X Prize flight today.

[KLang]

Today is the day of the first attempt. There is a link to a live webcast here. (http://web1-xprize.primary.net/launch.php)

Note the presented by sponsor at the top of the page. :thumbup:

[anait]

Watching now...

[Methanolandbrats]

Great big lawn darts?

[Turn7]

About to light the candle.

[Turn7]

doesn't look good. what is with all the spinning?

[anait]

He made it to the needed altitude...coming back to Mohave...

[KLang]

I don't think the spin on the way up was planned. Didn't seem to hurt anything. Almost back down. This webcast is awesome!

[anait]

Wow, 63 yr old pilot. :thumbup: Wonder what was with the spin?? Hey, cool, KK...

[Ankf00]

saw KK too, made for a great 40 minute break from work with everyone hanging out in the atrium, hah. let the noble cause of sending rich ppl to sub orbital altitudes commence!

[G.]

Mike Melvill = big brass ones.

[anait]

^^^ No kidding! He called the 'unscripted maneuvers' a "victory roll"!! :D

[G.]

^^^ No kidding! He called the 'unscripted maneuvers' a "victory roll"!! :DThe ground told him to abort. He didn't. He would've been short of the 100km if he aborted.

[G.]

To become an annual event. :thumbup:

[KLang]

Follow up flight as early as next Monday.

I was very impressed that we were able to watch live video from a camera mounted on the outside of SpaceShipOne. :cool:

[KLang]

Did you see this announcement the other day?

Virgin Galactic (http://www.virgingalactic.com/)

http://www.virgingalactic.com/images/content/content_image_022.jpg

[Ankf00]

Follow up flight as early as next Monday.

I was very impressed that we were able to watch live video from a camera mounted on the outside of SpaceShipOne. :cool:
there's interior cams as well

[Anteater]

I just checked my mailbox and found an eyewitness account from a friend:

Went to the Rutan X-Prize launch yesterday. Glad I did it, but even with a $130 parking pass viewing was not optimal. I'm grumpy because the promoters wanted you there no later than 5:30 AM. The scheduled launch time wasn't until 7. As it turned out my 4:00 AM wakeup call didn't happen. I got up at 5 and was amazed I was in the parking lot by 5:37! The mother ship & rocket taxi pretty much in front of the viewing area, but field of view is limited by other spectators (no grandstands). I grabbed one or two shots with a short telephoto, and pulled back my tripod and long telephoto about 25 yards back, hoping I could get shots once airborne. Spiral to separation altitude (60,000 fit I think) takes about 45 minutes so they pass overhead several times. I think separation is probably over Edwards restricted airspace (maybe 20 miles away), so even at 7X or so the vehicles are not visible. What you see is the contrail of the rocket motor. You can also hear the sonic boom. Recovery is also about a 45 minute proposition. You can see the chase planes and space vehicle on pretty much the last flare and final approach. Final is hard to see because of the angle of the sun. The chase planes entertained the crowd after touchdown, by flying an impressively tight 3-ship formation and a crisp carrier break to land. The mother ship then did a nice flyby and climb prior to landing. Looking forward to a documentary on Discovery channel this Sunday.

[KLang]

Looking forward to a documentary on Discovery channel this Sunday.

Thanks for the heads-up on the Discovery broadcast. Have to check that out. :cool:

[nrc]

There is a gallery up on the CCWS site now. Do you suppose there were any sponsorship pitches made out there? "The Virgin Galactic car ran really well today, Jon." :)

http://www.champcarworldseries.com/Event/EventPhotos.asp?EventID=528

[tllips]

Thanks for the heads-up on the Discovery broadcast. Have to check that out. :cool:

Anybody know what time? Or What the name of the show will be?

[nrc]

Anybody know what time? Or What the name of the show will be?

Black Sky - Sunday at 9PM and Midnight. (Thanks, TiVo.)

[KLang]

There is a gallery up on the CCWS site now. Do you suppose there were any sponsorship pitches made out there? "The Virgin Galactic car ran really well today, Jon." :)

http://www.champcarworldseries.com/Event/EventPhotos.asp?EventID=528

:thumbup: Very cool!

http://www.champcarworldseries.com/Content/Photos/2004/By400/20040930P_0016.jpg

http://www.champcarworldseries.com/Content/Photos/2004/By400/20040930P_0013.jpg

[tllips]

Black Sky - Sunday at 9PM and Midnight. (Thanks, TiVo.)

