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Spaceship One Question
I was at the Smithsonian Museum (the Air and Space one in Washingtion
D.C.) last weekend, where Spaceship One hangs in the lobby. Does anybody know why there is a dent in the bottom of the fuselage, very close to the back? I wonder if I missed something in the press releases or other coverage. There are bits of online literature that acknowledge but don't explain the dent. Great museum, by the way, both of them in fact (the other one is close to Dulles airport). I'm preaching to the choir here |
#2
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Spaceship One Question
Jim Carriere wrote...
I was at the Smithsonian Museum (the Air and Space one in Washingtion D.C.) last weekend, where Spaceship One hangs in the lobby. Does anybody know why there is a dent in the bottom of the fuselage, very close to the back? I wonder if I missed something in the press releases or other coverage. There are bits of online literature that acknowledge but don't explain the dent. Great museum, by the way, both of them in fact (the other one is close to Dulles airport). I'm preaching to the choir here That's the result of the first space shot back in June of last year. Their chief aerodynamicist (Jim Tighe - really cool guy, BTW) developed the fairing to smooth out the flow going over the nozzle, and the June 21st flight was the first to fly it. Apparently the loads on it were greater than expected. I guess they figured it didn't hurt anything, because the X-prize flights it still had the same dented fairing now sporting a Virgin Galactic logo. For those who don't know the fairing in question, here are two shots from the Scaled website. One without the fairing, and one with the dented fairing while gliding down from the June flight. http://www.scaled.com/projects/tiero...16_from_ex_800 http://www.scaled.com/projects/tiero...P21jun04_2_047 -Tony Goetz |
#3
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Spaceship One Question
On 2005-11-11 19:18:51 -0500, Jim Carriere said:
I was at the Smithsonian Museum (the Air and Space one in Washingtion D.C.) last weekend, where Spaceship One hangs in the lobby. Does anybody know why there is a dent in the bottom of the fuselage, very close to the back? I wonder if I missed something in the press releases or other coverage. There are bits of online literature that acknowledge but don't explain the dent. Here's the deal, Jim. As the ship came down from space on the initial (June 04) space flight, piloted by Mike Melvill, it was joined by mid-chase plane, Bob Scherer's Starship. If you look at the photos taken then you can see the dent. The pool photog on the chase plane, Jim Campbell, was actually the first one to call out the dent. Melvill correlated it with a sound he'd heard, but that may or may not have been related. That tailcone material is a non-structural aerodynamic fairing. This was the first flight it was on -- the Dec. 17th first powered flight, flown by Brian Binnie, for instance, had a bare rocket nozzle back there. Anyway, during the flight, the high temps while under power had weakened the tailcone fairing, and then the aerodynamic forces in the shuttlecock (or "carefree recovery") mode had caused it to kind of dish in. The techs were able to heat it and pop it back out. For the X-1 and X-2 flights they had made a stronger one (I think by strengthening the original with more material, but I'm not sure). When the NASM asked for the plane, they wanted it "exactly as on the first space flight," and that's what Rutan and Allen promised. There were a few things that had changed on the spacecraft and they were changed back. What they didn't expect was for the techs to take the fairing, get out the whole set of pictures, and heat it up to put that dent back in it. This supposedly completely surprised Rutan and also the Smithsonian team that was to accept the spacecraft. Great museum, by the way, both of them in fact (the other one is close to Dulles airport). I'm preaching to the choir here Yeah. The original plan for the Udvar-Hazy annex at Dulles had tiedowns for fly-in customers. Washington paranoia & insecurity put paid to that before it got started. The staff and volunteers at the Museum (U-H and on the Mall) are wonderful folks. cheers -=K=- Rule #1: Don't hit anything big. |
#4
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Spaceship One Question
Kevin O'Brien wrote:
Here's the deal, Jim. snip Thanks! This will be one of those historic footnotes that will also be a great anecdote. Hopefully the museum tour guides know it fifty years from now. |
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