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  #161  
Old June 27th 04, 08:51 AM
pacplyer
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Ron Wanttaja snip

This is an attempt to describe some of the engineering problems that must
be faced, and some typical solutions, when evolving a Scaled SpaceShipOne
(SS1) class of sub-orbital homebuilt spacecraft into one capable of at
least one orbit of the Earth.


Where did Rutan say he was going to do this? "evolv[e] a Scaled
SpaceShipOne (SS1) class of sub-orbital homebuilt spacecraft into one
capable of at least one orbit of the Earth"?

First of all, Scaled is a company. The spacecraft is not homebuilt.
A Rutan Orbiter will most certainly be a different vehicle entirely.
Burt's solutions are each tailor made for the specific application.
I would expect more unconventional solutions every bit as ingenious as
we have seen on this vehicle. But I wager he will stick with an
aircraft launched solution so as to save the weight of the ground
stage. All his designs have gravitated towards simplicity and that
includes avoiding getting tangled up in Uncle Sam's super-regulated
red tape-factory facilities whenever possible. I really doubt he'd
head to Vandenberg. After hitting Nasa's "deep space" mark (100km)
and landing Mike M. unfurled a big sign that read "SS1: Government
Zero." I said: "Right on Mike!"

REVERSE ENGINEERING SS1

The first thing we have to do is figure out the characteristics of the
vehicle we're starting with. Scaled hasn't released many of the technical
details needed for an in-depth analysis...after all, it *is* a private
rocket, and not a government one where the information is public domain.


Was detailed info on the Saturn program ever made public? I thought
all the blueprints and tech manuals were destroyed as a ploy to argue
for development of the Space Shuttle. I'd love to have some Saturn V
drawings to hang on the wall.

snip reverse engrng

Which gets us back to White Knight. It's got an 8,000-pound carrying
capacity, and SS1 and its launch stages are probably well over 40,000
pounds. To quote Roy Schieder: "We're going to need a bigger boat!"

Will White Knight scale up that far? And what about the extra length of
the initial launch stages? Plus, this long rocket will have to be carried
*horizontally*, and would have to be designed to withstand landing loads as
well, in case a launch is aborted.


A 747-200F tow plane, like Tim Ward suggested, would be perfect for a
100,000 to 200,000 lbs "Orbit One" staged vehicle. The Shuttle
currently is carried on a lesser powered 747-100 (sans fuel.)

snip good description of orbital maneuvers here
This problem would be alleviated by a launch from the East coast of the US,
rather than from California. With a 40-degree inclination out of Cape
Canaveral, OrbitOne will cross over Mojave at the end of the third orbit.
Whether Burt will be willing to move his launch operation 3,000 miles away
is a question.


This runs the cost up, so I bet he'll just op to use another delta
wing/lifting body and either land in Hawaii or deorbit burn into
Mojave.


In any case, the design will have to include hours of life-support for the
personnel onboard. Plus carry the batteries or other power generating
equipment required for running it, and for powering all the other systems.
Power limitations alone may prevent OrbitOne from flying more an a couple
of 90-minute orbits.


This is were Burt's going to shine. Instead of lugging three finicky
APU's up like the shuttle, Rutan will come up with solutions so light
and simple in retrospect they'll seem obvious. The man's a purist.
Just sit back and watch the master at work the next year or so.


RE-ENTRY

We've already had a lot of discussion relative to re-entry...that
SpaceShipOne's ballistic flight at Mach 3 maximum doesn't compare to the
amount of energy converted into heat as OrbitOne slows from Mach 25. I've
already posted my worries about exposing a deployable structure (e.g. the
shuttlecock mode) to the re-entry plasma, especially since it'll be
necessary to retract it for landing. snip


Ron Wanttaja


Not to worry. This will all be re-engineered by Burt's engineers.
Teflon coatings by themselves probably won't cut it. But the
Aerospace Valley where Burt lives is full of thermodynamic engineers
with good ideas that Burt can draw on. The difference between Scaled
Composite and Nasa is that Scaled doesn't build vehicles by committee.
Take the ISS. What a piece of ****. Designed like little floating
countries by dim-witted politicians. Burt doesn't have to put up with
these morons. He also doesn't have to brownose five layers of
management to get the project off the ground. That IMHO is why his
stuff always shines and outperforms the government garbage. The
Challenger and Columbia burned up because Nasa Management has a
culture of not listening to engineer's concerns. Burt on the contrary
seems to consistently listen to his people, and unlike NASA learns
from his mistakes. JMHO. GO BURT! GO SCALED! GO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!

pac "just light the ****ing candle" plyer
  #162  
Old June 27th 04, 03:57 PM
Richard Lamb
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As a (very!) few people have mentioned over the years,
sucessful aircraft design is all about fullfilling the
stated mission objectives.

