Glenn’s been throwing me lots of links, lately, deservedly or not, so I’m happy to be able to link back to a nice post of his at MSNBC about today’s winning of the Ansari Prize.

I’ll be in a short segment of Warren Olney’s “To The Point” at 2PM EDT, discussing the implications of the X-Prize.

[Update at 2:30]

It went very well. Warren (who is an excellent interviewer) just wanted a five-minute update on how the flight went, and the implications for the future of space. It should be available for streaming sometime today, and it will be rebroadcast in LA on KCRW at 1 PM Pacific.

My former co-worker at Rotary Rocket, Brian Binnie, will be piloting today’s (hopefully) prize-winning flight.

[Update a couple minutes later]

After a little surfing, my recommendation is to watch on MSNBC if you get it. Intead of John Pike, they’ve got Jim Oberg to provide commentary.

[Update a couple more minutes later]

Oops. He just misspoke, saying that the FAA would have to certify the spaceship that Burt builds for Branson. Not under the current regulatory regime. All they will have to do is get a launch license.

[Another update]

I switched back to Fox, where Bridget Quinn was interviewing Walt Cunningham. When she asked him if this meant that we’d be able to go into space, he splashed cold water on the idea, saying that maybe her “children’s children” would do it. He then went on to explain that what Branson wanted to do would be much more expensive, because SpaceShipOne didn’t have all the redundant systems that “safety regulators” would require.

Grrrrr…

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, since there are no “safety regulators” when it comes to passenger spaceflight. The FAA is concerned only with third-party (uninvolved people on the ground) not first or second parties. As I said, there is currently no such thing as certification for such vehicles–only launch licensing, and that is a process that doesn’t oversee passenger safety.

[Update after launch]

Well, that was a lot smoother than the first two. I don’t know if Brian is a better pilot, or if he was on the lookout for things based on his discussions with Mike Melvill.

Shortly after apogee, someone said that he’s won the prize.

Not yet. He has to land safely first…

[Update at 11:10 or so]

OK, the nosewheel just touched down. The prize is won, once they verify the altitude, which if it holds up at 368,00 feet will be a new altitude record, beating the previous one long held by the X-15 by almost three miles.

Dale Amon (who just called me to inform me of that) has been covering this as well.

On this date, forty-seven years ago, from the windy steppes of Kazakhstan, a missile, originally designed to deliver a deadly warhead, sundered the skies. But its payload was not a bomb, but a basketball-sized sphere of metal with transponders. Its destination was not another territory on earth, but the semi-permanent freefall of outer space. It was the first object since the dawn of time, crafted by humans, to enter orbit around our planet. It was the beginning of the space age.

As I write these words, it’s still dark in Mojave, California. If it’s a typical night there, the winds are high, even howling, rattling the rafters of the airport hangars, many of which were built years before that first satellite launch. But in an hour or so, the rising sun will slowly illuminate the desert, and the winds will die down. A crowd will be gathered to watch an ungainly-looking aircraft, resembling mating birds or insects, as it taxis out to challenge the heavens for the second time within less than a week.

If today’s flight is successful, and the prize is won, many may look back on this anniversary as a dual one. October 4th will not only be commemorated as the day that the old space age began, but perhaps, the new one as well.

Unfortunately, not me. Clark Lindsey is going, though, for tomorrow’s historic flight. Here’s hoping he finds an internet connection.

I’ll have to watch on teevee again (which, truth be told, actually provides a better view of the flight than being there does). Still, I’d like to be in attendance, but now that I’m in Florida, it’s a lot harder to justify a cross-country trip for it than a two-hour drive up from LA.

Which is mine.

The fact that the roll problem seems to get worse as the burn progresses could be a result of:

1. higher acceleration as the vehicle gets lighter
2. less atmosphere as altitude increases, with correspondingly less aerodynamic control
3. increasing thrust asymmetries as the nozzle erodes

I’m guessing that it’s a combination of all of the above and that the vehicle doesn’t have enough RCS control authority to muscle past the (unplanned) thrust asymmetries. The pilot is probably fighting to keep the nose pointed forward, and as Brett Buck suggested, yaw and pitch moments are getting coupled into roll.

