Go Random_McEric

May I a propose cliche of the year contest?

Surprising no one...

- HC

Do you ever spit Kofi on your keyboard?

haha...that really was a good photoshop, I have a printout of it hanging in my cube = )
No one else around here seems to find it funny = (

Where might I purchase such a monkey? How much is insurance on these bad boys? Is the dynamite included?

Hmm ... Last time I checked the "Space Ship" was not a new invention which wouldn't really make SpaceShipOne an invention at all. Wouldn't it rather be just an adaptation of existing technology?

DAMN YOU TIME MAGAZINE AND YOUR BLINDNESS FOR DYNAMITE MONKEYS!

So with a month left in the year they have made their choice? What if i just happen to release the most amazing, spectacular, stupendous machine the world has ever seen? I would certainly hope they would award me this title and of course a substantial cash payment. No my machine isn't an atomic death ray on the moon that is currently in the final phase of construction. I would NEVER create one of those and if i did i certainly wouldn't tell everyone about it. Of course i do want my invention of the year prize or else, well, things might just go KABOOM! mwahahahahaha

/putting forth his best jealous mad scientist impression

I love that one - the expression on the monkey's face is priceless... You just KNOW he's gonna push the plunger!

N.

PoorPeteBest:

The 'invention' portion is really the method SS1 uses to return to Earth.

-Joseph

What if i just happen to release the most amazing, spectacular, stupendous machine the world has ever seen?

Build a time machine. Problem solved.

That's because the Dynamite Monkey was itself surpassed by the Thermonuclear Wombat.

Hmmm... Ninja Monkey Vs. Dynamite Monkey..

Sorry ninja, while i love your stealthy approach, the dynamite monkey had me at Kaboom.

A time machine u say? WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT MY TIME MACHINE?!?! *ahem* I mean why yes that is indeed the goal of my wonderful and most certainly not evil organization. We wish to travel and site see in time not take over the past to rule the future.

/ranting mad scientist
//space ships... invention of the year... welcome to the 60s

This is inexcusable stupidity on the part of the AP

...SpaceShipOne was designed with its twin tail booms on hinges to allow the tail sections to fold upward at a right angle to the fuselage when the craft is at its apogee, or the top of its suborbital flight path.

Like the feathers of a badminton shuttlecock, the drag of the folded tail slows the re-entry to prevent the buildup of speed and heat. Later during the descent, the tail booms fold back into their normal position to allow the craft to fly as a glider and land on an airport runway. Rutan and his pilots call it a "carefree re-entry."

In contrast, NASA's space shuttles need a layer of thermal tiles and Russia's Soyuz spaceships use heat shields to protect against damage from fiery re-entry.

Uhm... SpaceShipOne is at a virtual standstill when it effectively skydives back to earth. If a human were to jump out of a ship at that altitude and skydive back to earth they wouldn't burn up on reentry either. They would have a high terminal speed for a while, but the friction with the atmosphere would not burn them up.

In contrast, the SPACE SHUTTLE and other sub-orbital craft are travelling at nearly 17,000 miles an hour when they hit the atmosphere. It's the difference between easing into a swimming pool, and belly flopping from 20 meters up.

Stupid AP, don't know what they're talking about.

Well, for MY money, the thermos is still king.

Saying this is a cliche in itself, but kudos to the headline writer.

/got next to nuthin

LoveInAction

Yes, but how do it know?

I'm wondering why they gave this to the space ship instead of the perpetual motion machine the Russians just designed.

Personally I like the invention that turned normal states red. Though it was a backup since Florida plan malfunctioned.

/wait i was tired stop hitting me!

What's the prize for discovering the Square Root of Negative SpaceShipOne?

You get poked in the eye with a sharp stick.

SpaceShip i, theurge...

Also in Time is the top ten videogames of 04...

Sim2 was No 1 - HL2/3 - Halo2/7....

and thus a potential flame war commences.

According to CNN, the space shuttle travels at 17 times the speed of light...

jeremyrainman:

Like the feathers of a badminton shuttlecock, the drag of the folded tail slows the re-entry to prevent the buildup of speed and heat.

