Black Sky: The Race for Space

[radarredux]

I just finished watching the Discovery Channel's special "Black Sky" about Scaled Composite's space race. What a ride!!<br /><br />They did a great job showing the emotions involved. They also showed how at each step there were challenges and real fears and scary moments.<br /><br />This team really does have "The Right Stuff"<br /><br />Go Scaled !!<br /><br />(Please follow up with your observations and feelings about the show)

 

[mousebot]

Did you notice the glimpse of tier two and three? Orbital and beyond.

 

[nacnud]

Tier two and three? Sounds interesting, could you comment further on what was said, not having cable I'm unlikely ever to see the program <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" />.

 

[mousebot]

The tier two images I saw had the craft on top of a first stage booster. Knowing Rutan the booster would be reusable. He also showed images of rotating space hotels for tourists to have private observing bubbles or run the cooridor to get closer to 1 g (it only has 2/10 g). He showed a larger tier one craft with room for 7.<br /><br />Tier 1 - suborbital<br />Tier 2 - orbital<br />Tier 3 - beyond<br /><br />It's coming on again, I can try and take a picture with my camera phone but I'm sure someone will get video capture for you.

 

[flynn]

Having not yet seen it this is a bit of a guess but I imagine the Tier 1 - 7 person craft is the ship to be operated by www.virgingalactic.com as this is reported to carry 5 passengers + crew. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[meteo]

I noticed a spaceshipone with a booster attatched. I didn't think it was possible for a ship to do an orbital re-entry like spaceshipone does. G-forces to high and burnup. A capsoule attatched to a booster carried by larger "white knight" or other plane could work nicely though.<br /><br />I thought the show was awesome! About what % bigger did tier1 look than spaceshipone. Man I was just overwhelmed by how much Burt cares about space, he was brought to tears when he was talking about that pluto probe.

 

[mousebot]

I'm sure it's not exactly like SpaceShipOne. But rutan's craft uses a superior reentry technique to the space shuttle or other older designs. If he uses an advanced thermal protection system then it would work fine.

 

[nacnud]

Thanks <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />, I'll see if anyone I know that has cable can stick it on a video for me.

 

[mousebot]

Here's a picture of the tier two craft.

 

[mousebot]

This is the space station.

 

[spacechump]

I thought it through. I AM GOING!! I leave in a couple hours and will get there by 4:00am. <br /><br />Man I'm glad I live in Ventura. And the program inspired me to go see it.<br /><br />My roommate has his camcorder and I have my digital camera. I'll try and get some good pics to show you guys.<br /><br />Wish me luck!

 

[bobvanx]

<font color="yellow">probably the Virgin Galactic ship</font><br /><br />It looked like an evolution of the SS1 design. Rather than just a scaled-up version, I mean.<br /><br />Burt's designed and built a few of these "free-wing" type planes. So if he thinks he can use feather recovery to return from orbital speeds, then maybe he can. On the show, it was pretty clear the feathered tail booms did their job really, really well.<br /><br />The Shuttle orbiter "stalls" all the way through transonic, shedding velocity by generating heat. But it wants to fly, so there's alot of flight control going in to keeping the tail down. It spends lots of minutes in reentry, so the G forces are very low.<br /><br />With the Virgin Galaxtic planform we saw in the show, the tough part (it seems to me) from a flight profile standpoint, is that the feathered tail booms look like they force the craft into a vertical drop, with lots of G's getting generated. Recall that steely-eyed Mike Melville only had 2 to 3 G's on the way up, but 5 G's on the way back.

 

[bobvanx]

<font color="yellow">Wish me luck!</font><br /><br />Good Luck!<br /><br />When you get there, look for White's Motel. The original "Right Stuff" Astronauts stayed there. The crossroad towards the airport offers a "back way" to the airstrip, if you are bold and if the sherrifs are feeling generous.<br /><br />It also gives you peek at the phony helicopter your governor flew in the movie "The Sixth Day."

 

[spacechump]

Snap! Thanks for the tip bob. I'll be sure to look around some for a while. We'll have a few hours to kill after we get there (just want to beat the traffic).<br /><br /><i>It also gives you peek at the phony helicopter your governor flew in the movie "The Sixth Day."</i><br /><br />Crappy movie....cool phony chopper.

 

[shuttle_rtf]

I hope this makes it over to one of the UK channels, most likely the UK's Discovery Channel. Sounds really superb!

 

[bobvanx]

Come on, pic of the tier two craft, get approved....<br /><br />I just replayed that scene in my mind's eye (I'd signed off and was getting into bed!) when I think I saw an over and under config for the rocket nozzles. Guess who has a rocket plane that has flown that particular arrangement...

 

[flynn]

Hmmm, if only we had a European Moderator to approve pics <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>

 

[mousebot]

"Mousebot, are you sure this pic is not the suborbital commercial version of the SS1?"<br /><br />If you are talking about the craft they are building for virgin then no, you can have a look at their site and see that they will use a larger version of the white knight to launch thier craft.

 

[mousebot]

Well you know how secretive Burt Rutan is, I'm surprised we've been able to see as much as we have. Trying to make guesses on the limited information we have won't do any good. What is for sure is that the larger Tier One craft will use a system similar to SpaceShipOne using a larger variant of the White Knight to loft the suborbital craft to altitude where it will drop and fire its rocket then climb to the edge of space. <br /><br />However if you look closely at the picture of the space station you can see the tier two craft has docked to one of the tube like structures at lower right.

 

[bobvanx]

I've been trying to understand how a nose-in dock would work.

 

[bobvanx]

I can't picture though, how the removable nose cap gets you a good positive dock. If you take the nose cap off to reveal the docking hardware, then you've exposed the crew to space. If you nose in an intact ship, what clamps to it to give a good seal?

 

[astrophoto]

Ya know if Virgin Galactic thinks they can be up and running and putting paying passengers on SS2 in 3 years, perhaps Rutan already has a test craft built and in-testing. He is a very secretive guy and I wouldn't put it past him to just show off a polished SS1 to generate press, then behind the scenes already have the Big Dog almost ready to roll.

 

[meteo]

I don't know, I think SS1 was going to be the the test before Tier 1. But then again...

 

[mousebot]

I guess we will just have to wait and see how it all plays out. That would be the part that drives us nuts. Maybe it's better that he doesn't tell us anything at all than if he only tells us enough to get us interested and then nothing else.

 

[flynn]

If he tells too much he can only loose out if things slip a bit. While all space enthusiasts are used to deadlines slipping investors arn't, and that is What Rotan has to contend with now, he isn't Boeing or Lockheed selling to the Nasa cash-cow. He has to deliver a product, on-time and on-price <br /><br />If anyone can Rotan and Scaled can, I think perhaps this may be partly why he has teamed up with Virgin for the venture as Branson with his experiences with Balloning etc, will have a better idea of what it takes to achieve something like this than most business men. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#800080">"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring" - <strong>Chuck Palahniuk</strong>.</font> </div>