If so, this is a problem that could be solved with a better engine nozzle design, thrust vector control on the main propulsion (a more expensive fix), more powerful RCS jets, or all of the above.

As I said previously, though, this shouldn’t necessarily prevent them from winning the prize, as is.

says it was caused by a “known deficiency”:

The unplanned corkscrew maneuver Wednesday was characterized as a “spin-stabilized” roll. Rutan said there

Sorry for not posting sooner, but my DSL connection’s been flaky all morning.

I’m concerned about that roll we saw during ascent. I was very concerned when it seemed to be accelerating, but it looks like he got it under control after engine shutdown. I wouldn’t fly again until I understood what caused that. I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t want to ride a vehicle that did that, though others’ mileage may vary.

It was a little irritating to listen to John Pike on Fox. On the one hand, he actually did seem to be cheering them on, but he’s out of date on current events. He told the Fox hosts that DaVinci was planning to fly in the next few days, when they’ve announced that they’re delayed several weeks. It would be nice if media people could get some other names in their space rolodexes than John’s.

Maybe more thoughts later.

[Update]

Bruce Hoult (in comments to this post thinks that it’s being caused by swirl in the oxidizer flow of the engine. I doubt that. Brett Buck has a different, and more plausible to me (and more disturbing, if correct) diagnosis over at sci.space.policy:

…the problem appeared to be a coupling from yaw
to roll – definitely had a significant yaw angle, and the effective dihedral
is extraordinarily high with this design – a lot like the lifting bodies
that had similar control issues. Maybe that resulted from a yaw thrust
vector misalignment, maybe just plain old roll/yaw coupling issues at high
speeds. But it seems very unlikely to be something that can easily be fixed.

If he’s right, it doesn’t mean that SS1 can’t win the X-Prize, since it’s had two successful flights with the problem. It may mean that they may have to go back to the drawing board for SS2, and that the technology’s not quite as in the bag as Mr. Branson thinks. As I said, safety issues aside, I think that the market for a rolling ascent is more limited than for one that’s smoother and more controlled.

[Another update, after further reflection on Mr. Pike]

He also blew it when being asked why people find this so exciting, whereas they don’t seem to care about NASA. He repeated the old cliche about how NASA has managed the seemingly impossible feat of making spaceflight boring, but his (mis)diagnosis was that this was exciting because we could identify with the pilot, whereas NASA had reduced emphasis on showcasing the astronauts since the 1960s.

No, John. People find this exciting, because it offers a promise that they can go themselves.

[Update at 12:45]

A commenter points out that Mike Melvill says that he screwed up. He doesn’t say exactly what he did wrong.

Anyway, that’s good news, because it means that they don’t have to do any analysis to figure it out, and pilot error is easily fixable, either by making the pilot smarter, or by using a different pilot. I was surprised to see Melvill fly this time–I had the impression that he’s gotten his ride in June, and was satisfied to let someone else do it. Now, will he be the pilot on the second flight?

[5 PM EDT update]

Derek Lyons asks if the space community has already lost interest in this.

I don’t think so. I’ll bet that a lot fewer people came up from LA, because they’d already done it once, and the entry price increased quite a bit over the last one. I do think that there’s a sense that it’s got enough momentum now, and they are content to watch on the web (combined with the fact that, truth be told, like sporting events, the view is much better from home). I’ll bet that once it becomes a real race, like the Ansari Cup, there will be big crowds, and it will be crowds of people who weren’t necessarily interested in space.

The most important gauge of public interest isn’t how many people physically show up to events like this, but how many marketing deals, and investment agreements get signed, and how much continuing buzz it gets in the major media.

Clark has a schedule of events for the flight, and a roundup of links, many of which indicate that the space tourism business is rapidly picking up steam.

Clark has a schedule of events for the flight, and a roundup of links, many of which indicate that the space tourism business is rapidly picking up steam.

Clark has a schedule of events for the flight, and a roundup of links, many of which indicate that the space tourism business is rapidly picking up steam.