Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Col. Fishguts on June 21, 2004, 04:17:43 pm
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Since no one else posted it:
Today SpaceShipOne with pilot Mike Melville aboard made the first private flight into space (>100 km altitude)
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(http://n.ethz.ch/student/ebuerli/download/SSO_800.jpg)
Check their site: http://www.scaled.com/
So you better start saving money NOW, to buy yourself one of these babies, or at least a ticket for a ride.
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YAY SPACESHIPONE!!!!
:yes::yes::yes:
ALRIGHT BURT RUTAN!!!
W00t X-Prize!!!1111oneoneone
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[color=66ff00]You have to give them one thing, if nothing else; they design beautiful craft. :yes:
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*AAHEM* (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,21080.0.html)
ive been saying that burt rutan was god all along. i was gonna post lastnight about the flight but the server crashed.
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Me too. I think every one except Kazan was betting on Scaled
All bow down and worship the greatness of Burt Rutan!
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aww, I was hoping Carmack would win it. Then maybe he could finally get around to releasing Doom 3.
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That's ship would be even cooler if we rigged it with Kaysers and loaded it with Tornadoes and Helioses. :)
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From the front view, it almost looks like a B-29...
Wee. Private space travel within 20 years..
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Start preordering these things... ;7
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Well, you could slap a gatling gun on it and kick some Shivan butt for about 3 minutes.
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How? The bullets would bounce off the Shivan shields.
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shield piercing incindeary rounds
i use gatling guns on alot of ships, so long as you keep your fire rate under 20 rpm, ur fine
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This is definately a historic moment. And the thing is so much more efficient than whatever Nasa has put out. Its not a space shuttle yet...but that could change.
And its entirely re-useable!
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they haven't won it yet, mind you. They still have to do it again in 2 weeks.
However, it is indeed 0wnj, and Burt Rutan does know how to build 'em.
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Originally posted by IceFire
This is definately a historic moment. And the thing is so much more efficient than whatever Nasa has put out. Its not a space shuttle yet...but that could change.
And its entirely re-useable!
[color=66ff0]It's a horrible Irony, I have an Arthur C. Clarke book called 'Prelude to Space' that was written in 1953 that described the use of a piggy backed launch system with minor differences to Scaled composites design (the 'carrier' vessel was nuclear powered and launched by electromagnetic rails).
1953.
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The idea of a piggyback carrier has been around for a long time (NASA even originally planned to use it; the Shuttles were originally intended to launch from the back of a 747 at cruising altitude) but actually getting it to work, with the clearance needed for safe detachment, has always been difficult. It was cut from the shuttle program IIRC due to budget constraints; NASA wasn't given enough money to properly develop the airborne launch platform. Never mind the fact that it would have replaced the boosters and fuel tank, something that would have paid off big-time in the long run.
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[color=66ff00]NASA aren't really given enough money for anything to be honest. :blah:
The UK and europe aren't really much better. Thank God for the chinese, no doubt the US will see China as someone who might actually out perform them in space related matters and pump more cash NASA's way. Competition really is the best way to kick the space program back into gear.
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once they get this baby into orbit.....
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NASA used in it's infancy the piggyback carrier system, for a series of sub-orbital flights using jets IIRC.
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Sorry, but I find the design butt ugly. Looks like the Tsar Bomba strapped to a pair of funky wings and a rocket engine attached.
Cool though, private space flight :D
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but but - funky = good!
*disco dances*
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Great stuff - although there's going to be a lot of **** flying about as soon as one of these things crashes.....
Excellent news for space travel in general, though - perhaps governments will start pulling their fingers out to get a decent space programme going again. :yes:
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But why does it have to be so butt ugly? :p
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White Knight is definitely odd-looking, but Spaceship One is quite elegant for a lifting body, I think. Kinda reminds me of a Herc, actually
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Looks like a suppo with wings :p
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[color=66ff00]I'll just put it down to my strange asthetic tastes then. ;)
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you could probibly strap a few ion thrusters to it, they are fairly lightweight and small but require a big power source. once the ship is weightless the miniscule thrust they create should be enough to hold the ship up.
there was a thing with a sattelite where the rocket faliled to reach orbit, but they managed to manuver the sattelite the rest of the way op with the ion thrusters, which were ment for position holding.
the cool thing about space ship one is that the rocket engine is such a simple design, and the whole ship is made out of lightweight composite material. the engine is a hybrid design, using a rubber/n02 engine, the no2 tank can be easilly refueled and the rubber comes in bolt on cylender that includes the engine bell and the combustion chamber, which can be interchanged with a larger one inbetween missions. they probibly recycle them.
space ship one is so amazingly simple, the controlls are manual (direct linkage between controll surfaces, no interlingking hydraulics or fly by wire systems), the avionics are low profile, the reaction control system uses cold co2 gas instead of rocket fuel, the craft decelerates in upper atmoshpere, eliminating the need of thermal tiles. its not something nasa could have come up with.
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It also looks like if the tiniest incident would occur, the thing would instantly turn into confettis.
To be honest, I wouldn't feel confortable in that frail machine.
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Carbon fiber is some tough s***, id trust it