04-10-2004 20:05									#61
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Radar says 368,000 feet. They made it. So, how much did it cost them to win $10million again?

	04-10-2004 20:09									#62
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Including all the extra business this is netting them?

	04-10-2004 20:17									#63
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~ $25 million. Net is a little lower than that, assuming Virgin paid Mojave Aerospace Ventures directly for plastering its logo over the plane and having Branson in blue jeans on the podium as part of the winning team.

Congrats to Burt Rutan and Paul Allen.

	04-10-2004 20:43									#64
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They also licensed the technology in a non-exclusive agreement to Branson so they are getting more than just $10 million. The key factor here is they did it for about 1/10 what it costs NASA/USAF to do things.

	04-10-2004 21:12									#65
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The victory press conference was replete with digs at NASA. Rutan said:

quote: Long an outspoken adversary of the mainstream space industry and NASA, Rutan cocked a victorious snoot at his rivals, deriding what he called the "Boeings, the Lockheeds, the naysayers in Houston." "If they got a look at how this flight was run and how we developed the capabilities of this ship and its safety, I think they would look at each other right now and say 'We're screwed,'" he said. "I have a hell of lot bigger goal than they do," he said vowing to develop a commercial spacecraft for Branson that would be "at least 100 times safer than anything that is ever flown into space."

A lot different than NASA talk last week about how the X-Prize was a "natural extension" of NASA's work.

	05-10-2004 01:38									#66
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quote: The key factor here is they did it for about 1/10 what it costs NASA/USAF to do things.

Yes, I agree that this is the key.

Hopefully, this kind of design and design process will translate well into orbital vehicles. Rutan bought his shop a decade or so of space work. Virgin plus Tier II (orbital).

	05-10-2004 04:09									#67
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When I was an Aero/Astro major at MIT, this is the kind of stuff I dreamed of doing. I wonder if they're hiring?

	05-10-2004 05:01									#68
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Cool. Very Cool.

	05-10-2004 12:54									#69
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Space travel has truly made it once it's conquered by private enterprise.

Once it expands beyond tourism though, it will know no bounds SpaceshipOne has changed the world for the better Go you good thing!

	05-10-2004 14:03									#70
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quote: Originally posted by pchang When I was an Aero/Astro major at MIT, this is the kind of stuff I dreamed of doing. I wonder if they're hiring?

Yes.

	06-10-2004 23:39									#71
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I got out of aerospace 7 years ago because it was proved to be a really sucky business to be in. Low pay and no sense that a goal of actually building useful stuff was being achieved. Some of this stuff is very "far out", and you have to prove to a now-skeptical public that you are actually going to be building something--when often as not, you just aren't going to be building anything, but rather are going to be blowing smoke up NASA's ass. It just blew, because if you think you aren't doing cool sh!t while working on spaceships, then something is seriously, serously wrong.

A couple more years of this and the industry will be exciting again.

Here's the official announcement of Bigelow's America's Space Prize. $50 million. Must carry at least 5 passengers within 60 days. Expires 2010. Open to US businesses only, though overseas investors are welcome. Not sure what is achieved by it being open to US businesses only -- the X-Prize gained credibility and worldwide PR because non-US teams were attempting the shot -- but you can't fault this guy for putting his money where his mouth is.

quote: $50 million orbital space race launched Hotel magnate backs successor to suborbital X Prize Updated: 11:26 p.m. ET Oct. 5, 2004 LOS ANGELES - A Las Vegas hotel magnate who is hoping to build the world's first commercial space stations on Tuesday launched a challenge offering $50 million to the creators of the first privately funded spaceship to reach orbit. Robert Bigelow, who owns Budget Suites of America, formally announced the long-rumored prize just a day after the first privately funded spaceship rocketed out of the atmosphere and won the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which was designed to spur commercial spaceflight. Bigelow acknowledged that reaching orbit would be much harder than briefly popping into space as SpaceShipOne did. "To be honest, I think it's a long shot," he said of any team's chances of winning the prize by 2010 as required. Faster and higher SpaceShipOne, built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen, had to travel at about three times the speed of sound in order to reach the 62-mile altitude required to win the Ansari X Prize. An orbital spacecraft has to travel six times faster and four times higher, and, like NASA's space shuttle, also requires more extensive heat shielding. Even so, Bigelow said, a commercial orbital spacecraft is "something the United States very badly needs." Bigelow's space station company, Bigelow Aerospace, also needs it. With the space shuttle off-limits to paying passengers and the Russian Space Agency charging $20 million per seat on its Soyuz ships, a commercial craft could provide the only affordable way for the company to reach orbit. Contracts to be offered In addition to the prize money, Bigelow said, the winner of his America's Space Prize stands to gain contracts from Bigelow Aerospace to ferry passengers to and from its stations. Bigelow Aerospace plans to launch its first space modules on commercial rockets in late 2008 or early 2009, and to send up the first crews by 2010. The company plans to make a profit by selling standardized space-station modules, complete with life support systems and living quarters, for $100 million each. Bigelow sees industrial and medical research as the most important uses for the modules, but says they could also serve as space hotels. Bigelow will front half of the $50 million America's Space Prize, and he is seeking sponsorship for the other half. "If no one steps forward, we'll cover it," he said. "We just want to make it happen." To win the contest, which is limited to U.S.-based ventures, a team must build a five-seat spacecraft without government money and send five astronauts into orbit above the Earth twice within 60 days.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6187724/

	06-10-2004 23:47									#72
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On the same ship or can they use 2 ships?

	06-10-2004 23:55									#73
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The same ship seems to be implied -- coming so closely on the heals of X-Prize, which requred reusability -- although I have not seen that specifically stated yet.

	07-10-2004 00:41									#74
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quote: but handing it over to some interplanetary Hudson's Bay Company doesn't strike me like the best idea ever either.

Another analogous situation would be the East India company.

If they can strike a deal, I see no reason why they shouldn't do things this way.

	07-10-2004 19:44									#75
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Personally, I think such a concession is unnecessary and would be counterproductive. One of the biggest problems with our current state of government-driven space exploitation is that competition is discouraged. Giving an exclusive concession would seem to discourage competition and would only reinforce the very bad rut that we worked ourselves into.

One problem with America's Space Prize is that it doesn't have a second place award, just as the Ansari X Prize didn't. Just having one private entity with manned capability is not enough to secure Bigelow's interests.

	07-10-2004 20:56									#76
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First Chinese manned spaceflights and now private enterprise. Hello 21st century!