Augustine Commission Report released

[diankra]

I Schirra wish I could do that!

Are you Cernan that you can't? Haise you lost your sense of humor?

Better send up a Carpenter while you're at it. When the Worden handle on that shovel breaks, you need someone who can make a new one. (Particularly if the shovel's from an own Brand range. They don't cost a Bean, but they're no good for left-Anders).

(Editor's note: Evans above, Gordon bennett and great Scott, these puns could become a Bor, man).

 

[Data Holmes]

Of course I'm familiar with those programs. They're in their infancy stages right now, but as I said in my original post, they are the future of space exploration in this country.

Don't underestimate Burt Rutan. He's a dreamer, and he seems to be one of those gifted individuals who succeeds in almost everything he attempts. He's had a "vision to space" for a long time. If you watch the documentary "black sky: the race for space" he showed them some quick rendered designs on his computer and said "that Tier One will cover suborbital flights, Tier Two will cover orbital flights, and Tier Three will cover flights beyond Earth's orbit"

He is working on tier 1b right now, which is comerical and scientific operations based off of the designs developed for the tier 1 program.

Virgin Galatic, Richard Branson's space tourist company partnered with Rutan and Paul Allen's Mojave Aerospace Ventures, plans to begin commerical operations by 2011. It had 65,000 applicants for the first 100 tickets. It already has 200 paid in full applicants on it's books, and 95% have already passed the physical and health tests for flight. They each paid $200,000 per ticket. (quick math time that is $40 million dollars). Also, the first ship in the virgin line has been announced to have been named the VSS (Virgin Space Ship) Enterprise.

Also, take into mind the speed at which this is all running. Rutan started planning out his space designs and ideas in '96, prelim development on tier one started in 99, with full development starting in 01. The carry craft, White Knight, had a first flight in 02, SpaceShipOne had it's first test flight in 03, june 04 saw first powered test flight for SS1 and by oct 04 had won the X prize.

05 started the tier 1b operations, with the first SpaceShipTwo to be rolled out for testing in december of this year.

They go from paper to practice in 4-5 years. That's pretty good considering what they are doing.

My only comment would be that suborbital is one hell of a lot easier than orbital flight. And it's taking Rutan a long time just to do that. You want to follow a real space company, follow SpaceX. SpaceX will be doing regular milk runs to the ISS by the time Rutan gets Virgin Galactic doing little "hops".

Careful, if everything holds to schedule and commercial operations run smoothly, SpaceShipThree development will be underway by 2013. SS3 at this point looks to be the concept design for either/both the tier 2 orbiter and/or a point-to-point hypersonic transport capable of 2hr travel times between london and sydney.

NASA apparently has already booked flight time on Virgin Galactic's planned SS2 flights to conduct astronaut training and scientific missions.

Also, there is talk that the SpaceShipFour might be a two stage micro satellite launching vehicle.


A side note is that many aviation bloggers are calling attention to the fact that SS2's design is very similar to the design of the X-20, a craft which was designed to fly at mach 5 or better, when SS2 is only set to fly at mach 3 max, and the fact that the carry craft, white night two, bares a striking resemblance to a russian proposed design from the 70/80's to serve as a space launch platform based on the Bison bomber I believe.

 

[sojourner]

SpaceShipThree development will be underway by 2013

Like I said, SpaceX will already be flying to ISS by the time this starts development. If it does.

The only links I could find show SS3, IF developed, would still be a suborbital vehicle. I could only find single sentence references to SS4 and those articles were all 2 years old.

Can you provide any links with updated information? I have a feeling this SS3 and SS4 stuff is mostly spin.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Sojourner, that'll be tough as Rutan always plays his cards close to his chest. IIRC, SpaceShip 1 wasn't announced to the public until it was sitting on the tarmac.

 

[Data Holmes]

Sojourner, that'll be tough as Rutan always plays his cards close to his chest. IIRC, SpaceShip 1 wasn't announced to the public until it was sitting on the tarmac.

Indeed, most of the information about future projects came from the president of Virgin Galactic, but he's been pretty tight lipped since 07 about anything beyond spaceshiptwo and their spaceport operations. Most all of the ship development and anything tied into the tier development programs under Rutan have been under lock and key.

 

[sojourner]

I like Rutan, but he reminds me too much of an artist. Always moving on to the next project. I'll stick with SpaceX, they state their goals and provided updates.