Spaceship One Presentation at Seattle Museum of Flight

One of my students invited me to his docent class graduation at the Museum
of Flight last night (Wednesday). The speaker was the project manager for
Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which sponsored Spaceship One. Very interesting
presentation, including the question/answer session afterward. I think it
would have gone on all night had not the museum staff cut it short.

I was struck by how small Spaceship One really is. It would have fit up on
the stage there, or in a two car garage. It is basically a variant of the
Long-EZ, as is White Knight, especially the rudder surfaces. Particularly
interesting was how they solved the problems of moving the control surfaces
at different stages of the flight. I also enjoyed the anecdotes of Burt
Rutan's legendary, um, frugality combined with genius. :-) For example, he
managed to get the two engines for White Knight for $60,000 for the pair,
instead of $700,000 apiece, by sending his janitor to a junkyard in a pickup
truck to buy them.

The whole thing was designed around extreme simplicity of operation. Rutan
spent hours throwing paper airplanes off the control tower at Mojave before
finding a design that would always right itself and fly at the same angle.
Spaceship One re-enters the atmosphere in a deep stall, almost like a
parachute.

It was also amazing how much they really did not know before making the
first flight. There was no way of testing the plane at transonic speeds
before then.

--
Christopher J. Campbell
World Famous Flight Instructor
Port Orchard, WA


Ne Obliviscaris