Rutan hits 200k feet! Almost there!

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(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

Uh... is this the five minute argument, or do you want the full half hour?

[I want] The full half hour.


No you don't.

Jose


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On Sat, 15 May 2004 16:04:22 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote in Message-Id:
.net:


"Chad Irby" wrote in message
r.com...

Except for the rules of the X-Prize, the details of the X-15, and pretty
much everything else.


Well, if that's true, you'll be able to cite the statements I made that are
incorrect. Please take a shot at establishing some credibility and do so.


It would seem that you errored in your assertion that the altitude of
320,000' was 8,000' short of the X-prize requirement:


From: "Steven P. McNicoll"
Subject: Rutan hits 200k feet! Almost there!
Message-ID: . net
Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 22:37:30 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.223.212.143

"Casey Wilson" wrote in message
. ..

Only 120,000 more feet straight up and they've made the first
qualifying flight for the $10 million X-Prize.


That would leave them about 8000 feet short of the requisite 100
km.



--

Irrational beliefs ultimately lead to irrational acts.
-- Larry Dighera,

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...

Probably because you keep dodging the answer.


Nobody has provided an answer.

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...

No you don't.


Yes I do.

Nobody has provided an answer.

Yes they have. Read the thread. It's in there, as is the reason for my
statement about insure, ensure, and assure.


No you don't.

Yes I do.


This isn't an argument, this is just contradiction.

Jose


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"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...

It would seem that you errored in your assertion that the altitude of
320,000' was 8,000' short of the X-prize requirement:


Oh? I believe I said it would leave them ABOUT 8000 feet short of the X
Prize requirement. The X Prize requirement is 100 km, by my math that's
328,084 feet, rounded off to the nearest foot. Where is my error?

On Sat, 15 May 2004 05:28:39 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2004 23:37:32 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

Not to mention they were doing this with a much smaller payload.

It was built to be an experimental vehicle, not to win the X-Prize.
If it had needed the bigger payload, it would have had it.

I'm sorry, but the only way they could have put the extra payload (sized
to fit two extra humans) into the X-15 was to completely redesign the
whole thing from the ground up. There was *no* extra room in that
plane, and the extra mass to height would have needed even *more* size
for fuel and structure.

You misunderstand. If carrying a crew of three in the X-15 had been
necessary, the X-15 would have been designed to do so from the
beginning. The X-Prize contenders knew that they had to carry three,
so the vehicles are designed to do so.

Saying that the X-15 can't meet the X-Prize rules, promulgated four
decades after the X-15 was designed, is an irrational statement. Of
course it can't. Even if it had carried three people and flown twice
to the target altitude in less than two weeks, it couldn't meet the
X-Prize rules ever. It was funded with government money and flown by
a government agency.

It is clear, however, that the X-15 demonstrated the technology
required to fly a manned vehicle to the target altitude in the time
period required. Adding seats for two more people, neither of whom
will actually fly in the vehicle, is a minor challenge compared to
that. After all, we flew the enlarged and extended X-15-2 to a speed
record and fitting the extra two crew into it wouldn't have messed
with the loft lines.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

On Fri, 14 May 2004 22:44:42 -0700, Steve Hix
wrote:

In article . net,
"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

"Vaughn" wrote in message
news

Sorry, but I have to go with Pete here, the relevent point is that
it is being done by a small private corporation...and they are making
it look easy!

What is significant about a private corporation duplicating a feat that a
government agency accomplished decades earlier?

They don't need a cast of thousands and a couple hundred million to do
it.

The X-15 program didn't have a cast of thousands. It also didn't cost
a couple hundred million. In fact, it didn't even have a cast of a
thousand, now that I think about it. Maybe two or three hundred
people, for all three vehicles, at most. The cost was in the
millions, of course, but not hundreds of millions.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

On Sat, 15 May 2004 10:54:58 -0700, Mary Shafer
wrote in Message-Id: :

The cost was in the millions, of course, but not hundreds of millions.

What would the cost be adjusted for four decades of inflation?

--

Irrational beliefs ultimately lead to irrational acts.
-- Larry Dighera,