X Prize - History in making today

Anyone been following the x-prize stuff? here is a live feed of SaledComposites 2nd flight which will probably be a history books thing down the line...

http://wm-live.world.mii-streaming.net/live/xprize

The feed is a bit glitchy but still...

http://www.xprize.org/

OK so as its getting closer to launch time, the vid feed is getting on its knees.. Oh well :-(

I'm thinking they'll do it. Hopefully it won't break apart in one of those unpredicted spins...

Space.com

Well neither NASA nor Drivin West are involved so it has a fair chance of being a successful mission...
*waves at DW from London*

The spin was actually no big deal. As you leave the atmosphere and your control surfaces loose authority, any inertial moment on the vehicle will continue indefinitely. Give that the air up there is so thin, the structural forces on the vehicle were minimal.

At that altitude rockets are required to maintain attitude which the SSO is equipped with.

I have a feeling they will do it too...

I was kinda hoping Herr Carmack was gonna do it.. but Armadillo Aerospace have had too many setbacks:-( I like their vtol rocket idea tho

Oh snap biotch! That ain't right! Given thet I've sucessfully docked a couple of Space Shuttle and quite a few Progress and Soyuz to the ISS, clearly I've had my successes (bitch!).

While we're setting the record straight let's just look at a list of successful unmanned programs put forth by NASA:

AIM
Astro-E2
CINDI
Dawn
Deep Impact
GLAST
Herschel
Mars '05 Orbiter
New Horizons (Pluto)
Planck
SOFIA
Solar-B
Space Tech 5
Space Tech 6
Space Tech 7
STEREO
Swift
THEMIS
TWINS
ACE
Cassini
Chandra
CHIPS
Cluster
FAST
FUSE
GALEX
Geotail
Gravity Probe B
HETE-2
Hubble (HST)
IMAGE
INTEGRAL
Mars '03 Rovers
Mars Express /ASPERA-3
Mars Global Surv.
Mars Odyssey
MESSENGER
Polar
RHESSI
Rosetta
RXTE
SAMPEX
SOHO
Spitzer (SIRTF)
Stardust
SWAS
TIMED
TRACE
Ulysses
Voyager
Wind
WMAP (MAP)
XMM-Newton
Ended after 1989:
ASCA
Astro-1 / Astro-2
BBXRT
Clementine
CGRO
COBE
CONTOUR
CRRES
DE-1
Deep Space 1
Deep Space 2
DXS
Equator-S
EUVE
Galileo
HALCA / VLBI
Hipparcos
Hubble (past)
IEH-3
ISEE-3/ICE
IMP-8
IRTS
ISO
IUE
Kuiper (KAO)
Leonid MAC
Lunar Prospector
Magellan
Mars Observer
Mars Pathfinder
NEAR
ORFEUS
Pioneer 10/11
Pioneer Venus
ROSAT
SAC-B
SNOE
Spartan
Starshine
TERRIERS
TSS-1, TSS-1R
WIRE
Yohkoh

Manned:

Mercury - 100% success rate (denoted as getting the people back)
Gemini - 100% success rate
Apollo - 100% success rate (Apollo 1 was actually a test, not a mission)
Skylab - 100% success rate
Space Shuttle - 98% success rate (been flying for 23 years too) - still the most reliable manned launch system ever.
ISS - 100% success rate since '99

/Not that I'm counting...

forgive me ignorance DW but which was the Mission that blew up on the launch pad?

With people in it? None. The test that resulted in the fire that killed what would have been the Apollo 1 crew might be what you are thinking of.

euhh DW, i totally agree NASA has done some great things and there success rate is incredibly high (it still is rocket science). But don't congratulate yourself to much. A 98% success rate for the space shuttle? If i recollect they lost two out of five shuttles that ever flew.

But on topic, it’s really great if they manage to get the Xprize. And with Richard Branson wanting to commercialize the technology in a couple of years it really looks lie the first steps into the era of space tourism are upon us

Two missions of the 110+ is where that number comes from; counting it based on the number of shuttles that there are really doesn't give you any statistical indication of mission success.

@DW: To the engineers...it was a big deal. Anything unpredicted and involving that much money is a big deal. And I heard that the spins started at a low enough altitude to actually make a difference.. and what happens if the angular velocity increases such as to break apart the vehicle. Not a pretty sight...but you're saying the frictional forces between the vehicle and the 'air' are small due to there being less air molecules...thus less interaction between the vehicle and its surrounding...even though the vehicle has large mass and large momentum (both normal and in this case angular) etc...

Shit, sorry guys - I've inadvertently started another anti-NASA rant (bitch). Personally I admire the boys at International Rescue - there's only 5 of them and they've had a space station and a number of rockets/shuttle type things in regular service since the 60's.

He tries to clear up the rumours about the rolls here...

http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/041...ing_motions.htm

Oh of course; you take any anomolous event and you study the hell out of it, but the ultimate conclusion hasn't stopped these guys from making the 2nd attempt today. The spins started pretty close to the apogee of around 100km so there wouldn't bee too much air resistence, plus, you've have to bea REALLY spinning to cause a structural failure due to angular velocity.

@DW: You're right...They did happen at high altitudes...I must have been drunk when I read the article.

@ Tom17

Good link, but one thing really needs to be put in perspective:


Space Ship One goes Mach 2.7, not nearly fast enough for orbital flight. It goes up, goes down, never goes around. The Space Shuttle goes MUCH faster (obviously, it has to reach orbital velocities) thus has to reenter much faster, around Mach 18 specifically. At such speeds the hinged wing design of Space Ship One is useless.

Woohoo, 8 minutes to go!

Well its not an orbital spaceship. Its a suborbital one with no intentions of flying an orbital path.

Step 1. Spend too much money on sub-orbital spaceship
Step 2. Win X-Prize, win 10 million
Step 3. Get extra funding from above, make an orbiting spacecraft.
...
...
...
Profit!

@Tom17 - they'll license the suborbital technology so they'll hopefully make money out of that already.

Agreed - I just mentioned that as the X-15, Buran, Space Shuttle don't have that capability because they can't have that capability.

ahhhh got ya

ooooh I think he did it.. well he reached apogee...

Looking at the live stream at the moment. Looks def like it's a succes

Am I the only one who didn't understand most of this thread? I think I'm gonna go back to discussing Brad Pitt .

What the hell is X Prize?

It's Microsoft's version of the PS2.

@Bubble gum - Xprize is a contest for the first commercial spacefligth, winner takes home 10million and a note into the history books.

Cool beans for Rutan and crew!

I just received the following email...

Let me know when they start the de-virgin galactic shuttle.
I want to join the 100-mile high club.

I wonder how many already have?

A married couple has been in space before but officially they didn't do anything

Chamondly Warner- I hope you have a few 100 grand lying around. Won't it be expensive?

@DW. I thought the news was that they didn't 'officially' do anything in space because they wanted to keep their private lives to themselves, but anyone who wouldn't use every spare second of zero g for fun belongs in a monastary/convent, right?

@eurovol - pimpin around in my space ship one, lookin for honeys who wanna take the elevator to heaven, know what I'm sayin?