I think Ron W's post gave clear indication that SS1
WON'T scale up for an orbital ship.

That is a completely different and much more demanding
mission objective, requiring a completely different design.

But I have purest faith that if Burt bites into that one
it WILL be a success, and it will likely be completely different
from anything we've see so far.

Unless? The lightest simplest cheapest solution to reentry is
soemthing we did before and moved away from. Like a blunt body
heat shield, maybe?

Man, what I'd give to be on THAT team...

Richard
  #163  
Old June 27th 04, 04:44 PM
Ron Wanttaja
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On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 20:33:16 -0400, Matt Whiting
wrote:

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

This is an attempt to describe some of the engineering problems that must
be faced, and some typical solutions, when evolving a Scaled SpaceShipOne
(SS1) class of sub-orbital homebuilt spacecraft into one capable of at
least one orbit of the Earth.

.
.
.

Well, that was fun... but it's a nice day outside, and I've already killed
two hours of it at the computer. Time to go fly WoodChipOne! :-)


Ron, you have WAY too much time on your hands! :-)


I get that a lot. :-)

Ron Wanttaja
  #164  
Old June 27th 04, 08:08 PM
Matt Whiting
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Ron Wanttaja wrote:

On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 20:33:16 -0400, Matt Whiting
wrote:


Ron Wanttaja wrote:


This is an attempt to describe some of the engineering problems that must
be faced, and some typical solutions, when evolving a Scaled SpaceShipOne
(SS1) class of sub-orbital homebuilt spacecraft into one capable of at
least one orbit of the Earth.


.
.
.


Well, that was fun... but it's a nice day outside, and I've already killed
two hours of it at the computer. Time to go fly WoodChipOne! :-)


Ron, you have WAY too much time on your hands! :-)



I get that a lot. :-)


It was an interesting read, though!

Matt

  #165  
Old June 28th 04, 02:04 PM
Ron Wanttaja
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On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 14:57:40 GMT, Richard Lamb
wrote:

As a (very!) few people have mentioned over the years,
sucessful aircraft design is all about fullfilling the
stated mission objectives.

I think Ron W's post gave clear indication that SS1
WON'T scale up for an orbital ship.

That is a completely different and much more demanding
mission objective, requiring a completely different design.

But I have purest faith that if Burt bites into that one
it WILL be a success, and it will likely be completely different
from anything we've see so far.


Absolutely...if it can be done, Burt is the man who can do it.

We do have to remember the other half of the SpaceShipOne equation, though.
Instead of calling it the "Scaled SpaceShipOne," I should refer to it as
the "Scaled/Allen SpaceShipOne." Whether Rutan moves on to orbital craft
probably depends on whether Paul Allen is willing to pay for it.

Unless? The lightest simplest cheapest solution to reentry is
soemthing we did before and moved away from. Like a blunt body
heat shield, maybe?


I think there's been enough development of high-temperature materials since
the 1970s that a simpler, probably cheaper, heat-shield material is
available. The Shuttle's tiles are still marvels, but we can do better
than that. And no one is better than Burt Rutan at taking experimental
concepts and turning them into operational hardware.

Plus, one thing I didn't mention in my Magnum Opus: There's no reason for
Rutan to re-invent the initial stages needed to boost a small manned
spacecraft into orbit. If we posit a ~3000-pound weight for an orbiter,
there are "low cost" launch vehicles available off-the-shelf (or nearly so)
that can put it into orbit.

Unfortunately, these are "low cost" only in relation to conventional launch
boosters. We're still talking $12-$25M a ride. The beauty of SpaceShipOne
is that the suborbital flight burns only fuel. Space tourism is cheap, on
that basis. But an orbital system will probably push it back into the
Millionaire's club.

Man, what I'd give to be on THAT team...


I've been watching the mailbox for a job offer every day. :-)

But...in the words of Obie Wan Kenobi, "There is another." Paul Allen is
NOT the only Seattle millionaire funding private spacecraft. About a year
ago, the Seattle Times had an article about how Amazon.com founder Jeff
Bezos had quietly started his *own* space company. Buddy of mine
(propulsion specialist) even had a job offer from them....

Keep watching the skies!

Ron Wanttaja
  #166  
Old June 28th 04, 11:24 PM
Matt Whiting
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Ron Wanttaja wrote:

On Sun, 27 Jun 2004 14:57:40 GMT, Richard Lamb
wrote:


As a (very!) few people have mentioned over the years,
sucessful aircraft design is all about fullfilling the
stated mission objectives.

