Liberty's Blog

SpaceshipOne Does its First Leg.

SpaceShipOne, piloted by 62-year-old Michael Melvill, reached the 62 mile mark on a wild ride. The team now has to fly one more time to collect the 10 million dollar prize. The next fllight is schedualed for Oct. 10th. Its been a pretty good week for the team. A newly announced licensing deal with the British-based Virgin Group, aimed at creating a new fleet of suborbital spaceships based on SpaceShipOne technology, would also help balance the books.

The flight wasn't perfect. SpaceShipOne spiraled upward in a dramatic roll. Melvill maintained power to ensure that craft passed the required 102KM until Melvill cut the engines off 11 seconds early. X Prize rival Eric Meier of Space Transport Corp. watched the live video of the roll along with hundreds of other VIPs at Mojave Airport. "Didn't look like a tourist flight," he deadpanned. Yet, inadvertantly, the flight demonstrated the safety features built into the craft. Melvill was in control of killing power. A feature not available in most solid engine rockets. SpaceShipOne designer and commercial space flight pioneer Burt Rutan said that while the rolls were spectacular, they did not damage the craft that -- unlike the Space Shuttle -- was designed to take the strain and was 100 times safer than other manned spacecraft.


"That would have been an accident if that had happened on the Space Shuttle on in an X-15 (plane)," he said. "We'd be looking for small pieces."

posted by Liberty @ 5:31 AM