Dynaverse.net
Off Topic => Ten Forward => Topic started by: S'Raek on October 04, 2004, 10:23:11 am
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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041004/ap_on_sc/private_spaceship_13
SpaceShipOne Soars to Space for $10M Prize
27 minutes ago Science - AP
By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press Writer
MOJAVE, Calif. - A stubby rocket plane was slung from the belly of a carrier plane toward space Monday in the final leg of a trip toward the edge of the Earth's atmosphere and a $10 million prize.
A new pilot and potential astronaut, Brian Binnie, was chosen to fly the second flight into space in six days for SpaceShipOne, the rocket plane funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen.
The carrier plane took off from a desert runway and the plane was released in midair and fired its rocket to continue on its own to an altitude of just over 62 miles ? generally considered to be the point where the Earth's atmosphere ends and space begins.
If it succeeds, the backers will claim the Ansari X Prize, intended to spur private enterprise to develop rockets that could carry tourists into space. The $10 million award goes to the first privately built, manned rocket ship to fly in space twice in a span of two weeks.
A crowd of thousands of space enthusiasts and a throng of news media gathered at Mojave Airport in the early morning darkness to watch the flight. Last week, SpaceShipOne rolled dozens of times as it hurtled toward space at three times the speed of sound.
The choice of Binnie as Monday's pilot was kept secret until hours before the scheduled takeoff. One of four pilots who have undergone special training to fly SpaceShipOne, Binnie was at the controls when it broke the sound barrier for the first time on a December test flight.
Both the first flight by a private plane into space on June 21 and the latest flight on Wednesday were flown by Michael Melvill, who has been awarded the nation's first commercial astronaut wings by the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites).
After a safety analysis, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan posted preliminary information about last week's flight on his Web site this weekend to address what he called the "incorrect rumors" that have circulated.
The first roll occurred at a high speed, about Mach 2.7, but aerodynamic loads on the spacecraft were low and decreasing rapidly "so the ship never saw any significant structural stresses," he said.
Ansari X Prize founder Peter Diamandis hoped the multimillion-dollar incentive would have the same effect on space travel as the Orteig Prize had on air travel. Charles Lindbergh claimed that $25,000 prize in 1927 after making his solo trans-Atlantic flight.
Major funding came from the Ansari family of Dallas. More than two dozen teams around the world are trying to win the prize, but only SpaceShipOne has reached space.
NASA (news - web sites) Administrator Sean O'Keefe came to Mojave to watch last week's flight, and Marion C. Blakey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, came to watch Monday's flight.
"I think it's an enormous step because what it does, really, is establish I think in the minds of the average American the fact that that this is something that you can actually consider in your lifetime," Blakey said Sunday.
Last week, Richard Branson, the British airline mogul and adventurer, announced that beginning in 2007, he will begin offering paying customers flights into space aboard rockets like the SpaceShipOne. He plans to call the service Virgin Galactic
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YAY! Sooooo when can Ferret and I enjoy 0-g sex?
I wonder how much it's gonna cost to fly? I mean for us right now a R/T to say Virginia from Hawaii is about $900+ at the cheepest!
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YAY! Sooooo when can Ferret and I enjoy 0-g sex?
I wonder how much it's gonna cost to fly? I mean for us right now a R/T to say Virginia from Hawaii is about $900+ at the cheepest!
$208,000 is the price for the first tickets that Virgin Galactic (Spaceship 1's big sponser was Virgin) lines is planning to offer for entry fares. That is about 3-5 years hence when they get a single-stage to orbit bird ready for takeoff.
Hope it's good if it costs that much! ;)
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$208,000 is the price for the first tickets that Virgin Galactic (Spaceship 1's big sponser was Virgin) lines is planning to offer for entry fares. That is about 3-5 years hence when they get a single-stage to orbit bird ready for takeoff.
Hope it's good if it costs that much! ;)
Virigin Galactic is NOT a sponsor of Spaceship One. SpaceShip One's sponsor was Paul Allen cofounder of Microsoft. Virgin Galactic is a new company (part of a group of companies with the Virgin name) that just licensed the technology use in Spaceship One to allow the building of "tourist" versions of Spaceship One. I believe that Scaled Composite (builders and designers of Spaceship One and the White Knight) will be involved in the design and construction of the new craft but the details are limited at this time.
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Gentlemen,
Who else woke up this morning and realized it was a new dawn in space?
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I wonder if they took the check to a nearby liqour store and tried to cash it :)
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YAY! Sooooo when can Ferret and I enjoy 0-g sex?
I wonder how much it's gonna cost to fly? I mean for us right now a R/T to say Virginia from Hawaii is about $900+ at the cheepest!
$208,000 is the price for the first tickets that Virgin Galactic (Spaceship 1's big sponser was Virgin) lines is planning to offer for entry fares. That is about 3-5 years hence when they get a single-stage to orbit bird ready for takeoff.
Hope it's good if it costs that much! ;)
Is that per person or a ticket for two? ;D
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$208,000 PER, Alien... $416K to be able to do the Horizontal Tango in zero-G.
I'd try it, but not till the prices come down.
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I wonder if they took the check to a nearby liqour store and tried to cash it :)
With Paul Allen's money he may have just framed it for the office wall.
My initial response to hearing of the X-Prize was a simple "finally". Space development has stagnated this is what was needed to break free.