WhiteKnightTwo Unveiled!

I've been in the back woods of the middle of nowhere having a blast for the past week, but I couldn't have picked a better day to return. The day has come, and Virgin Galactic's first WhiteKnightTwo aircraft has been unveiled!

Together at Scaled Composites in Mojave, California, Sir Richard Branson (founder of Virgin Galactic) and Burt Rutan (Designer of SpaceShipOne, among other distinctions) pulled back the hanger doors obscuring the most advanced carbon-composite aircraft ever created. The craft is named Eve, after Richard Branson's mother (though one cannot deny its symbolic connotations). The major hurdles and advances that this craft represents include the longest single carbon fiber aviation component ever created (the 140 ft wing spar).

When it is in full operations, Eve will assist in the launch of SpaceShipTwo up to four times a day by carrying it up to 50,000 feet, and it will also be capable of transporting the spacecraft across the country if needed. Furthermore, other potential uses of the WhiteKnightTwo design have been mentioned, including firefighting and satellite launch applications.

People present at the unveiling (which included Buzz Aldrin and over 100 future Virgin Galactic space tourists) also got to see the first SpaceShipTwo, though heavily shrouded and currently under construction.

Oh, and here's the relevant super awesome picture:

Progress: 4.03%  Flight Time: 0:06:05

Burt Rutan Steps Down as President of Scaled

Burt Rutan, the President of Scaled Compoites and designer of SpaceShipOne has announced that he is stepping down in favor of a more creative role as Chief Technology Officer.

Burt Rutan has been integral to the operations of Scaled Composites, and to the design of many aircraft and two spacecraft, SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo. In particular, it was his middle-of-the-night revelation that led to the ingenious design of the crafts' "feather" system that allows them to re-enter Earth's atmosphere without the use of a heat shield.

Burt Rutan has been suffering from heart problems recently, which may have influenced the decision, but he prefers to characterize the move as part of some changes in the structure of the company that will allow him to take a more creative role. I personally take this as good news, since the man is a freaking genius.

Doug Shane, previously Vice-President of Scaled, will be taking the role of President and running day-to-day operations of the company.

I'm looking forward to what Scaled has to offer in the future. It is my personal belief that Rutan's "feather" system will find itself with a key role in the future of spaceflight. It operates by lifting the wings of a spacecraft into a position that gives the entire craft an enormous amount of drag in the upper atmosphere, allowing it to slow down enough to avoid most of the intense heat of conventional atmospheric re-entry. I would not be surprised if this, or similar systems, were one day used in the exploration of other worlds.

Progress: 3.73%  Flight Time: 0:05:35

Virgin Galactic

Well, I was hoping to bring you all some sort of interesting space tourism news this week, but it seems to be a slow week for that sort of thing, so I'll start profiling some of the space tourism companies (as promised) instead.

I'll start with Virgin Galactic. They're the second on my original list, but they're my personal favorite, so I'm beginning with them.

It all started with a company named Scaled Composites, led by a man named Burt Rutan. Scaled Composites was founded in 1982, and focused primarily on designing and building unique aircraft from non-metal composite materials, and on designing the fabrication processes needed to do so.

Then came the arrival of the Ansari X-Prize. In May of 1996, a competition was announced to give $10,000,000 to the first private company to launch a single craft carrying three people into space twice within a week, without replacing more than 10% of the vehicle's mass in between. Burt Rutan and the fine people at Scaled thought they just might have the resources and expertise necessary to pull it off.

Well, they did. A group of about 120 people developed a successful space program in eight years' time, on a budget of twenty million dollars, with the first manned spacecraft capable of re-entering Earth's atmosphere without a heat shield! Those aren't the only feats they pulled off; SpaceShipOne was only the second mechanically-controlled aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier, it became the fastest mechanically-controlled aircraft ever at speeds exceeding Mach 3, and it did so while flying straight up! Also, it broke the record altitude for a rocket plane by a few thousand feet, beating out the U.S. military's X-15. Scaled Composites' budget required them to get very creative during the development and testing of SpaceShipOne. For example, they didn't have money for wind tunnel tests, so they put pieces of the craft on the back of a pickup and drove really fast down a runway instead! And during the whole process of building and testing SpaceShipOne, they came close to disaster no less than three times! Again, if you haven't seen it, I recommend the Discovery Channel documentary on this process (on the right); it's highly entertaining. And here's a cool picture.


And another.


Anyway, I'm rambling. SpaceShipOne successfully won the Ansari X-Prize on October 4, 2004. Shortly thereafter, Virgin Galactic was founded by Sir Richard Branson, a (somewhat amusingly named) member of his Virgin group of companies. He then announced plans to team up with Burt Rutan to found The Spaceship Company, the company that is responsible for the design and construction of SpaceShipTwo, and its "mothership", WhiteKnightTwo. Virgin Galactic then contracted The Spaceship Company to deliver five SpaceShipTwos and two WhiteKnightTwos for their initial operations. Just a couple of weeks ago, designs and pictures of the first SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo (named Enterprise and Eve, respectively) were released to the general public. Here are a couple of those pictures!



So there you have it! Flight tests are expected to begin this summer, with actual tourist flights beginning in 2009. For a the mere $200,000 price tag, you too can touch the sky! Or... something sappy like that.

Wait, you don't think it ends there, do you? Not at all! Burt Rutan has a three-tiered solution to the space tourism problem. SpaceShipOne and Two are part of his Tier One vision, consisting of sub-orbital tourism. There are still two tiers left! Tier Two will be orbital tourism. There are already rough plans in the works for the Tier Two craft, which will likely be loosely based on SpaceShipTwo. Tier Three? Well, that's where you get to leave the Earth's orbit altogether and visit the Moon, or perhaps L2, the gravitational "balance point" on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun (more on Lagrange points here). There are exciting times ahead, so stay tuned!

Images credit Scaled Composites, LLC (first two), Virgin Galactic (third), and Reuters (fourth)

Progress: 3.24% Flight Time: 0:04:51