Of course. But I think NORAD and the USAF Space Command traditionally have been Watching the Skies for an all-out ICBM strike, or for a fellow superpower such as the former USSR fielding its own version of the “Star Wars” program – things which could only be done by a superpower. My point is that a new era of low-cost spaceflight has the same potential effect as the wide availability of low-cost assault weapons and RPGs – it opens the way to a new era of “assymetrical warfare” where even minor powers and underground organizations might, conceivably, be able to afford to get into the game.
I have to admit though, as far as his web site goes, he doesn’t talk about his next generation orbiter at all…so maybe he was just talking in that show. I can’t find a cite at all for his future space plans…if he even has any. 
Well, I still think it was a great and heroic achievement, and I think that venture capital will be available to people now that wasn’t before…venture capital TOO build a private orbiter. But thats just my WAG on this.
-XT
Are you SURE he was talking about an orbital ship? Because that sounds a lot like the suborbital ship he plans to build for Richard Branson. But I never saw it, so I could be wrong.
Well, he said on the show that the next step is to go orbital…then he showed the mock up and computer wire diagrams of a ship that he claims will hold 7 people. I might have it wrong too Sam, or he could have been letting his enthusiasm get the better of him (he was SO hyped…he actually cried at one point). I can’t find anything at all on hiw web site or FAQ about his plans for a next generation orbital ship…nada (not even anything on a sub orbital 7 passenger ship…or any other space craft for that matter). I can’t find any press releases or any mention of an orbital craft on google…nuffin.
-XT
I can’t find the site, but Rutan specifically talked about a plane the size of a 747 capable of going into orbit. I think that it was one of the Wired interviews he did, but I don’t have time to find the cite. Rutan’s definately got the plans on the drawing board, and he’s got the gear as well. IAC, suborbit’s the perfect place to space dive!
altitude has nothing to do with reaching orbit. It requires a great deal of speed to enter into one. What Ratan did, which is what the X-prize specified, is to reach a specific altitude. It was done ballistically straight up.
I don’t mean to rain on Rutan’s parade because it was quite an achievement. It has nothing to do with the concept of orbiting. If he says he’s going to build an orbiting craft I would certainly bet money on his success. If he does it by selling seats to millionaires than Viva-Capitalism.
Here’s a cite which says he’s aiming for orbit.
Not the best cite I’ve seen, but it definately confirms that he’s aiming for it.
Oh, I know he’s aiming for orbit - I was just wondering about the five-year plan with the 7 passenger ship.
But what he describes sounds more likely - a big craft with a tiny little cockpit. So it’s a transfer vehicle to get you to a hotel. Which begs the queston - how do you get the hotel up there? For that, you need something like a Shuttle, capable of carrying tens of thousands of pounds of payload.
CurtC said:
You’re thinking about it wrong. It takes about half the speed to get to orbit as it does to get out of the solar system. As Heinlein said, “Once you’re in orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere”. It’s a BIG jump to get from where SS1 is today to orbit, but once you’re in orbit going to the moon or Mars isn’t that much harder. Look at Apollo - it needed a Saturn V to get to orbit, and from there it used a much smaller rocket to get it to the moon and back.
Mind you, this is the guy offering a $50 million dollar prize for a civilian craft to get to orbit.
And he’s not the only one eyeing inflatables.
If I have time tomorrow, I’ll look for the cite which quotes Rutan as saying that his craft will be able to put something like 300 tons in orbit.
Spacwarcom has been aware of it for the past five years. If you look around the spacecommand website , you will find about 3 or 4 essays regarding aerospace defense in the next twenty years.
I would imagine in the next several years , the plans for the next generation , all military space station will be released , along with requirements for space supremacy orbiter or bus. One thought is that two of the three orbiters are coming to the end of their service lives , atlantis being the exception, can be lofted into orbit , and extend their service lives by another ten or so years.
The military is scaleable , its just an evolution in warfare.
