from
2040 as I am from 1970, give or take a few months. So basically what your
saying in light of the recent accomplishments of SpaceShipOne is that Scaled
Composites will never get beyond feeble suborbital flights and that nobody will
be interested in them. The public will then give a big collective shrug and
then stick their nose in the ground. Technology will stay the same and the only
thing that will happen over the next 35 years is that we'll get older and
grayer. People will just sit in their chairs and offices trying to repeat their
performances of last year and do it over and over again without change. In fact
to save paper, they'll just use the same old calander for 2004 and use it over
and over again, crossing out the year "2004" and writing in "2005", "2006" etc.
What event brings about this screeching halt to technological progress?
Whatever it is, it hasn't happened yet.

Do you really believe that if Scaled Composites is on to something, that NASA
will still do things the old-fashioned way?

I can just picture the scene as you might envision it. Tourists gather around
their telescopes and look out the windows of the orbital hotel in 2014 as they
watch the giant rocket take off from Cape Canaveral way down below. All the
commercial space companies have quietly promised not to go to the Moon so as
not to spoil NASA's moment.

Tom

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 22:27:33 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Derek Lyons) made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

That said, government can get down to the business of exploring the
Solar System.

The goverment should get out of that business. "The role of the
Goverment in space should not be to go to Mars, but to make it
possible for National Geographic to go to Mars."

Dang.

I *knew* I should have copyrighted that.

I doubt that National Geographic would make it on
my subscription money.

Or did you mean that the Government should fund
National Geographic to go to Mars.

Or just give them a ride.

Mike Walsh