368,000 ft!

Excellent! SpaceShip 1 hit ~368,000 feet altitude in its
second X-Prize flight, with a turnaround time of 5 days.
Reports are that it was a good, clean flight, it's on its
way to landing now. It looks like they won the X-Prize.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 10:01:03 -0500, in a place far, far away,
"Christopher M. Jones" made the
phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Excellent! SpaceShip 1 hit ~368,000 feet altitude in its
second X-Prize flight, with a turnaround time of 5 days.
Reports are that it was a good, clean flight, it's on its
way to landing now. It looks like they won the X-Prize.

Not until the wheels touch down. Which as I type this, they have...

"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message ...
Excellent! SpaceShip 1 hit ~368,000 feet altitude in its
second X-Prize flight, with a turnaround time of 5 days.
Reports are that it was a good, clean flight, it's on its
way to landing now. It looks like they won the X-Prize.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html

So two questions come to mind:
1) Are Paul Allen and Burt Rutan planning on flying soon as
passengers?
2) What's the cost of replacing the hybrid engine each flight?

Some time ago, there was discussion in this group about the eventual
minimum cost of entering orbit. The supposed airline metric of 3
times fuel cost was mentioned. If the answer to #2 above is $69,000
or less than we've broken that barrier for sub-orbital flight at least
(assuming a Virgin ticket price of $208,000).

In article ,
(Bill Bogen) wrote:

2) What's the cost of replacing the hybrid engine each flight?

Some time ago, there was discussion in this group about the eventual
minimum cost of entering orbit. The supposed airline metric of 3
times fuel cost was mentioned. If the answer to #2 above is $69,000
or less than we've broken that barrier for sub-orbital flight at least
(assuming a Virgin ticket price of $208,000).

I've heard US$100k mentioned.

Which is 25% of what flying two passengers in SS1 would bring at that
price. If SS1 were to be used to paying pasengers prior to the 5
passenger version. And if they didn't charge more for the very early
tickets.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------

"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message ...
Excellent! SpaceShip 1 hit ~368,000 feet altitude in its
second X-Prize flight, with a turnaround time of 5 days.
Reports are that it was a good, clean flight, it's on its
way to landing now. It looks like they won the X-Prize.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html

Yes, now is the time to paarty!

"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message ...
Excellent! SpaceShip 1 hit ~368,000 feet altitude in its
second X-Prize flight, with a turnaround time of 5 days.
Reports are that it was a good, clean flight, it's on its
way to landing now. It looks like they won the X-Prize.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html


Cool, so now they make the cover of TIME, right?

I'm picturing that in 100 years, a bunch of fans from the Galactic
Space Agency will rebuild an historical mockup to re-launch it in time
for the 100th anniversary, only to see it fall off the groundrails.
But be sure to applaud anyway, okay?