Re: Spaceship One - a partial sucess.

From: Stephen Souter (s.souter_at_edfac.usyd.edu.au)
Date: 09/30/04 

Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:31:32 +1000

In article <u4K6d.65$2B6.54148@news.uswest.net>,
 "Christopher M. Jones" <marmiteNOTSPAM@dualboot.net> wrote:

> Bruce Hoult wrote:
> > In article <415ad146.31143497@supernews.seanet.com>,
> > fairwater@gmail.com (Derek Lyons) wrote:
> >
> >
> >>First returns; the 100km mark was broken, ascent phase control
> >>problems remain.
> >
> >
> > And always will, with that design. Once it gets out of the atmosphere
> > it simply doesn't have enough authority on the attitide control jets to
> > compensate for the variations in thrust vector you're always going to
> > get from a rocket with solid fuel.
> >
> > The higher a flight is aiming for, the worse the problem will be.
>
> This is bunk. The problem on the first flight was straight
> up Pilot Induced Oscillation. The cause for the second
> problem is unknown but considering it was a roll problem
> it's very, very unlikely to be due to thrust variations
> (which would induce pitch or yaw variations).

Either way, Spaceship One is surely not yet in a flight-ready state. By
that I mean it is still basically a prototype. That is not to say it
might not win the X Prize, but if it does so despite its qualifying
flights encountering the sorts of problems which might have seen a
non-prototype grounded then what exactly will the X Prize have
accomplished, especially if better craft lost because they preferred to
wait until their craft had been more fully tested?

Which raises a issue: should prototypes have been allowed to qualify for
the X Prize?

In particular, instead of the X Prize rules stipulating that competing
craft merely be "able to carry three people", should they have specified
that these flights carry actual human passengers as well as the pilot.
(That way there would less temptation to use vehicles which have not yet
been fully tested to try to steal a march on competing craft.) 

-- 
Stephen Souter
s.souter@edfac.usyd.edu.au
http://www-personal.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

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