That may well be the most retarded thing I've read this morning. Umm, Heat and Speed are inversely generated when falling through the atmosphere. If you are extremely aerodynamic, you have a very low friction coefficient with the air, meaning that you pick up a lot a lot of speed but not much heat. If you are less aerodynamic, you generate more friction, and accelarate more slowly. The same amount of energy is generated either way, you're just choosing whether it gets generated as kinetic or thermal energy.

Okay, so if I multiply SpaceShip i with I, Robot, what do I get?

so many different flame wars to choose from...yet being in love with comedy i like bush (didn't vote for him though) and in games Halo 2 plays like an add on to Halo...half life is more of the same but better and sims...well court order says i can't play sims....AH
I like X-Men for the GameCube...there that seems to be a safe comment.

Wait... so how does Space Ship one Re enter? Correct me if I'm wrong but you have to be going 17,000mph to stay in orbit? Or is that just escape velocity. If not then why do the Shuttle and every other space vehicle enter the atmosphere at high speed high drag and high temp? Burt Rutan is obviously a genius to so elegently solve this problem. I still don't understand exactly how it works though. Has SP1 even done an orbit yet or are they still doing suborbital space hops? Thats what the Mercury Capsule did and it still needed a heat shield. So does SP1 somehow slow down VERY slowly when re entering because of the boom things? If so what is its re entry speed relative to the earth. Anyone in the know?

Aren't Dynamite monkeys part of Space Ship Ones launch procedure?

http://64.81.51.213/fpm/7/contest735777.html

Google image search for Dynamite monkey...?

reggaejunkiejew:

Wait... so how does Space Ship one Re enter? Correct me if I'm wrong but you have to be going 17,000mph to stay in orbit?

SP1 is not an orbital vehicle - it is strictly a suborbital jumper.

If not then why do the Shuttle and every other space vehicle enter the atmosphere at high speed high drag and high temp?

They start their reentries at a far higher velocity and a far shallower inclination. Using the same sort of baffle as SP1 wouldn't be practical because of the higher velocity - the baffles would either tear off or the vibration would shake the ship apart. Instead, the shuttle (and Soyuz) convert kinetic energy to thermal energy to drop their velocity to an acceptable level.

If so what is its re entry speed relative to the earth. Anyone in the know?

When it starts its descent, its initial velocity is damn near zero, mainly because it is not an orbital vehicle.

Submitter, you bring a tear to my eye. Thank you.

What about that guy who invented that antimatter and tried to blow up the Vatican. That was a cool invention.

I had the firing mechanism removed from my Dynamite-Monkey. He is not quite himself but the zoo is safe.

Folks,

Yes, the article making a comparisons between SpaceShipOne and orbital re-entry vehicles such as the Soyuz and the Shuttle are comparing apples and oranges. It's a common problem, but generally when the press gets something 80% right, you're having a really good day.

When you are at orbital velocity, you are doing a ground speed of about mach 25. Thermal protection systems for re-entry at that speed are HARD, and a whole different beast.

SpaceShipOne is a suborbital spacecraft - meaning it travels in a parabolic arc up to the edge of space, and never goes down range more than 100 miles or so. This is exactly like Alan Shephard's first flight into space. You get up to about mach 3 on the way up, although those speeds have a different meaning when the atmosphere is thinner. WHen you get to space, your airspeed drops to zero, even though your speed relative to the ground is still smokin'.

When you re-enter the atmosphere, you are still supersonic, transitioning to subsonic flight in feather mode on SS1. You can hear the sonic booms from the ground during re-entry. but it's only about mach 1 - 2. The big advantage of the feather mode is that it uses the large surface area of the lower fuselage for energy absorption, rather than the leading edges of the wings and nose, so the heat energy is spread out and dissapated. In a normal suborbital re-entry, such as with the X-15 in the 70s, you can expect 900 degrees on re-entry at the leading edges, which is very easy to cope with. SS1 in feather experiences even less. With orbital re-entry vehicles like the shuttle, you're talking four thousand degrees on the black tile leading edges.

The key thing to remember is that suborbital isn't an altitude or a place, it's a trajectory. The 'edge of space' is generally considered to be 60 miles / 100 KM / 328,000 feet.

