On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 01:06:30 GMT, "mike regish"
wrote:

I thought orbital speed was 17,500 mph. And-at least one of the reasons
SpaceshipOne doesn't need all the heat shielding is because of it's low
weight.

mike regish

I stand corrected on the difference between orbital speed as opposed
to escaping earth's gravity. I read the information too fast and
stopped when I got the first blurb.

As to the lack of shielding, Rutan got away with that because the
spaceship did not really re-enter the atmosphere because it did not go
fast enough to achieve orbit. Had it achieved orbital velocity, it
would have burned to a crisp re-entering, unless it somehow managed to
slow down to the kind of speed it managed during it's lob. Remember,
it went straight up then fuel exhaustion occured and it slowed
considerably by the time it nosed over. It was at this apogee, while
it was going it's slowest, that the shuttlecock feature was activated.

That's my point with this venture, it does not appear to have any
connection to space travel, it was a vehical designed to capture the X
prize, which did not require orbiting the earth. The criteria for the
X prize was that a vehical had to go into near space carrying a load
equivelent to another person or two besides the pilot. In my opinion
it's roughly analagous to crusing at 1,000 feet at 100 mph, versus
cruising at that same altitude at 1,000 mph. Both are attainable, but
the airplane that cruises at 1,000 mph, will be substantially
different from the one that can only go 100 mph. The technology that
allows the slow airplane to cruise at 100 does not help the engineers
to design the airplane that goes 1,000 mph at that altitude, or any
altitude. The only similarity is that they'd both likely have wings
and some sort of engine.

I actually feel that it was a neat technical feat/stunt. Folks here
keep saying that it will lead to future space travel. I'd like to
know how, exactly, since none of the technology would actually be
useful for space travel, as we currently know it. Certainly some
aspects of the vehicles construction might cross over to space flight,
making use of lightweight high strength composites. But beyond that
what?

Corky Scott