The public is incredibly easy to fool. Way back in 2004, Mike Melvill made history by flying Burt Rutan's beautiful creation SpaceShipOne across the unofficial border to space, twice, and later that year Brian Binnie did it again, winning the Ansari X-Prize and raising the hopes of all that private access to space had finally arrived. But how did they do it? There is no question that Burt Rutan is a natural genius at aircraft design. His true innovation on SpaceShipOne was the shuttlecock styled effortless reentry system, and in particular, the ease of replacing these two large booms after a few flights to mitigate wear. SpaceShipOne/Two is a glider, and just like the Space Shuttle the wings are "only" used on the way down. There are wings used on the way up, of course, they are on WhiteKnightOne/Two, but once separated from the carrier aircraft the only lift is generated from the rocket. As smart as Burt Rutan is, he's not a rocket guy. For SpaceShipOne he...
I wonder if SpaceShipTwo will play music during its few minutes of weightlessness. It would change the experience somewhat.
ReplyDeleteWhat was actually the purpose of the Space ships? I have the idea of the purpose of the Space ship, but don't have full information. Nice video.
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