GO SPACESHIPONE!!!! JUNE 21!!!!!

lol, I tried that one earlier and it wouldn't work

Never mind, you can keep it, I'll find another one

Well, that's it, give the man the prize.....

If today was anything to go by then Scaled have got it in the bag

...now when do I get to go?

When will ss1 launch again? This was a "test" launch, so will they not launch again within two weeks?

how near is scaled composites competition from having ready to launch spaceships?

As I understand it, a team must give 30 days notice for an XPRIZE attempt. Also, there was a serious malfunction of a flight control trim system which reportedly caused SpaceShipOne to make an uncommanded 90 degree roll.

Scaled will have determine the cause and fix it first. But hey, Burt Rutan's safety backup systems worked.

SpaceShipOne is not a fly by wire aircraft, so control inputs are not "commands" to a computer. The computer that flies it is the pilot's brain. What failed was not the trim control system but a trim control actuator.

Yes I thought they would have to give 30 days notice... but will the public know when they have given notice? Or might just the people in charge of the X prize know?

I believe that's the right interpretation of the rules. Theoretically, Scaled could have notified the Ansari X-Prize Org 29 days ago and they may be due to fly tomorrow.

However in the light of the small technical problems, it would seem unusually arrogant to notify the X-Prize before the test flight was flown. However this is what we thought they were planning to do, so who knows.

Man I hope someone else has got something up their sleave.

What is wrong with scaled? They are experienced and they have a beautiful ship.

I must admit I want an American team to win... so I am biased in scaled's favor as opposed to the DiVinci Project, though DiVinci has a very innovative design.

That said, I hope the Texas based team wins ---> Go John Carmack

what was scaled's cover story before they unvaled their current ship? I forgot...

Ahh he was saying he was going to use the Roton rockett, that is what I thought....

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rlv-98r.html

or am I off?

That article on the Roton is over five years old so it probably has nothing to do with anything Rutan has worked on in the past few years. I don't think he had a cover story, only that he was working on something and was very secretive on how far along it was.

Who was planning to use the rotery rockett then?????

one of the x teams was right?

I had thought Rutan said he was gonna use the Roton untill he unveiled his current design....

could anyone help set me straight?

maybe my memory is mixing things up........

I'm pretty sure that the Roton rocket was a completely seperate entity from Scaled Composites X-Prize work. Roton was hoping to capitalize on the booming (and now bust) telecommunications satellite market. When that market went bust so did much (all?) of the venture capital funding work on ships such as Roton and the Kistler K-1.

From what I've gathered Rutan is the type who juggles a bunch of projects that seem semi-related but aren't neccessarily related. If you go back far enough I'm pretty sure that it was Scaled Composites that provided the aeroshell for the DC-X, so they've been involved with this tyep of work for a decent amount of time, for a small company.

really, why not? Building a fly buy wire system should not be that hard, especialy given the fact that its become so common in the aircraft industry. Actually i'm very surprised SS1 does not have one given that a fly by wire system should be safer.

Not to metion that fly by wire would make the spacecraft lighter theirby increasing the thrust to weight ratio.

hmmmm well could someone please tell me what Rutan said he was doing (on the "Teams" section of the X Prize site) before he unvailed the already built spacecraft...

it is annoying that I cannot remember