Man into space!
In case anybody who cares is unaware, on Monday Scaled Composites, a privately-funded aerospace company based in the US, is going to try to put a man into space.
Assuming everything goes well --- and given their track record, it probably well --- it will be the first time ever that a purely civilian aircraft has gone higher than 100km.
The vehicle --- the really weird and absolutely gorgeous SpaceShipOne --- isn't going to make it into orbit, so this is just a suborbital hop, but it'll still be a truly historic moment. It's already achieved one world first: in an earlier test flight, it became the first entirely privately-funded aircraft to go faster the speed of sound. (Concorde, and it's Russian clone, were heavily subsidised by their respective governments.)
SpaceShipOne, and its launch vehicle White Knight, were designed by Burt Rutan and funded by Paul Allen. Burt Rutan is one of the best aircraft designers out there; practically everything he's done has come in on-time, under budget, working perfectly, and looking like it came from Mars. He's done things like building Richard Branson's balloon gondolas, and the prototype X38 space station lifeboat, and the Voyager round-the-world plane (nine days, no refueling, and flown by his brother), and the Boomerang, which is just wrong. Paul Allen was one of Microsoft's founders, cashed in when it made it big, and now seems to be trying to live down that reputation by spending his money on really, really cool stuff.
Scaled Composites is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to revealing their future plans; they much prefer to announce what they're going to do when they're sure they're going to do it. But SpaceShipOne is almost certainly the precursor to a true orbital vehicle. When that happens, the world will be a different place.
There are lots more pictures available.
Assuming everything goes well --- and given their track record, it probably well --- it will be the first time ever that a purely civilian aircraft has gone higher than 100km.
The vehicle --- the really weird and absolutely gorgeous SpaceShipOne --- isn't going to make it into orbit, so this is just a suborbital hop, but it'll still be a truly historic moment. It's already achieved one world first: in an earlier test flight, it became the first entirely privately-funded aircraft to go faster the speed of sound. (Concorde, and it's Russian clone, were heavily subsidised by their respective governments.)
SpaceShipOne, and its launch vehicle White Knight, were designed by Burt Rutan and funded by Paul Allen. Burt Rutan is one of the best aircraft designers out there; practically everything he's done has come in on-time, under budget, working perfectly, and looking like it came from Mars. He's done things like building Richard Branson's balloon gondolas, and the prototype X38 space station lifeboat, and the Voyager round-the-world plane (nine days, no refueling, and flown by his brother), and the Boomerang, which is just wrong. Paul Allen was one of Microsoft's founders, cashed in when it made it big, and now seems to be trying to live down that reputation by spending his money on really, really cool stuff.
Scaled Composites is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to revealing their future plans; they much prefer to announce what they're going to do when they're sure they're going to do it. But SpaceShipOne is almost certainly the precursor to a true orbital vehicle. When that happens, the world will be a different place.
There are lots more pictures available.