Declan
300 tons? Is that a typo? That’s ten times more than the Shuttle can haul. In fact, that’s almost three times the weight of the entire orbiter (not the external tank, SRB’s and fuel, but the Orbiter itself).
If Rutan can build a spacecraft that can haul 300 tons to orbit for, say, 1/10 of the cost per pound of a shuttle flight, then we can go anywhere. The Moon, Mars, you name it. We can build space hotels. NASA would buy a fleet of these things for hauling its cargo. The international space station would be rejuvenated, and you could triple its size and restore its crew complement.
In fact, doing the math… A single shuttle flight costs about $600 million. Let’s say that Rutan can launch one of his behemoths for $60 million. That would drop the cost of a pound of payload to orbit to $100. A 200 lb person could fly to orbit for $20,000. The Cassini probe to Saturn has an all-up weight including fuel of about 25,000 lbs. Double it to give it fuel for the ride out, and it’d be 50,000 lbs. You could launch 12 of them on one flight, for less than half the cost of the pathfinder mission to Mars. We could saturate the solar system with probes for next to nothing.
If you think about it, what Rutan has done is bigger than simply tourism. By changing the path of SS1 you can ballistically travel across the planet. What type of premium price do you think FedEx would charge for that type of intercontinental same day service?
Well, it wasn’t too long before people figured out you could saturate bomb cities - to quote H. G. Wells
To be fair he was refering to blimps and other airships, not to actual aircraft.
That depends . . . FedEx can already, I believe, ship something to the other side of the planet within two days. Cutting it down to one day might be crossing a point of diminishing returns. I don’t think they’ll be interested unless shipping by SS1 is almost as cheap as shipping by jet airplane – and it won’t be, for a while yet.
Lighter-than-air craft are still aircraft, aren’t they?
Which is basically the argument used by the postal service when FedEx first appeared. “Why would anyone want a package there tomorrow when it can get there in a work week?” I’d say for short lived biological agents, organ transfers, impatient people with too much money, grant submissions that managed to get forgotten until the day they were due… 
Well yes, but airships have nothing in common with aircraft aside from the fact they both move through it. You were talking about the Wright brothers not the Montgolfier brothers.
At least with the first plane, you could look at it and envision people getting from town to town by plane. With SS1, where are they going exactly? LEO? Why? To repair LEO satellites (that’s the only practical use I can think of)?
Someone has mentioned getting to the ISS. Well, if it’s still there. And this gets back to the question of why the ISS is there in the first place (hint: there is no science of any import done on the ISS). The whole manned space program is a dead-end. Unmanned space vehicles are the key to exploration.
Huh? The original Wright Flyer went, what? 100 yards? No way in hell it was going ‘from town to town’. No chance. You had to use your IMAGINATION to ENVISION and incrimental upgrade that would create a plane that COULD fly ‘from town to town’. Yet you are unwilling (or unable) to invision an upgraded version of SpaceShipOne that could fly into orbit, act as a ferry for passengers and materials, and do it cheaply enough to allow for the expolitation of space. Why is that?
I’m not a big fan of the ISS…I think we could have spent our money more wisely. Thats kind of the whole point of the privatization of space. Governments WASTE money and resources. Space is no exception…hell it proves the axiom. Any space program created by a committee is going to be a complete cluster fuck…like the shuttle, like the ISS. Or its going to cost an arm and a leg and probably several other vital body parts to boot.
I totally disagree with you that ‘manned space program is a dead-end’ and that only ‘unmanned space vehicles are the key to exploration’. I think that BOTH are necessary…I do agree that GOVERNMENT manned space program is probably a dead end, and that the Government should, by various means, encourage the PRIVATE development of space. Sort of the same way the Government encouraged the creation of a rail industry and network in the US in the previous century, and how they encouraged the development of the airline industry in this one. Hopefully they can do so in a way that doesn’t screw up space the same way the government has screwed up rail and air (probably a forlorn hope based on past performance)…but even if it does, at least we’ll have SOME system.
-XT
Surely you don’t think a program is of no value just because you and I can’t think of a use within a short time of hearing about it.