by It was a one-of-a-kind moment for a large number of well-wishers, including this reporter, all in a state of rhinoceros and sprains at Mojave Airport, California on June 21, 2004.
The rocket engine driving the experimental sub-orbit was released from its White Knight mothership. SpaceShipOne vehicle roar to life, controlled skillfully by test pilot Mike Melvill.
That first groundbreaking space flight lasted 24 minutes, heading back to the Mojave and sliding right into the history books.
Now, two decades later, Burt Rutanlead craft designer at the company Scaled Composites, reflects on that epic day in an exclusive interview with Space.com.
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After the flight, Rutan saw a sign being held in the crowd. It read: “SpaceShipOne, Government Zero.”
“I thought, ‘That’s cool. Let me see if I could show it with the spacecraft,'” Rutan said. “It wasn’t ours. I found out later that it was put together by libertarians.”
Those words speak volumes. They also emphasize a truism that spread its wings on that memorable day.
“We were undercover for two years of a three and a half year program. No one knew what we were up to,” said Rutan. “Not only did we not have government help or government equipment; the government had no idea we were doing a manned space program,” he said.
SpaceShipOne – the brainchild of Rutan and his small team of like-minded visionaries – was revealed publicly in April 2003, when the vehicle was launched. “It was basically ready to fly,” Rutan said, “and we let the world know that we’re really going to try to send our test pilots into space.”
Related: Facts about SpaceShipOne, the 1st private spacecraft
Gulp factor
On that big unveiling day, the White Knight carrier plane performed an aerobatic display in flight, adding to the atmosphere and excitement of the sky to come, taking a private vehicle that no one had gone before.
“In general, our program was very similar to the proof-of-concept research airplanes we had done before,” Rutan said. But, admittedly, there was a significant gulp factor when SpaceShipOne first flew.
Before the first space flight, Rutan recalled an aerodynamics expert eyeing SpaceShipOne and his novel hinge “feathering” system.. That unique feature had the rear half of the wing and its twin tails fold up for atmospheric re-entry, a position designed to increase drag, but keep the vehicle stable on a descent.
“That expert told me it’s going to spin like a crop; it wouldn’t be controllable if it’s in a feather,” Rutan said. “You know, I didn’t have a good answer for him.”
Rutan said he was riding on wispy intelligence.
“I had no wind tunnel data in the feathered configuration. I was limited to computational fluid dynamics data … no analysis of the dynamics. I couldn’t tell if it was right or not.”
Concerns resolved
When SpaceShipOne fell from the White Knight carrier plane at 40,000 feet (12,000 meters), pilot Mike Melvill said nothing, according to Rutan.
“That will get your ass puckered up if nothing else,” Rutan said. “And I’m thinking, ‘For God’s sake, tell us how to fly.’ And I’ll never forget when he said, ‘It’s like a dream.’ That’s right and one of my biggest concerns was resolved.”
SpaceShipOne moved from transonic to supersonic velocity, running a rocket motor for 15 seconds, and rising to just over 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth. So he cleaned the Kármán linea widely recognized definition of the frontier of outer space.
“I realized if we had bad flight qualities that we’re accelerating so fast,” Rutan said, “you’re going to go through it quickly.”
When the rocket engine stopped, SpaceShipOne slid into low speed and the thruster system was engaged. The vehicle was successfully maneuvered down to the tarmac sky.
Above the hour
“I recognized that it was historic, to achieve space flight with a non-governmental team,” said Rutan. The flight achievement received the attention of “above the fold” newspapers around the world.
“It was the second story for all of 2004. If they hadn’t pulled Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole that year,” Rutan said, “this would have been the first story!”
Later that year, SpaceShipOne made two back-to-back suborbital flights well over 100 kilometers high, piloted individually first by Melvill and then by Brian Binnie, to $10 million Ansari X Prize purse.
For Rutan, SpaceShipOne’s journey that day was a huge milestone. “There should be a party every 10 years. And there should definitely be a big party on the 50th and 100th.”
Ambitious inspiration
“I’m guessing that only real space people know that the first suborbital spaceflight of SpaceShipOne, piloted by Mike Melvill, took place 20 years ago this week,” said Alan Ladwig , author of “See You In Orbit? Our Dream Of Spaceflight” (For Orbit Productions, 2019). “It was an important milestone for space tourism.”
As the first time a privately funded spacecraft had reached the final frontier, Melvill’s critical test flight attracted media and public attention at the time, as Rutan noted. “This event heralded a new era when ‘ordinary’ people, private citizens, would have the opportunity to fly to experience without weight,” Ladwig said.
When the X-Prize was announced in 1996, later renamed the Ansari X-Prize, Ladwig recalled that it was predicted that a winner would be crowned in three to five years, with commercial tickets available a year or two later. that.
“Like many space achievements, these predictions were ambitious,” Ladwig said.
Related: Space tourism, 20 years in the making, is finally ready to launch
Space tourism on industrial strength
After the first successful spaceflight of SpaceShipOne, Ladwig remembers Rutan promising that subsonic flights would “inspire and open up a new industry.”
“This prophecy has come true Galactic Virgo and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin they now launch passenger service, but the high ticket price prevents many from realizing their dreams of spaceflight,” Ladwig said. (Virgin Galactic currently charges $450,000 per seat for a subsonic trip; Blue Origin revealed its ticket prices.)
And the connection between Virgin Galactic and SpaceShipOne is quite strong; Virgin has flown seven commercial subsonic flights to date, all with the recently retired VSS Unity spaceplane. Unity is a Spaceship Two vehicle, which, as its name suggests, is an evolved version of the pioneering SpaceShipOne.
Highlighting the challenge of providing a commercial service to and from sub-real space, Ladwig said it’s worth remembering that the Ansari X Prize attracted 26 teams from seven countries, “but only two companies have the ability to help you achieve a spatial experience.”
For the past 50 years, experts have made bold predictions about a thriving space tourism industry, Ladwig says.
For example, one space tourism sage predicted that. by 2030, five million passengers could be taking trips to a hotel chain in low earth orbit.
“It will take a huge acceleration in flights to reach those numbers,” suggests Ladwig. “But Melvill’s historic flight gave hope to all those who dream of seeing the Earth from an orbital perspective.”
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The sprinkling of innovation
“At the time, the second prize-winning flight of SpaceShipOne on its X Prize quest in 2004 seemed to usher in an imminent new era for commercial spaceflight,” said Margaret Weitekamp, chair of the Space History department at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum i. Washington, DC
“It took much longer to develop the reality than the promoters expected,” Weitekamp told Space.com. “But the Ansari X Prize competition spurred innovations that fueled renewed interest in sub-realistic human spaceflight.”
Weitekamp also said the flying SpaceShipOne will return to public display in the National Air and Space Museum building on the National Mall when the Boeing Milestones in Flight Hall reopens.
For more information on Burt Rutan’s significant contribution to aerospace, you can go to the informative and comprehensive program BRAB (Burt Rutan AutoBio) website.a collection of work in progress that he started in 2020.
