First Commercial Venture to Space

[mtndewdrops]

A friend of a friend found this website with great photos of Space Ship One and the White Knight mother ship.:)
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/SpaceShipOne2004/index.html

[coolchange]

I've been in Rutans shop and saw the Voyager long time ago.
If I remember right, Mellville was from South Africa and built a plane (Vari VIgen I think) and flew his family around the world. Landed in Mojave, became friends with Rutan and is now the first privateer in space. Amazing where a journey can take you if just take that first step!

[Dr. Eagle]

Here is the web site of Scaled Composites, Rutan's company that is performing the project. Good pics on the site.Scaled (http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/photos.htm)

[Sleek-Jet]

Think he'll repeat in 2 weeks or less?? Remember, there is 10 million on the line (the X-prize).

[dimarcobros]

Originally posted by Sleek-Jet
Think he'll repeat in 2 weeks or less?? Remember, there is 10 million on the line (the X-prize).
What is the X-Prize all about?
DMB

[Scream]

Originally posted by dimarcobros
What is the X-Prize all about?
DMB
The first non governmental, commercial entity to successfully lauch a re-usable space vehicle into space and retrieve it wins...
10,000,000 is a drop in the bucket to the money guy for this project, but it will pay for gas...LOL

[Sleek-Jet]

Originally posted by Scream
... but it will pay for gas...LOL
Maybe. :D
What I really hope happens is that the other teams (there is probably half a dozen others trying to do the same thing) keep developing programs to do the same thing, even if Rutan get's there first.
Oh yeah the X-prize. Just like Scream said, but also they have to repeat the flight within 2 weeks. Each flight must attain a minimum altitude (300,000 ft I believe), and use the same vehicle both times.
It was modeled after the same type of competion to fly the first airplane non-stop across the Atlantic in the 1920's. But what sucks is the main stream media has all but ignored it, typical.

[welk2party]

This was big news for my company. We sell land parcels there, among many other places of course, and the area just gets bigger by the minute. The news is big for America because the second space port license was just issued to a private company to launch space craft without government approval. This was the second such license to be issued to a private company at the Mojave area. More high tech companies are moving to Mojave all the time. They say that Mojave will be a leading science and technology hub in the near future.

[JustMVG]

Did they mention that the fuel for Space Ship One is chopped up tires and Nitrous,

[mtndewdrops]

Originally posted by dimarcobros
What is the X-Prize all about?
DMB
This is just a trial run. The X-Prize must be 2 trips within 2 weeks with 2 persons on board.