Re: SpaceShipOne re-opened the astronautic way, after 36 years!
Dear Adriano - quite so!! :-)
Things will not be the same again.
Best,
Patrick
> Dear Coplanetaries,
>
> Today is a historical day, and nothing will be as before, on our old planet.
> June 21st 2004 will be remembered in the history as an important date, at
> least as much important as the one of the historical flight on Atlantic,
> made by the Wright brothers, around one century ago.
>
> Both that SpaceShipOne succeeds in being awarded the 10 million of dollars
> of the X-Prize, or doesn't succeed, now the enterprise has been done. This
> morning, in the desert of Mojave, a vehicle entirely drawn and built by
> privates (the U.S. Scaled Composites, owned by the living aeronautical
> legend Burt Rutan, sponsorised by Paul Allen, cofounder of Microsoft)
> reached the sub-orbital height of 100 kms, and returned to earth after a
> parabolic flight of about 1.5 hours. At the guide of the vehicle the 62
> years old pilot Mike Melvill. To be awarded of the X-Prize, SpaceShipOne
> will owe to repeat twice the flight, at distance of fifteen days, with a
> simple ordinary maintenance between the two flights, bringing on board three
> not particularly trained civilians.
> Many astronaut friends (in the ideal, if not in the job), attended this day
> with trepidation and anxiety, and many comments cross the web, especially on
> the sites and lists dedicated to astronautics, space tourism and space
> supporting in general. It is also a little bit thanks to all these people,
> that encouraged the participants to the X-Prize to follow their work, if
> today we are here to comment happily this great success!
>
> First, the technology. The thread that SpaceShipOne has renewed today is the
> one interrupted 36 years ago, when the promising development line of X-15
> was abandoned. X-15 was a sub orbital plane that made 199 flights between
> 1959 and 1968, reaching 67 miles, almost 108 kms
> (http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/x15/cover.html).
>
> X-15 was brought to 13 kms by a B52, then, released, it ignited its rocket
> motor and accelerated to mach 4 - 6, reaching the space. X-15 was sacrificed
> on the altar of the business of the spendable rockets builders, giving life
> to the shuttle, a not entirely reusable machine, built in only four very
> expensive samples, and never raised to an industrial production. That
> choice -- with its tragic consequences of the 1986 Challengers tragedy, and
> of the Columbia one in 2003 -- it mainly marked the abandonment of the
> astronautics and the beginning of to space politics targeted to earth, and
> not upward. It began the era of the telecommunication and earth observation
> satellites, while the astronautics was relegated to the role of mere
> scientific experiment, depriving it entirely of its prince role: the space
> exploration before, and the industrialization of the geo-lunar space then.
> The absolute dominion of the governments and the space agencies on the high
> frontier was so perpetuated for over thirty years, and the terrestrial orbit
> was filled with garbage, up to confine us in a sort of iron cage, as heavy
> as the ideological cage built up by the terrocentric philosophies, of the
> so-called limits of development.
>
> But today all this is history. SpaceShipOne has shown different things, all
> of an importance that will be fully understood only in the months and in the
> years to come: (i) it is not true that to put a kg in orbit still has to
> cost 20.000 American dollars, when the new vehicles will be industrially
> set, it will cost very less; (ii) it is not true that to reach space we need
> the technologies of the big government agencies; (iii) it is not true that
> to go to space we need long trainings and need to be young (Mike Melvill is
> 62 years old!). This only to start.
>
> Those people who fear the environmental cost of the space flight should
> think about the huge cost, for the terrestrial environment, of sticking on
> the oil power, in comparison to the solar energy (clean and boundless)
> harvested in space and stored on earth in form of hydrogen (just to make an
> example). Also let's wonder why the two ecologist lobbies (Green Peace and
> WWF, both foraged by the oil lobbies), historically always supported only
> and entirely the so-called alternative sources (wind and terrestrial
> photovoltaic), that don't have any possibility to compete, neither
> quantitatively nor economically with the ultra-power of oil, while they
> always opposed the space technologies and kept on ashamedly silent about
> hydrogen.
>
> Today also the above is history. Absurd and retrograde wars where ignited
> among opposite oil lobbyists. They try everything to denigrate and stonewall
> the scientific culture and the technological research, favouring every sort
> of ideological trash, in a criminal attempt to prolong their dieing empire,
> putting at risk the same continuation of the human civilization. But then a
> small prize, founded in 1996 by two visionary entrepreneurs, shifted the
> initiative of some good willing men and women, and a small thing happens, as
> the Wright brothers' flight was, one of those small things, that however
> change the history!
>
> All those people that take care to the continuation of our civilization,
> this night are toasting with champagne!
>
> Long live to SpaceShipOne! Long live to Burt Rutan! Long live to Mike
> Melvill and all those people who contributed to this success!
>
> Today, more than ever:
> Aim High!
> Adriano Autino
>
> PS: watch Technologies of Frontier http://www.tdf.it /, in the next days and
> weeks we will put online other comments and news, and we think to issue TDF
> 2/2004 within the summer vacations.
> PS: please forgive my bad English, even worse than usually, but I'm in hurry
> to deliver this message!
>
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