Thanks!!! TiVo is set!! :D

[CARTNUT]

Second SpaceshipOne launch is a go for Monday, 10/04. Thinking about taking my brother and the kids up Sunday night.

XPrize Homepage (http://www.xprize.org/home.php)

[KLang]

2nd try is this morning. Today's pilot will be Brian Binnie. Good Luck!

Live webcast is active.

[anait]

2nd try is this morning. Today's pilot will be Brian Binnie. Good Luck!

I wondered if he'd get a chance to fly this morning. Safe flight!!

[Anteater]

That was awesome! :thumbup: What a historic day!

[theunions]

The neighbor just had the TV on to CNN or the like, and about a sentence after mentioning how 7Up had upped the ante in its promotions following today's events, they mentioned ChampCar, M&M's and 7Up (in that order!) in the same sentence. :thumbup:

So...what will CCWS do to promote this now and vice versa?

[CARTNUT]

Just got back home from Mojave. All I can say is WOW!!! What a moving experience! I've never seen so many grown men cry all at once!

I left home at 12:45am this morning after watching the Discovery Channel special, throwin' together some stuff, and made it to Mojave by 2:30am. I figured I'd catch some sleep between parking the car just after 3:00am and 6:00am, but alot of people were already making there way up to the flight line so I decided to scope it out as well. Good thing! I was about the 200th car to park in GA and by the time I walked up to the fence, there was already a full row of people camped out along the full length of it! Anyway...

Right at dawn, the chase planes and the White Night(Mother ship), with SpaceShipOne slung below it, taxied past us about 80feet away, to the southeast end of the runway. They took off in succession with White Night ascending directly in front of the rising sun at about 6:50am The sky was an absolutely perfect clear blue. For the next hour, the planes circled the airspace above Mojave "Spaceport" as they climbed to "drop" altitude of (about???) 48,000feet. At this point, the contrails from 1 chase plane and the White Night were now visible and the "5 MINUTES TO LAUNCH" announcement was made over the PA. A few minutes later they announced "2 MINUTES;" a minute later they announced "2 MINUTES!" AGAIN! Everyone laughed. "1 MINUTE." "30 SECONDS." "10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, SEPARATION!!!"

And then WHAMMMMMM!!! That sucker shot straight up, seriously, faster than anything I've ever seen in my life!!! I think it was about a 2 minute climb but it seemed like only a few seconds. You couldn't hear the PA anymore 'cause the crowd was cheering so wildly (like they did when Jimmy won Fontuckey in '02! ;) ) Then it just disappeared into space.

I guess it was about 20 mins. later that we heard the double sonic boom high over the desert. Again, the crowd roared! Everyone was so filled with emotion that I can't really recall how long it was til we could spot the planes above us again. A short while later, the chase planes and SpaceShipOne circled Mojave in formation above us after its decent from 360,000feet! Then the tiny rocket plane made a perfect landing on the same runway directly in front of the crowd. What an unbelievable experience!

For the next hour, congratulatory announcements were made by all those involved with the project, who were about a mile away from us down the runway. The morning ended with SpaceShipOne being towed back down the taxiway with pilot Brian Binney standing on top of it waving the American Flag in victory! A $10,000,000 Victory!

I Promise I will scan my pictures and upload them tonight after I get them back from developing. Also, the Discovery Channel is going to air today's flight on Thursday night at 9:00pm E/P. (Note to those like me with DishNetwork east coast feed, that's 6:00pm Pacific time!) And, I want to apologize to the lady in Cerritos who has my same phone number who I called 3 times this morning before 5:45am as I was trying to call my wife when I finally realized I was dialing the wrong (NEW) area code! (That's 951, not 562!) It was nice talking to you though! :o

'NUT :gomer:

BTW - IMHO, ChampCar missed a big oppotunity today due to it's lack promotion/presence in the GA area. There were only 2 quick mentions made about it as the presenting sponsor. And, I was the only one I saw in the crowd (of several thousand people) who was wearing my ChampCar garb! I yelped loudly in support when the mentioned it! People just turned around and stared at me with that confused look on their faces... Very frustrating!
Gonna take a nap now........

