On June 21st, 2004, SpaceShipOne made its first journey into space, a test run for the X-Prize-winning flights the following fall. I was there (the top five posts on this page are from Mojave). Jeff Foust has some thoughts on the slower-than-anticipated progress in the industry. Ed Wright and Doug Messier also remember.
14 thoughts on “Eight Years Since First Flight”
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Lots of irony in this story. SS1 was designed for reuse and wasn’t. Allen made more money by not flying it. SS2 could be said to be a starting over. It may still be a shuttlecock but a new design with a new engine.
If they ever go orbital the shuttlecock design may not be of any use.
I gotta go with XCOR here (mainly because Greason’s settlement speech! The guy has vision and I think understands finance a bit better.)
Ken,
Yes, like the Spirit of St. Louis it was a one trick pony, but then that is what you usually got with aviation prizes, so why is everyone surprised when the result is the same for space prizes?
BTW if you listen to David Livingston’s space show from Oct. 4, 2004 which I was interviewed on I noted then that SpaceShipOne would end up never flying again and that it would require a lot of work to make the design suitable for tourists.
Pity that Burt Rutan/Paul Allen didn’t build there original vision of SpaceShipOne and actually used it for a test flight program instead of a PR stunt.
So tell, are you now ready to call the X-Prize a failure? Or do we need a few more years of delays and lack of results to recognize the Emperor has no clothes?
I went back and sampled a few “2004, year in tech review” articles.
DARPA GC took place this year, but wasnt won until next attempt – we still dont have self-driving cars, although Google has one, and is even licensed to drive in Nevada.
Humanoid robots – QRIO and Asimo made some splashes. Nothing ever happened to either.
On the IT side, the “big events” – Google and Microsoft and Yahoo all launched desktop search tools. Nobody cares, everything is moving off desktop to cloud by now. A slew of supposedly high profile IPod competitors were launched, all DOA. Videoblogs were supposed to replace text blogging .. DVD-R in DVRs was supposed to take the world by storm..
And so on and so forth.
Lets just hope that suborbital passenger flights are slightly delayed, not DOA
And we still don’t have any flying cars although that firm in Davis, CA still keeps pitching them. Unfortunately most folks don’t realize progress comes not only from technology push, but also economic (or national security) pull. There is a reason that coal, which was known to the Romans, didn’t make an impact on society until the 1700’s. Or routine passenger flights to Paris didn’t start until after World War II using technology that was developed for military bombers and transports, not from the Spirit of St. Louis.
In terms of sub-orbital its looking beyond the minor market segment of space tourism to the real money making segments of Science, Education and Research (SER) that firms like XCOR and organizations like the Southwest Institute are now doing that will advance the field, not a dead end prizes. Its a pity that the hype of the X-Prize caused folks to waste their efforts on trying to serve the wrong market for developing the technology.
Also, just a note, but the purpose of the DARPA prize was to develop self-driving military vehicles not autos for the average person. I suspect there is much progress being made in that area, but it has probably gone behind the veil of secrecy where it belongs 🙂
And we still don’t have any flying cars although that firm in Davis, CA still keeps pitching them.
Sigh — and you still keep proving your ignorance at every opportunity. Flying cars have been around for decades, Tom. If you want one, you can buy one,although there are good reasons why you probably don’t want one, even if you think you do.
It was just a stupid television commercial, Tom. Get over it.
Unfortunately most folks don’t realize progress comes not only from technology push, but also economic (or national security) pull.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates might have amounted to something if they had listened to you, instead of playing around with toy computers. 🙂
routine passenger flights to Paris didn’t start until after World War II using technology that was developed for military bombers and transports.
No, the DC-3 was not developed as a military bomber or transport. Nor were any of its successors.
In terms of sub-orbital its looking beyond the minor market segment of space tourism to the real money making segments of Science, Education and Research (SER) that firms like XCOR and organizations like the Southwest Institute are now doing that will advance the field, not a dead end prizes. Its a pity that the hype of the X-Prize caused folks to waste their efforts on trying to serve the wrong market for developing the technology.
Of course, no one at XCOR or SWRI thinks the X-Prize was a waste of effort.
So, now you like the suborbital Science, Education, and Research market? The same market you trashed because “the Moon is the only place where it’s possible to develop space industries”? Or was it some other Tom Matula who said that? 🙂
Edward,
Care to provide a list of flying cars? And I don’t mean those airplanes that you disassemble to drive over the road between airports. I mean true flying cars…
[[[Of course, no one at XCOR or SWRI thinks the X-Prize was a waste of effort.]]]
They don’t say so in public, but note that XCOR never changed their plans based on it, a behavior which shows how serious they took it. As for SWRI, they are pretty much a johnny come lately to the field. At least I never saw them pitching sub-orbital flight as any of the conferences in the 1990’s,
[[[So, now you like the suborbital Science, Education, and Research market? The same market you trashed because “the Moon is the only place where it’s possible to develop space industries”?]]]
