Re: On the Nature of Exploration
From: Dave O'Neill (daveon_at_gmail.com)
Date: 07/20/04
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Date: 20 Jul 2004 01:59:44 -0700
Rand Simberg <newsgroups@transterrestrial.com> wrote in message news:<2CUKc.7405$mL5.5667@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net>...
> Greg Kuperberg wrote:
>
> >>It has flown several times, and I suspect that they would dispute the
> >>notion that "it almost crashed."
> >
> >
> > What I meant was, SS1 has only done one exo-atmospheric flight.
> > And I don't see any way to summarize the following other than
> > with the words "almost crashed":
> >
> > The South African-born Melvill told the New York Times, in an
> > interview published Wednesday, that SpaceShipOne lurched to the
> > left and suffered a key control system failure that left him feeling
> > "deathly afraid" and fearing he was going to be a "squashed bug".
> >
> > At one point during the ascension, he even considered aborting the flight.
> >
> > "I had a sort of resigned feeling in my mind that there was no way
> > to get back with a situation like that," he told the Times.
>
> Fear that it might crash is not equivalent to "almost crashing."
>
> > A 1 in 10 chance of a crash is unacceptable even for commercial unmanned
> > launches.
>
> Again, you're making the number up.
>
> SS1 is not "affordable spaceflight", it's a stunt in the
> > tradition of Evel Knievel.
>
> If flies into space, and it's affordable, despite your attempts to
> mischaracterize it.
>
> > I don't mean to make it sounds like a small thing: Rutan has accomplished
> > more with this project than I thought that he would, and he knows more
> > about planes and rockets than I ever will. Still, SS1 is to space travel
> > as wading is to swimming.
>
> Yes, and one must learn to wade before learning to swim.
I'm not sure it's wading myself.
It's a fun vehicle, built for a specific purpose and it looks cool.
Looks like a certain insurance company are going to lose a bet.
However, it's built for a specific purpose, the X Prize. It is not
orbital, it doesn't have to worry about a lot of *hard* stuff, like
moving at 9000m/s rather than 900(ish)m/s - that's a lot of energy
missing from the equation.
Nor does it have to worry about thermal shielding on re-entry, thanks
to that slight difference in velocity.
There's no need for a proper life support system as it doesn't spend
any time to speak of, in space.
Burt Rutan has shown that private industry can build an X plane for a
reasonable amount of money. Excellent.
He did not and has not demonstrated we can do the same for orbital
vehicles at similar price points and I'm still not convinced that he
will, it wasn't what he was trying to show with this vehicle.
Caveat: I was prepared to bet that the X-Prize wasn't going to be won
this year. Glad to be wrong on that one. However, it doesn't alter
my skeptism on "cheap" (i.e. tens of millions) space vehicles and
access.
Dave
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