I think Ron W's post gave clear indication that SS1
WON'T scale up for an orbital ship.

That is a completely different and much more demanding
mission objective, requiring a completely different design.

But I have purest faith that if Burt bites into that one
it WILL be a success, and it will likely be completely different


from anything we've see so far.


Absolutely...if it can be done, Burt is the man who can do it.

We do have to remember the other half of the SpaceShipOne equation, though.
Instead of calling it the "Scaled SpaceShipOne," I should refer to it as
the "Scaled/Allen SpaceShipOne." Whether Rutan moves on to orbital craft
probably depends on whether Paul Allen is willing to pay for it.


I'm not sure even Paul has pockets deep enough to fund an orbital
mission. Sure would be fun to watch though if he does!


Matt

  #167  
Old June 30th 04, 12:49 AM
ChuckSlusarczyk
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In article , Ron Wanttaja says...

Keep watching the skies!

Ron Wanttaja


Speaking of watching the sky's .Did anyone see anything last Saturday that
looked like a piece of space debris burning up? About 10:30 PM last Saturday in
sourthern Ohio about 6 of us saw something streaking across the sky from NW to
SE or there abouts .It was about 25 -30 degrees off the horizon and was visible
thru an arc of about 40 degrees horizontally and lasting about 7-8 seconds
before it went out of sight behind some trees. It was a burnt orange color and
seemed to spewing sparks of the same color .Kinda like grinding a piece of steel
on a grind stone.A small piece seperated from the main portion and only lasted a
couple of seconds.

I've seen tons of meteorites of various colors but I can't believe that this was
one. It seemed too slow ,everyone remarked that it seemed about the same speed
as the Shuttle break up.

Just wondering if there's a place that lists times of space debris coming out of
orbit,I'm really curious about what it might have been.

AND no I wasn't drinking any Muzzleloader!!!! :-0

See ya

Chuck (what the hell was that?)S

  #168  
Old June 30th 04, 02:37 AM
Rich S.
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"ChuckSlusarczyk" wrote in message
...
Speaking of watching the sky's .Did anyone see anything last Saturday that
looked like a piece of space debris burning up?

snip
Chuck (what the hell was that?)S


Mooz testing the phugoid oscillations of N328KF?

Rich S.


  #169  
Old June 30th 04, 03:24 AM
ChuckSlusarczyk
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In article , Rich S. says...

Mooz testing the phugoid oscillations of N328KF?

Rich S.


You know he claims to be a test pilot maybe he was testing the phugoid
oscillations of a piece of space junk. He's running out of planes to test so he
has to start on space craft:-) What a guy!! Looping ,rolling and spinning the
MIR space station as it fell out of orbit ,then waiting for the last second
before total burn up and bailing out with his personal ablative shield recovery
system.Finally free falling for 100 miles and spot landing on a bulls eye at
the Golden Knights training field...All in a days work for the mighty zoom!!!
It's no wonder some people worship him LOL!!!


See ya

Chuck (only 1600 hrs) S

  #170  
Old June 30th 04, 05:47 AM
Mark Hickey
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ChuckSlusarczyk wrote:

Speaking of watching the sky's .Did anyone see anything last Saturday that
looked like a piece of space debris burning up? About 10:30 PM last Saturday in
sourthern Ohio about 6 of us saw something streaking across the sky from NW to
SE or there abouts .It was about 25 -30 degrees off the horizon and was visible
thru an arc of about 40 degrees horizontally and lasting about 7-8 seconds
before it went out of sight behind some trees. It was a burnt orange color and
seemed to spewing sparks of the same color .Kinda like grinding a piece of steel
on a grind stone.A small piece seperated from the main portion and only lasted a
couple of seconds.

I've seen tons of meteorites of various colors but I can't believe that this was
one. It seemed too slow ,everyone remarked that it seemed about the same speed
as the Shuttle break up.

Just wondering if there's a place that lists times of space debris coming out of
orbit,I'm really curious about what it might have been.


Probably a bolide (sp?)... basically a large, fiery meteor that breaks
up as it enters the atmosphere. Sometimes there's even a sound track
to go along (if it's close, that is). Some of them can be pretty
spectacular - I've only ever seen a few of 'em, and I spent lots of
nights laying on my back counting meteors (I must have had free time
when I was a kid).

AND no I wasn't drinking any Muzzleloader!!!! :-0


You'll see all KINDS of amazing things if you drink that stuff.

Mark Hickey
 




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