Gee, you just are not able to stop lying are you? I have been arguing for the SER markets for years for sub-orbital. In fact I outlined them as the best opportunity for the Southwest Regional Spaceport in the original 1993 feasibility study. And they have generate far more flights for Spaceport America than space tourism has…
I outlined them as the best opportunity for the Southwest Regional Spaceport in the original 1993 feasibility study.
Not surprisingly, the official history does not support your version of events.
The initial feasibility study (by Burton Lee, not Tom Matula) was for “a reusable capsule landing site.”
There was no consideration of suborbital until about a decade later.
http://spacegrant.nmsu.edu/isps/2007/presentation/history.pdf
So much for the “evil space tourists killed my spaceport back in 1993” blather.
Edward,
Gee, you really don’t know anything of the history of the SRS do you? The original feasibility study was done by PSL under a USAF study. CEDRA which I worked for, contributed the business portion and Bernie McCune was the one in charge. But I guess folks like you enjoy rewriting history.
Actually Edward, if you took the time to read the history you will see my name on Page 47 as among those who contributed to it. And the initial focus was on the DC-Y in a sub-orbital setting. But again, you should actually stop at the library next time you are there and READ the actual feasibility study. You might even learn something….
One question that needs to be asked is how much longer will Sir Richard Branson continue to support Virgin Galactic. Sir Branson likes being first and one has to wonder what will happen if a firm like XCOR beats them to space.
Tom, why is it every time you choose to deny something you’ve said repeatedly in the past, you accuse me of lying?
In Vegas, they would call that a “poker tell.” I would have expected you to be slicker than that.
Writing one report in 1993 does not equal “arguing for the SER markets for years.”
What did you say in 2004 when the Bush Administration came out with its Vision of Space Exploration that completely ignored suborbital markets? Did you “support SER markets” then? Or did you jump on the BVSE bandwagon?
When Congress was gutting suborbital research to pay for Apollo II, did you criticize those cuts? Even once? Or did you gloat and tell us how the huge new rockets were going to lead to lunar settlements, platinum group mining, and an end to global warming?
The *only* time you talk about suborbital research markets is when you’re trying to play “divide and conquer” and turn the suborbital industry on itself. Like today.
Pathetic troll.
Edward,
What in the world, or out of it, does the VSE have to do with sub-orbital flight?
I guess its only associated in your whacked out world view. And as I have noted numerous times during that period, and which you WELL KNOW, the reason I supported VSE is that anything that keeps NASA busy and out of the way of New Space is good. Unlike you I don’t believe New Space needs to dependent on NASA corporate welfare to move forward.
I guess that is why you equal NASA funding cuts in suborbital research with being against its private development, If anything the cuts in NASA funding were an opportunity for the private sector to pick up the slack, that is if suborbital firms weren’t so stuck on the X-Prize and tourism…
But I guess if you are focused on getting NASA welfare, as you and many other space advocates are then anyone that doesn’t support more NASA spending is a troll.
BTW has NASA bought into you arguments that sending teachers into space in your MIG21 trainer will improve their teaching yet?
What in the world, or out of it, does the VSE have to do with sub-orbital flight?
Absolutely nothing, Tom, which was the point. There was/is no suborbital in the Bush Vision of Space Exploration. Just “the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”
If that isn’t understable, find someone who can translate English for you.
I guess that is why you equal NASA funding cuts in suborbital research with being against its private development, If anything the cuts in NASA funding were an opportunity for the private sector to pick up the slack
Yes, I know you don’t believe the government should play any role in funding basic research. As I said, you only pretend to support research markets when you’re trying to sow FUD….
I guess if you are focused on getting NASA welfare, as you and many other space advocates are then anyone that doesn’t support more NASA spending is a troll.
No, I reserve that term for trolls who constantly whine for welfare — e.g., government handouts for your international socialist lunar development corporation — while simultaneously lying about what other people advocate.
You are pathological.
Edward,
And I guess you think Comsat/Intelsat, which were mostly funded by borrowing from capital markets, was government welfare, although both were critical in creating the first and largest commercial industry in space, a $200 billion plus annual market, ten times the size of NASA. Or do you still believe the myth that AT&T and ITT, which had invested heavily in undersea cable technology, would have been more successful without those firms? Especially given how it took the courts breaking AT&T up to enable the mobile phone market and industry to emerge…
Really Edward, its folks like you, stuck in the government contractor mode, who think NASA is the ONLY way and believe that all space advocates should be centered on begging money from NASA, and oppose any who seek to find models beyond NASA, that have derailed progress in moving humans off the Earth.
You and your NASA fixated SFF is why I stopped wasting my time and money on going to conferences and joining space advocate societies, societies which only exist to fund folks begging for tax dollars for New Space contractors. That has been the entire problem with the dominate O’Neill model of space settlement and those who advocate for it and why it has stalled space progress for 40 years. I much prefer the Heinlein model where government involvement is avoided as much as possible. Or if they must be involved its in a limited and narrowly focused and clearly defined way with clear exit strategies, something lacking in COTS/CCDev/CCP/Whatever its name is today.