spaceshipone

Feb 4

SeanAstronomy & Space Comments Off

a company called scaled composites announced today that they’ve been developing a commercial manned space program in secret for the past two years. as the lead designer put it, “scaled composites … is tired of waiting for others to provide affordable human space access”. can i get a “hell yea” for this guy? finally someone is stepping up to the plate and putting forth some effort to tackle space exploration from a cheaper more cost effective basis.

one of the huge driving forces for this project is the elusive x prize. in short it’s a $10 million dollar prize that will go to the first team that:

  • privately finances, builds & launches a spaceship, able to carry three people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles)
  • returns safely to earth
  • repeats the launch with the same ship within 2 weeks

the effort by scaled composites consists of an orbital spaceplane called spaceshipone and a drop ship called white knight. there are pictures of the ships over at space.com in the article they have about the announcement. the scaled composites web site appears to be hammered and isn’t responsive to most http requests. i’ll post more info when i can get to the site. if the pictures and the brief articles are any indication then this is going to be an exciting attempt that could change affordable space exploration.

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