Shown here is Spaceshipone attached to it's carrier aircraft, the White Knight.
SpaceShipOne completed a May 13th, 2004 test flight in which pilot Mike Melvill reached a height of 211,400 feet (approximately 40 miles), the highest altitude ever reached by a non-government aerospace program.
On June 21st, it will travel out of the earth's atmosphere for a short period of time and then return to the same strip that it took off from in California. Spectators are welcomed and encouraged to attend.
I think it's the coolest aircraft I've ever seen so I made a desktop pattern out of it.
More info/pics available from http://www.scaled.com/
I’ve been following this group for awhile now. They’re definitly the group with the best chance of winning the X-prize. I wish I could watch their launch on the 21st… because that’s going to revolutionize the space-tourism industry. I hope they succeed and are able to get the 2 space-launches within 2 weeks that they need to before January so they get that prize. I know that they’re not going to be doing that with this launch, but hopefully… soon…
Doesn’t something need to exist before it can be revolutionized. (I guess you can count that N*SYNC guy trying to go to MIR… but I don’t think its an industry.)
I do agree that the X-Prize competition is very interesting, but for its industry value, not for tourism. I think main reason the tourist-y theme was chosen (have to launch at least three people), was because that would attract hordes more media attention than unmanned rockets would. I imagine unmanned adaptations of these very-cheap-to-LEO rockets will be the real source of income for X-prize contestants.
How much did this project cost to get to where it is now?
I don’t think anybody is talking on that point. Probably far more than the prize itself. It sure helps to have sponsors with DEEP pockets 
Also remember that there are other teams competing. They aren’t as well known, nor do they have the names or media experience of the SpaceShipOne crew. But they have a reasonable chance of succeding too.
Once there was this little guy named Lindberg who nobody thought had a chance at beating his well funded competition … These days hardly anybody remembers there were competitors, let alone who they were …
I don’t care which team wins, as long as somebody does
Paul Allen (the co-founder of Microsoft) is the one who is sponsoring Spaceshipone. I have read up a few things, and found many people estimating that so far they’ve spent aboiut $30-40 million on their project. However, considering it costs $500 million to launch a shuttle… that’s pretty $@#$@#$@#$@# good. I do agree that this has very good potential for making it better for industry to launch satellites… as well as for research groups to perform more experiments since it will be much cheaper/easier to launch them.
So what exactly is the competition and prize? Is it some sort of government thing like they are giving a prize and contract to the first company to make a new shuttle or what? Is there a link that tells about it?
Ten million dollars will be awarded to the first group to take a piloted, privately-financed, three-person craft to the edge of space and back twice in a two-week period. See the X-prize web site for details.
I do agree that the X-Prize competition is very interesting, but for its industry value, not for tourism. I think main reason the tourist-y theme was chosen (have to launch at least three people)
Errrr… Three people doesn’t not seem that lucrative enough for space tourism.
Once there was this little guy named Lindberg who nobody thought had a chance at beating his well funded competition … These days hardly anybody remembers there were competitors, let alone who they were
Wasn’t there an airplane competition that the X-Prize is based on?? I forgot the whole story behind it
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I don’t remember exactly who his competitors were but I remember his plane was built by Ryan Aircraft in San Diego.
EDIT: Oh, and when he took off he cleared the telephone line by only something like 20 feet because the plane was so weighted down with fuel. During his flight, at times he was as little as like 50 feet over the ocean and he began having halucinations too. I remember most of it.
Once there was this little guy named Lindberg who nobody thought had a chance at beating his well funded competition … These days hardly anybody remembers there were competitors, let alone who they were …
Hey… Im sure the thousands of people who visit the field where he took off knows who he is. Of course they turned it into a mall… Roosevelt Field Mall I believe.
The question is not how many people they can take, but the cost per pound of taking people. Surprisingly, rockets that vary greatly in size are within one order of magnitude for cost per pound of getting to LEO (I think around $1000/lb now.) This means that making a bigger ship that takes more people is not neccesarily the most efficient way to go. The real question is how much will people pay per trip. If they will pay 10,000, costs must be below $100/lb
This article suggests that there are enough people willing to pay significantly more than $10,000: http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/HAS/cirr/em/8/5.cfm. Regardless, I still believe that the real money and the real reason the X-prize is around is not for space tourism.
The competition is intended to help “jump-start” the application of technology to non-government spaceflight. A prize-winning design will almost certainly be inappropriate for paying passengers, but it will be a good step on the way to a commercial spacecraft. By the way, The Spirit of St. Louis wasn’t “that lucrative enough for” transatlantic passenger service, and it barely held one person.
Wasn’t there an airplane competition that the X-Prize is based on?? I forgot the whole story behind it.
There have been many such competitions. Ramond Orteig funded the prize for the first solo transatlantic crossing. The Kremer Prize was for the first controlled human-powered airplane flight. Peter Diamandis is the man behind the X Prize for reusable private spaceflight.
Popular Science has done a couple of articles: the first on the X-Prize, the next on White Knight/SS1, and a small update on SS1’s dusty landing. I’ll post exact issues when I find them.
Is anyone going to go watch the flight? I was thinking about it.
Thank you Alan, that’s exactly what i was trying to say. Space tourism is by no means the goal.
Rutan’s group is clearly the front-runner, but I’ve been keeping an eye on Armadillo as well. www.armadilloaerospace.com John Carmack was one of the founders of ID Software, now he and his team are building a VTOL hydrogen peroxide rocket. They had a manned flight on their test platform last year but recently switched from a differential engine configuration to single engine with jet vanes. He posts detailed updates every Monday with photos and video.
Thank you Alan, that’s exactly what i was trying to say. Space tourism is by no means the goal.
I honestly hope it isn’t. I can imagine the logistics nightmare that would ensue with a space tourism industry. It would be horrible and the fact that any ship in orbit would be in constant danger. There is the equivalent of a thousand little bullets floating around up there.