What's SpaceShipOne's Future?

What will happen to SpaceShipOne now that it has won the X-Prize? Will there be more flights to test the design further? Or will SpaceShipOne be retired to a museum? I can see the benfits to fly more flights, since the design will be used by Virgin Galactic. How much is known from only 3 spaceflights? I know Rutan is moving onto larger goals, but wouldn't it be safer to find out more about SpaceShipOne? Since TierTwo is most likely going to be based off of Tier One, wouldn't it be safer to see if there are some unknown problems with Tier One?

But on the other hand, would you really want to risk a historical spacecraft like SpaceShipOne? That is one spacecraft you would deffinatly want in a museum eventually. Maybe once the X-Prize Cup gets started we will see an X-Prize Museum with artifacts from all of the flights.

Go to scaled.com, read the flight logs for SS1. They repeatedly say that SS1 is now retired. Off to the Smithsonian! Of course Burt is free to change his mind, and has one more engine in stock.

I'm curious when we'll get our first glimpse of SS2. And of course even more curious when a Tier-2 craft shows up.

Thanks for the reply...I thought that SS1 would be retired, just wanted to make sure.

I too am looking forward to SS2. Will SS2 be a larger sub-orbital craft or the orbital craft?

When I sent an email to Scaled Composites this summer I got a quick answer saying that they didn't know that time what Paul Allen will do with SS1. They only said that it may be that he will do something with it.

So it may be that Rutan cannot decide alone - which is right because of the huge investment Scaled has got from Paul Allen. And there is a seperate enterprise - Mojave Aerospace - that has to be involved in the decision too.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

SS2 is Tire1, sub-orbital. It's the stretch version of SS1 for the Virgin Galactic thrill-ride program.
Tier2 is orbital. Supposedly there was a brief glimpse of a CAD drawing during the Discovery documentary program (which I haven't seen yet), and the Tier2 craft looked like SS1 with a very long engine cowel. Rutan has said orbital will happen "sooner than we think", so I'm thinking within 3 years, just to hurry him up!

Rutan has stated, on the record, what he intends to do with SpaceShipOne before, and it's been quoted on numerous different sites (including this one).

He will use it as a research and testing vehicle for the development of SpaceShipTwo. Once it is retired (probably later next year, when SpaceShipTwo goes into testing), 100g of it is going onto a spacecraft headed for Pluto, and the rest of it is going into the Smithsonian. It has not has it's final flight yet, but nothing public will be done with it again.

A 100g? An amount of weight? Curious information. What does that mean? Which part of SS1? Are there some more concrete informations?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Yes, 100g weight (0.1 kg). As far as I know the "where" is not so important, it's simply something for the Aliens to find when they pick up the pluto satellite.

Basically it's a congratulations to Rutan. I imagine it would be some innocuous part of the inside of the craft, since the Smithsonian wouldn't want any great holes in the side of the ship when they get it.

Didn´t part of the Wright Bros "Flyer" go to the moon with the Apollo project?

I believe i heard that too, i heard it was actually the sticks he used to turn it.