Nuts & Volts
Nuts & Volts
Nuts & Volts
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LEAVING THE CRADLE<br />
A<br />
B<br />
C<br />
Colorful Entrepreneurs Fund<br />
Commercial Manned Spaceflight<br />
D<br />
E<br />
by Edward Driscoll, Jr.<br />
In 1911, Russian space pioneer<br />
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky famously<br />
wrote, “The Earth is the cradle of<br />
humanity, but mankind cannot stay in<br />
the cradle forever.”<br />
NASA’s early space program<br />
culminating in the 1969 landing on<br />
the moon was something of a false<br />
start — much was accomplished, and<br />
then essentially abandoned for<br />
budgetary reasons. The Space Shuttle<br />
today seems both a limited and dated<br />
technology, and NASA’s current<br />
resources leave little room for<br />
expansion. But if Burt Rutan, Paul<br />
Allen, and Richard Branson have their<br />
way, private industry will be taking its<br />
own first baby steps in helping<br />
mankind leave the cradle.<br />
Rutan is the veteran aviation<br />
designer who won the $10 million<br />
Ansari X Prize in 2004, which called<br />
for a reusable manned spacecraft<br />
to fly to the edge of space (100<br />
kilometers/62 miles) twice within<br />
two weeks. His SpaceShipOne<br />
design fulfilled those requirements<br />
by flying on September 29th and<br />
October 4th of 2004, with a pilot<br />
and approximately 400 pounds of<br />
weight to simulate the weight of<br />
two crewmen. Paul Allen of<br />
Microsoft personally funded Rutan’s<br />
Scaled Composites (www.scaled.<br />
com) — the company that built<br />
SpaceShipOne and owns the technology<br />
behind it.<br />
The flamboyant Branson created<br />
Virgin Galactic (www.virgingalac<br />
tic.com) to put that technology to<br />
Refer to the photos above:<br />
PHOTO A. SpaceShipOne in feather<br />
mode prepares for re-entry from space.<br />
Video capture courtesy of Vulcan<br />
Productions/Discovery Channel .<br />
PHOTO B. SpaceShipOne is shown<br />
gliding back to base during flight 15P in<br />
an air-to-air photograph. Photo courtesy<br />
of Jim Campbell/Aero-News Network.<br />
PHOTO C. SpaceShipOne sits on the<br />
ramp on its landing gear.<br />
PHOTO D. Shown just before touchdown<br />
at 90 mph, SpaceShipOne returns to the<br />
runway.<br />
PHOTO E. SpaceShipOne lands in front of<br />
a crowd of 27,500 people after its first<br />
flight to space. Photo courtesy of Jim<br />
Campbell/Aero-News Network.<br />
March 2006 67