Private rocket set for space bid
Aviation enthusiasts gathered in the Californian desert today hoping to see the first flight into space by a privately-developed manned rocket.
Thousands of people are expected to be watching when an exotic jet-engined aeroplane named White Knight takes off from Mojave Airport carrying the rocket-propelled SpaceShipOne.
“Clearly, there is an enormous pent-up hunger to fly in space and not just dream about it,” SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan said.
“Now I know what it was like to be involved in America’s amazing race to the moon in the ’60s,” he said. “Those folks were driven … and they had the fun of working for America’s prestige.”
If SpaceShipOne is successful, Rutan and his Scaled Composites development company will use the craft to make a run at the €8.9m Ansari X Prize, a formal competition intended to spur commercial development of spaceflight.
White Knight, carrying the rocket plane slung under its belly, is scheduled for a 2.30pm Irish-time takeoff, followed by a climb to 50,000 feet, where it will release SpaceShipOne about 3.30pm Irish time.
SpaceShipOne’s pilot, flying solo, will then ignite the rocket and pull up into an 80-second powered climb.
After the rocket motor shuts down, the craft is to coast up to a target altitude of 62 miles above Rutan. Programme financier Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, named the pilot as Mike Melvill, 62, a veteran civilian test pilot and a vice president/general manager for Scaled Composites.
Melvill, who holds records for altitude and speed in various classes of aircraft, piloted the rocket plane on a test flight last month in which it soared 40 miles high.
“I enjoyed the last flight,” Melvill said. “I’m hoping this will be an exact repetition, just a little taller, a little higher, a little faster, and I’m looking forward to it very, very much.”
Rutan’s team is one of more than 20 around the world aiming at the X Prize, which would not come close to covering the investment in SpaceShipOne. Allen would not say exactly how much he has paid for the programme, only that it has been in excess of €16.7m.
To win the prize, a privately-financed spacecraft capable of carrying three people must climb to 62 miles and land safely, then repeat the feat within two weeks.
The three-seat requirement demonstrates the capacity for paying customers, and the quick turnaround between flights demonstrates reliability.
Today’s flight will not be an X Prize attempt but officials of the X Prize Foundation will be watching closely.
“This will be the first time that any piloted private spaceship ever goes into space, so it’s of pivotal importance to the X-Prize Foundation, and it certainly puts Scaled Composite’s team front and centre in the public’s view as a front-runner,” Gregg E Maryniak, executive director of the foundation, said.
