June 17, 2004. Copyright, 2004, Graphic News. All rights reserved

First private rocket plane heads for space

LONDON, June 17, Graphic News: On Monday, June 21, a privately-developed rocket plane will attempt to launch into history by becoming the worldÕs first commercial manned space vehicle.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and aviation legend Burt Rutan have teamed to create a manned space programme, which they plan to be the first non-governmental flight to leave the EarthÕs atmosphere.

SpaceShipOne, designed by Rutan and his California-based firm Scaled Composites, is one of 26 teams competing for the Ansari X-Prize competition to build a vehicle capable of transporting three people 62 miles (100 kilometres) above Earth twice in two weeks, with the winner collecting a $10 million purse. 

In April, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued the first-ever licence to SpaceShipOne for a commercial aircraft to fly to the edge of space. If all goes well, the craft will rocket into sub-orbital space above the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Centre in the California desert, demonstrating that space is finally open to private enterprise.

ÒSince Yuri Gagarin and Al ShepardÕs epic flights in 1961, all space missions have been flown only under large, expensive government efforts. By contrast, our programme involves a few, dedicated individuals who are focused entirely on making spaceflight affordable,Ó said Rutan. ÒWithout the entrepreneur approach, space access would continue to be out of reach for ordinary citizens.Ó

To reach space, a carrier aircraft, the White Knight, lifts SpaceShipOne from the runway. An hour later, after climbing to approximately 50,000 feet (15,240 metres) altitude just east of Mojave, the White Knight releases the spaceship into a glide. The spaceship pilot then fires his rocket motor for about 80 seconds, reaching Mach 3 (2,225mph, 3,580km/h) in a vertical climb. During the pull-up and climb, the pilot encounters G-forces three to four times the gravity of the Earth.

Before falling back to Earth, the pilot experiences a weightless environment for more than three minutes and, like orbital space travellers, sees the black sky and the thin blue atmospheric line on the horizon.

SpaceShipOneÕs hybrid rocket motor -- a cross between traditional liquid and solid rocket motors -- is as exotic as the craftÕs design. The system, developed by California-based SpaceDev, uses a combination of rubber and nitrous oxide -- also known as laughing gas -- instead of highly volatile and often toxic liquid or solid fuel.

Rocket propellants come in two parts, fuel and oxidizer, which work together to keep an engine burning. SpaceShipOne burns a material called hydroxy-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB), a common ingredient in tyre rubber, as fuel with nitrous oxide serving as the oxidizer.

ÒThe fact that the oxidizer and fuel are not molecularly mixed in these [hybrid] engines, makes them non-explosive,Ó explained Greg Zilliac, a hybrid engine researcher at NASAÕs Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California. ÒWeÕve actually shipped fuel grains by UPS in the past.Ó

The X-Prize Foundation wants to jump-start the space tourism industry and buck the notion that only millionaires such as Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth can travel to the Òfinal frontierÓ on $20 million tickets.

Rutan says that winning the X-prize is an ÒinspirationÓ, not his ultimate goal, and will not cover the costs of the project. When the programme is operational, he hopes to fly three people into space once a week. ÒYou might think of [SpaceShipOne] as a sub-scale, proof-of-concept spaceplane for a 10-person spaceship,Ó a craft better suited to a profitable space tourism business.
/ENDS

Sources: Scaled Composites, X Prize Foundation, Aviation Week and Space Technology