--Mike
(Scaled's Webmaster and Farker)

And now a blatant plug for something we have in the classifieds section: Official 2005 SpaceShipOne calendars - http://www.rocketboosters.org/spaceshipone_calendar.html

All proceeds go to charity. :)

this is certainly the 'show-iest" coolest 'invention', but the real invention of the year is probably something few of us know much about

Wow. That sucks. I thought for sure it would be the Seqeway Human Transporter 04.

That's awesome. The scaled webmaster is a farker.

I would love to work for Scaled, that would rox.

Yes, I know what suborbital means (I mispoke in my previous post).

At least it is better then those stupid Segways.

Dynamite monkeys!

Wow, props to harlock

Not only did you set the record straight but simultaneously explained what's so different with the SS1 technique.

Thanks for the info Harlock! So tell me if you are still there, were the 60's suborbital spaceshots coming into the atmosphere at a relatively low speed also on that trajectory? Were those heatshields only meant to protect against far lower temps than on say, Apollo or the shuttle missions since they come from orbit? Never really thought about suborbital that way. And I guess I was under the impression that SP1 has orbital capabilities. Hmm.. I bet they are working on that. Doesn't seem like it would be inconceivable to work the feather concept into an orbital vehicle. All you would have to do is slow down much more with retro rockets to get into a steeper (shallower?) trajectory, before extending the booms right? Or is it impossible to slow down from orbit to nill without dropping like a rock at mach 20? No physics whiz here.

Thanks for the info Harlock! So tell me if you are still there, were the 60's suborbital spaceshots coming into the atmosphere at a relatively low speed also on that trajectory?

Correctamundo. Anything doing a suborbital trajectory is going to experience pretty low re-entry speeds, although the higher you peak, the faster you'll come back in. The X-15 had enough thrust to go high enough that it wouldn't be able to come back safely. (it would experience a catastrophic self-dissasembly due to heat and buffeting) So they had to be careful.

Were those heatshields only meant to protect against far lower temps than on say, Apollo or the shuttle missions since they come from orbit? Never really thought about suborbital that way.

That's right. Take a baseball and throw it really hard at a high angle. It will go really high, come to a complete stop at apogee, and fall back to earth in a nice arc that mirrors it's trajectory on the way up. That's a suborbital trajectory.

To envision an orbital trajectory using the same analogy, throw the baseball hard enough to leave the atmosphere, and by the time it gets pulled back in by gravity, it misses the ground and circles around the planet. Orbiting is falling at the ground and missing. :) Quite a bit more energy.
i>
And I guess I was under the impression that SP1 has orbital capabilities. Hmm.. I bet they are working on that. Doesn't seem like it would be inconceivable to work the feather concept into an orbital vehicle. All you would have to do is slow down much more with retro rockets to get into a steeper (shallower?) trajectory, before extending the booms right? Or is it impossible to slow down from orbit to nill without dropping like a rock at mach 20? No physics whiz here.

It gets more complicated at that point, but from what I have heard, the idea of feathering in from orbit is not impossible. For now, The first generation of Virgin Galactic's vehicles will be Suborbital.

For a good reference on all things rockets and space, I would reccomend XCOR Aerospace's reference library that I wrote for them a while ago. It contains a database of books about these topics. Some are from the 1950s and 60s and sadly out of print, but a lot of them are newer and still available. When the old guard of NASA started dying out, we lost a lot of good information.

--Mike

I think one of the most important advancements SS1 brings to the table is a vastly improved safety potential, which of course is the number one consideration if they will fly passengers regularly on this platform. Granted, this has not been proven yet, since there's only been a handful of flights, but in theory SS1's approach is much safer than other man-rated rockets.

See the comments in this thread, specifically Dick Eagleson's lengthy (heh) discussion of liquid fuel and solid fuel rockets. Here's an excerpt:

"The solid fuel-liquid oxidizer hybrid motor used by SpaceShipOne suffers from neither of the above-described sets of explosion/loss of vehicle risks. All of the oxidizer is tanked external to the engine. All of the fuel is inside the engine case. The only place oxidizer can meet fuel is within the combustion annulus of the motor. Further, the only place the two can burn is the exposed inner surface of the fuel grain. There is no way that all of the oxidizer can instantly come into intimate contact with all of the fuel and cause an explosion."

Dagnabit, excuse my dumb arse for not linking the thread:

this thread