[geeks] Woohoo! SpaceShipOne does it!

[Phil Stracchino]

On Tue, Oct 05, 2004 at 12:20:36PM -0400, james wrote:
> I assume that this altitude is not beyond the reach of gravity? If the
> ship's systems fail will they return to earth?

Correct.  It's sub-orbital flight, a high ballistic arc with several
minutes of microgravity at the top.

> And, is this altitude high enough to be usefull for placing small
> satellites in orbit?

Well .....  Sort of.  If you hauled something like a Pegasus up with
you, you could probably get a small payload into LEO with it.  But
SpaceShipOne itself cannot attain LEO.  Not enough delta-V.

There's a separate prize for that, the America's Space Prize offered by,
uh, Baringer Aerospace I think, which offers $50 million for the first
fully reusable vehicle to achieve low earth orbit before the end of this
decade.



-- 
  ========== Fight Back!  It may not be just YOUR life at risk. ==========
  alaric at caerllewys.net : phil-stracchino at earthlink.net : phil at novylen.net
   phil stracchino : unix ronin : renaissance man : mystic zen biker geek
     2000 CBR929RR, 1991 VFR750F3 (foully murdered), 1986 VF500F (sold)
           Linux Now!  ...Friends don't let friends use Microsoft.