[RacinM3]

CRAP!! Now I guess I'll have to scrap my plan to win the $10 million. A La-Z-Boy strapped to a giant keg of gunpowder. I guess I'll just have to keep working for a living, now. :gomer:

Seriously though....I was late to work today because of this....it was pretty cool.

[L1P1]

CRAP!! Now I guess I'll have to scrap my plan to win the $10 million. A La-Z-Boy strapped to a giant keg of gunpowder. I guess I'll just have to keep working for a living, now. :gomer:


Look at the bright side. Now you can use the keg for the purpose for which it was intended - beer. A better combination, IMHO.

[RacinM3]

Too late. I shipped it to IRL HQ with a reallllly long fuse. Lit.

[G.]

Anyone catch the Discovery channel special on this? Holy crap! This was more seat-of-your-pants than I expected (though certainly, some good editing was meant to give that impression).

[nrc]

Anyone catch the Discovery channel special on this? Holy crap! This was more seat-of-your-pants than I expected (though certainly, some good editing was meant to give that impression).

It's a stick and rudder flight into space, it doesn't get much more seat of the pants than that.

There were some amazing insights in there I hadn't heard before. There have only been three manned space flights this year: One Soyuz flight and the two X Prize filghts. The second X prize flight also broke the X-15's altitude record set back in the 60s.

Another thing this drove home was how averse we've become to risks. This team won the prize because they had faith in their engineering and the test pilots were willing to accept the risks involved.

The question now is whether the government will allow reasonable people accepting risks to be part of commercial space flight. The Scaled Composites team was clearly very proud that they were able to achieve this for America. It would be a shame if space tourism ended up having to become an off-shore operation because the goverment insists on being everyone's nanny.

[L1P1]

BTW I: Link to project page: http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/info.htm

BTW II: Does anyone know if the "feathering" would work from higher up? i.e. If you could haul SpaceshipOne up to orbit in the back of the shuttle, could it re-enter the atmosphere?

[Ankf00]

going orbital will require a thermal protection system, and a much bigger budget, you can't "feather" if there's no atmosphere to provide drag

[L1P1]

going orbital will require a thermal protection system, and a much bigger budget, you can't "feather" if there's no atmosphere to provide drag

But if there's no atmosphere, there's no heating, no? I watched the Discovery shows again today and the rendering of the orbital system looked the same except for what appeared to be a second stage on the rocket.

[nissan gtp]

orbital speed is higher, thus more energy needed (bigger booster) and more to get rid of ... dunno if feathering would be enough. Don't remember the speed, but 18K mph come to mind (too lazy to google it) .

I'd like to see Rutan give it a try, he could figgur it out :thumbup:

I'd like to see him do a Champ Car design too (non-flying please) :D

[Ankf00]

speeds and acceleration required are higher, also upon reentry after going orbital, you're descending from a higher altitude, so you've got alot more potential energy you're converting into speed before you hit the atmosphere

the chinese do it the smart way, they use wood, no fancy ceramics, just freaking wood, let the wood get a lil moist, let it char upon reentry (apparently it doesnt burn), and then just replace the wood instead of pissing away hundreds of thousands of dollars on refurbishing your fancy ceramic thermal protection tiles...

[anait]

the chinese do it the smart way, they use wood, no fancy ceramics, just freaking wood, let the wood get a lil moist, let it char upon reentry (apparently it doesnt burn), and then just replace the wood instead of pissing away hundreds of thousands of dollars on refurbishing your fancy ceramic thermal protection tiles...

...you're kidding, right??

[Ankf00]

nope, the chinese reportedly use the wood for the ablator, and we've used cork and wood i think before as ablative material for rocket housings/casings that were jettisoned into the atmosphere

[KLang]

Finally got around to watching the first part of Black Sky yesterday. Great job by Discovery Channel. :thumbup:

I don't remember reading about the problem they encountered on the flight back in June. :eek:

[KLang]

An update.

According to this CNN article (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/10/22/branson.space/index.html) Branson and Virgin Galactic have had over 7000 people say they will spend $210,000 for a trip. Gotta start saving. :)