Yay SpaceShipOne
I was up late last night watching a documentary about SpaceShipOne on the Discovery Channel. Today, SS1 (or SSO) went up and claimed the coveted X-prize, launching a pilot and (the weight of) two passengers more than 100km above the Earth’s surface. I was able to listen to an audio feed of the launch and landing and for a while afterwards. A big heap o congratuations to everyone involved.
The one comment that I heard a number of times was that private industry can do things faster/cheaper/better than the government (NASA). And they can. The cost of SpaceShipOne was a fraction of the cost of the X-15 (it’s closest relative).
But that’s not the whole story.
Scaled Composites skipped past a number of things that NASA would have done. Like wind tunnel testing. Their version of wind tunnel testing is putting a section of the tail on the front of a truck and driving around. Everything was done either in a computer or during flight testing.
Also, don’t forget that the entire X series of planes were designed for research. SSO is research, but it will soon be a commercial vehicle. It has the luxury of having the closest thing to a US-born Werner Von Braun (Burt Rutan) along with 40+ years of additional aeronautic/computer/material/space flight testing that went on. It’s like saying that since today’s computers cost under $1000, the $500,000 ENIAC was a waste of money.
Private industry is willing to take risks that the government just can’t do. When private industry screws up, lawsuits fly, lawyers get paid, and insurance companies pay up. When the government screws up, something worse happens - people get voted out of office.
Still, this is a huge accomplishment. It’s nice to see commercial interest in space flight. I may never be able to go up (it will probably take a long time to get to that point), but I hope my daughter can enjoy it someday.