SpaceShipTwo Flies Again 22
schwit1 writes "The competition heats up: For the first time in six months SpaceShipTwo completed a test flight [Tuesday]." The article linked is from NBC, which also has a deal with Virgin Galactic to televise the first commercial flight. It is thus in their interest to promote the spacecraft and company. The following two sentences from the article however clearly confirm every rumor we have heard about the ship in the past year, that they needed to replace or completely refit the engine and that the resulting thrust might not be enough to get the ship to 100 kilometers or 62 miles: "In January, SpaceShipTwo blasted off for a powered test and sailed through a follow-up glide flight, but then it went into the shop for rocket refitting. It's expected to go through a series of glide flights and powered flights that eventually rise beyond the boundary of outer space (50 miles or 100 kilometers in altitude, depending on who's counting)." Hopefully this test flight indicates that they have installed the new engine and are now beginning flight tests with equipment that will actually get the ship into space.
Oh so close... (Score:1)
Oh so close to something truly cool--the 1 hour to Tokyo flight. Yeah, you'd have to be insanely rich to buy a ticket; but you already have to be insanely rich just to get into suborbital space on this thing. Don't get me wrong. The guys who put this together are fantastic. It's just that it seems like a little more effort could get you something so much more fantastic.
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there's a bunch. none of them are flying yet.
of course, you could always buy a soyuz trip to more into space.
Glide test? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The tests uncovered the fact that their initial motor design was a dud. Vibrations, instabilities... it would have torn the whole thing apart had they burned it full duration.
So they had to make a completely new engine. This is the first glide test with the modified SS2.
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Isn't that because it is burning rubber? All the burns with that engine type are dirty.
Well, duh! (Score:1)
It's a solid rocket motor, of course it needs to be replaced after every flight.
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It's a solid rocket motor, of course it needs to be replaced after every flight.
Actually, it is a hybrid rocket motor [wikipedia.org] which has characteristics of both a solid and liquid motor. Wiki says they are changing the propellant [wikipedia.org] which would explain the motor replacement.
Sounds like (Score:4, Funny)
a sequel to a bad movie
Metric conversion problems (Score:1)
Odd how L-F contraction only affects imperial measurements. Maybe Haldane was right, and the universe is indeed queerer than we can imagine.
Re:Metric conversion problems (Score:4, Informative)
No I didn't.
I did notice one part of the summary where they converted 100 km to 62 miles, and another where they noted that different groups define the edge of space differently, with some using 100 km as the boundary and others using 50 miles. However, at no point did I note someone trying to equate 100 km to 50 miles. Can you point it out for me?
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The U.S. defines the edge of space as 50 miles (80 km), the rest of the world as 100 km. The discrepancy comes from the fact that it is a somewhat arbitrary boundary so both chose a round number in their respective measurement system. The two values are however reasonably close. For details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] .
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three years late with commerical launch (Score:2)