Rutan hits 200k feet! Almost there!

In article ,
(B2431) writes:
From: "Steven P. McNicoll"
Date: 5/14/2004 9:53 PM Central Daylight Time
Message-id: .net


"Chad Irby" wrote in message
.com...

But it also doesn't mean that it *was* possible.

Since it didn't happen, then the burden of proof is on *your* side.


I thought I had already done that. The X-15 was turned in less than two
weeks and it flew above 100 km. Put those together and you've got a
spacecraft being reused in less than two weeks. If there was something to
be gained by actually flying it twice above 100 km within a two week period
it would have been done.

But it couldn't carry 3 people as the X-prize requires.

But it did carry about 1200 pounds of sensors, data recoding
equipment, and telemetry equipment in a pressurized bay behind the
cockpit. That was it's job - to fly a bit over a half a ton of
measuring gear out to where the measurements got interesting. YOu
don't think that the data from those flights was rediced from stuff
the pilot was scribbling in his notebook, do you?

I don't see any X-Prize contenders carrying 1,000# of Data Acq along
with them.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

In article ,
(Peter Stickney) wrote:

I don't see any X-Prize contenders carrying 1,000# of Data Acq along
with them.

How much would equivalent-capability gear weigh these days?

In article ,
Steve Hix writes:
In article ,
(Peter Stickney) wrote:

I don't see any X-Prize contenders carrying 1,000# of Data Acq along
with them.

How much would equivalent-capability gear weigh these days?

Well, in the case of teh instruments and recorders, quite a bit less,
(How's that for an exact figure!) and with a much lower cooling
burden, as well. The telemetry stuff will also be a bit lighter, but
not as much - transmitters are still pretty hefty.

Of course, if you were building a 21st Century X-15, and you had 1000#
(or even 450 Kg) of avaialable payload, you'd fill it up with even
more stuff. Equipment expands to fill the available volume & weight,
after all.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

In article ,
(Peter Stickney) wrote:

In article
,
Steve Hix writes:
In article ,
(Peter Stickney) wrote:

I don't see any X-Prize contenders carrying 1,000# of Data Acq along
with them.

How much would equivalent-capability gear weigh these days?

Well, in the case of teh instruments and recorders, quite a bit less,
(How's that for an exact figure!) and with a much lower cooling
burden, as well. The telemetry stuff will also be a bit lighter, but
not as much - transmitters are still pretty hefty.

Of course, if you were building a 21st Century X-15, and you had 1000#
(or even 450 Kg) of avaialable payload, you'd fill it up with even
more stuff. Equipment expands to fill the available volume & weight,
after all.

"You can never have too much memory/drive space/..."