Rutan To Embrace Space, He's "Finished With Airplanes For A
While"
The guy who put Mojave, CA, on the map, SpaceShipOne into the
history books, and himself at the top of the list as the
most-admired airplane designer in decades, says the time has come
to move beyond all of the above. In recent candid talks including a
recent wide-ranging interview with well-known space writer Irene
Mona Klotz and a December 20th interview with George Nemiroff, Burt
Rutan says that Mojave won't be the only spaceport for the coming
project, that it won't -- it can't -- look like SpaceShipOne, and
that he is finished with airplanes for the time being.
SpaceShipTwo Design
Despite widespread speculation that the design for the new ship,
intended to fly space tourists for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin
Galactic spaceline, Rutan implied that he was still in the early
phases of conceptual design of the new ship. The shoulder-wing
layout of the original SpaceShip is out, as it contributed to the
stability problems of that craft. Rutan described these problems as
"roll coupling" in an October press conference, explaining that
rudder inputs at speed --SpaceShipOne approaches Mach 4 in climb
and re-entry -- could produce an unintended roll like the one that
bedeviled astronaut Mike Melvill on the initial X-Prize
qualification flight, "X1."
SpaceShipTwo will be a larger plane, with room for up to eight
paying passengers, and the passengers will have more comfort and
more room than the two passenger couches in SpaceShipOne -- which
have never been filled with anything but ballast. Rutan compares
the cabin diameter to the Gulfstream V, a trendsetter among
business jets (the G-V cabin is about a foot and a half larger in
diameter than SpaceShipOne). SpaceShipTwo will fly longer, and
higher -- as high as 87 miles, which would be a new record for
spaceplanes (the current record, 367,442 ft (69.6 miles) is
unofficially held by Brian Binnie in SpaceShipOne; the FAI is still
working on Mike Melvill's June 21 flight, 281,300 ft or 53.27
miles). To make it to higher altitudes, the boost phase will be
longer, and passengers and crew will experience greater
acceleration forces -- up to 6 G.
The schedule that Rutan has set out for his team is extremely
aggressive. In his December 20th interview with George Nemiroff, he
said: "We will be flying within about two and a half years or so. I
think it will be certified and actually in commercial operation in
about four years."
So What About SpaceShipOne?
It's retired, and it's going to be in the National Air and Space
Museum on the Mall in Washington. Rutan told Nemiroff, "[E]veryone
in the world wants to fly on it because it's the only operable,
private manned spacecraft. However, Paul [Allen] feels that it
needs to be preserved for the Air and Space Museum.... So, I don't
think we're still debating it; it probably will not be flown again.
I think we'll move on and our future space flying will be done with
SpaceShipTwo instead of SpaceshipOne."
The five requests to fly payloads that have come in are
gratefully acknowledged, but they're going to have to wait. At
least there will be no question about the significance and
authenticity of this pioneer craft (the Wright Flyer was displayed
in London by an outraged Orville Wright when the Smithsonian gave
credit for the first flight to the Institution's own Dr. Samuel P.
Langley. Only after World War II, when the Museum relented and
acknowledged the Wrights' primacy did the Flyer, which is
acknowledged to be only partly made of original parts, return to
the USA). The SpaceShipOne that is going into the museum is indeed
the very first private machine that carried its human pilot across
the Von Karman line (100km) into space.
The immediate retirement of the SpaceShipOne vehicle is news, as
in October Rutan was intent that the spaceplane would fly again, as
part of the Virgin Galactic/SpaceShipTwo development program. He
had already turned down requests to fly scientific payloads in the
craft, believing that any further flights should be targeted
towards the objective of future passenger operations.
Implications
Some things have not been stated, but are implied in those that
have been. A SpaceShipTwo with eight or nine seats, higher
altitudes, and longer burn durations is going to be a significantly
larger, heavier spacecraft, perhaps three to four times the size,
and presumably weight, of SpaceShipOne. The current launch vehicle,
White Knight, does not seem to have the scalability to launch a
machine of that size, so Rutan must be designing a new launch
platform, or radically redesigning White Knight, as well as working
on the space vehicle.
Further, in her carefully-worded article, Klotz writes that
Branson's ships will be "based on" SpaceShipTwo. The implication is
that Mojave Aerospace Ventures will produce one or more prototypes
before the short series production run is done.
What About Mojave?
In November, both Rutan and Branson were clearly saying that
Mojave was going to be the spaceport for Virgin
Galactic. Now, Rutan doesn't say Mojave is out as a spaceport, but
he isn't granting exclusivity either: "Mojave is not going to be
the only place in the world where there will be a place to buy
tickets and fly a spaceflight." Does this presage a move to operate
on multiple continents, perhaps? Or is it an attempt to make Mojave
compete for the business (as the X-Prize Cup was, for practical
purposes, put out to bid?) Or is Rutan simply making a prediction?
This is getting as complicated as watching Brezhnev in the bad old
days. Fortunately, Rutan's intentions are considerably more
benign.
What Will A Flight Be Like?
So far, the people who have been enthusiastic about shelling out
$200,000 for a space flight haven't been too picky about their
accommodations. Sir Richard Branson, of course, built his airline's
reputation on its high-touch Upper Class service, and SpaceShipTwo
will have plenty of passenger room, with reclining couches to help
passengers -- even elderly, frail passengers -- handle G-forces.
There will also be plenty of amenities -- the service is promised
to meet or beat Virgin's Upper Class standards. Rutan had never
flown Upper Class before his trip to London to participate in Sir
Richard's announcement of Virgin Galactic, and he was very
impressed with the service. But when he talks about his joint
venture with the British entrepreneur, he can't help being most
excited about the very idea of flying in space.
"Instead of shoulder harnesses and tight seatbelts we want this
roller coaster-type bar that you fold out of the way and you can
float around," Rutan told Klotz, describing a free-flight
experience that will be as unrestricted as possible. "This
experience is going to have very few restrictions... because
[people] are doing it for fun and every person has a different idea
of what fun is."
Maybe that explains why he, and Branson, have already signed up
-- and not just for themselves: each has also reserved a seat for
his father. I guess that's a pretty good expression of confidence
in the program.
After all, Rutan has already said, if a flight was risky, he
could be safer and crew it with "a lawyer. Or a liberal."