johnnymk
10-04-2004, 04:45 PM
By John Antczak
ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:21 p.m. October 4, 2004
MOJAVE – A stubby private rocket plane blasted through the Earth's atmosphere and into the history books on Monday, capturing a $10 million prize aimed at opening the final frontier to tourists.
SpaceShipOne streaked into space for the second time in five days to win the Ansari X Prize. Mission officials said the flight was flawless.
"This is the true frontier of transportation," said Marion C. Blakey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, who stood near the runway to watch the flight. "It feels a little bit like Kitty Hawk must have."
The privately owned manned rocket left Mojave Airport north of Los Angeles at dawn aboard a mother plane named White Knight that carried it to an altitude of 46,000 feet.
From there it was launched on a half-hour flight that took it to an altitude of more than 62 miles, the height generally considered the border between the atmosphere and space.
After the spaceship landed, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis said the altitude was official, and that SpaceShipOne's team had claimed the prize by being the first to make two such flights within the required 14 days.
X Prize chief judge Rick Searfoss said the spacecraft reached a height of 367,442 feet and speeds of Mach 3.09 during ascent and Mach 3.26 on the way down.
After the flight, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan took a few shots at the traditional aerospace community.
"The big guys, the Boeings, the Lockheeds and the nay-saying people at Houston, they probably, based on stuff that's been out, probably think that we're a bunch of homebuilders that put a rocket in a long EZ," he said, referring to his signature early small aircraft.
"I think they are looking at each other now and saying, 'We're screwed,'" Rutan said.
Chuck Allen, vice president of Space Exploration Systems for Boeing, said the flight was a "great accomplishment."
"I don't know anybody in the aerospace business who would mention the name Burt Rutan in the same sentence as 'homebuilder,'" he said.
Pioneers such as Rutan and others will be needed as the country plans possible return trips to the moon and manned exploration of Mars.
"There's plenty of room in this for everybody," Allen said.
Last week, Richard Branson, the British airline mogul and adventurer, announced that beginning in 2007, he will begin offering paying customers flights into space aboard rockets like SpaceShipOne.
Branson said he had a deal, worth up to $25 million over 15 years, to license the technology that led to SpaceShipOne. Fares will start at more than $200,000. Rutan will build the spaceship.
The St. Louis-based X Prize was founded in 1996 to kick-start private-sector development of rocket ships that would make spaceflight available to the public. It requires a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to make two flights to an altitude of 328,000 feet, or just above 62 miles, within two weeks.
The goal is to establish that a passenger-carrying rocket can reach space and then do it again as a spaceliner would.
Diamandis hoped it would have the same effect on space travel as the Orteig Prize had on air travel. Charles Lindbergh claimed that $25,000 prize in 1927 after making his solo trans-Atlantic flight.
SpaceShipOne was created by Rutan and funded with more than $20 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who watched Monday's flight from the control room.
"Your heart goes straight to your throat," he said.
Rutan said the board of his Scale Composites firm was considering how to spread the prize money among its employees.
The total cost of the project has not been released. But Rutan jokingly noted to Paul Allen on Monday that the $10 million prize covered 40 percent of Allen's costs. He did not elaborate.
Blakey's agency and members of the developing industry are in talks about regulatory aspects of space tourism, particularly the safety of the uninvolved public on the ground as well as passengers.
Patti Grace Smith, associate administrator for the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, said the excitement around the X Prize has begun to draw the interest of the investment community as well.
A crowd of thousands of space enthusiasts and a throng of news media gathered at Mojave Airport to watch Monday as the mother ship, flown by Michael Melvill, took off into calm, clear skies on a beautiful but chilly morning that saw the dawn sky bathed in pink hues.
Less than a week after carrying Melvill to an altitude of nearly 64 miles, SpaceShipOne needed a repeat performance to claim the prize.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
3:21 p.m. October 4, 2004
MOJAVE – A stubby private rocket plane blasted through the Earth's atmosphere and into the history books on Monday, capturing a $10 million prize aimed at opening the final frontier to tourists.
SpaceShipOne streaked into space for the second time in five days to win the Ansari X Prize. Mission officials said the flight was flawless.
"This is the true frontier of transportation," said Marion C. Blakey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, who stood near the runway to watch the flight. "It feels a little bit like Kitty Hawk must have."
The privately owned manned rocket left Mojave Airport north of Los Angeles at dawn aboard a mother plane named White Knight that carried it to an altitude of 46,000 feet.
From there it was launched on a half-hour flight that took it to an altitude of more than 62 miles, the height generally considered the border between the atmosphere and space.
After the spaceship landed, X Prize founder Peter Diamandis said the altitude was official, and that SpaceShipOne's team had claimed the prize by being the first to make two such flights within the required 14 days.
X Prize chief judge Rick Searfoss said the spacecraft reached a height of 367,442 feet and speeds of Mach 3.09 during ascent and Mach 3.26 on the way down.
After the flight, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan took a few shots at the traditional aerospace community.
"The big guys, the Boeings, the Lockheeds and the nay-saying people at Houston, they probably, based on stuff that's been out, probably think that we're a bunch of homebuilders that put a rocket in a long EZ," he said, referring to his signature early small aircraft.
"I think they are looking at each other now and saying, 'We're screwed,'" Rutan said.
Chuck Allen, vice president of Space Exploration Systems for Boeing, said the flight was a "great accomplishment."
"I don't know anybody in the aerospace business who would mention the name Burt Rutan in the same sentence as 'homebuilder,'" he said.
Pioneers such as Rutan and others will be needed as the country plans possible return trips to the moon and manned exploration of Mars.
"There's plenty of room in this for everybody," Allen said.
Last week, Richard Branson, the British airline mogul and adventurer, announced that beginning in 2007, he will begin offering paying customers flights into space aboard rockets like SpaceShipOne.
Branson said he had a deal, worth up to $25 million over 15 years, to license the technology that led to SpaceShipOne. Fares will start at more than $200,000. Rutan will build the spaceship.
The St. Louis-based X Prize was founded in 1996 to kick-start private-sector development of rocket ships that would make spaceflight available to the public. It requires a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to make two flights to an altitude of 328,000 feet, or just above 62 miles, within two weeks.
The goal is to establish that a passenger-carrying rocket can reach space and then do it again as a spaceliner would.
Diamandis hoped it would have the same effect on space travel as the Orteig Prize had on air travel. Charles Lindbergh claimed that $25,000 prize in 1927 after making his solo trans-Atlantic flight.
SpaceShipOne was created by Rutan and funded with more than $20 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who watched Monday's flight from the control room.
"Your heart goes straight to your throat," he said.
Rutan said the board of his Scale Composites firm was considering how to spread the prize money among its employees.
The total cost of the project has not been released. But Rutan jokingly noted to Paul Allen on Monday that the $10 million prize covered 40 percent of Allen's costs. He did not elaborate.
Blakey's agency and members of the developing industry are in talks about regulatory aspects of space tourism, particularly the safety of the uninvolved public on the ground as well as passengers.
Patti Grace Smith, associate administrator for the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, said the excitement around the X Prize has begun to draw the interest of the investment community as well.
A crowd of thousands of space enthusiasts and a throng of news media gathered at Mojave Airport to watch Monday as the mother ship, flown by Michael Melvill, took off into calm, clear skies on a beautiful but chilly morning that saw the dawn sky bathed in pink hues.
Less than a week after carrying Melvill to an altitude of nearly 64 miles, SpaceShipOne needed a repeat performance to claim the prize.