212,000 ft and Privately built
 

Great achievement by Rutan http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3713119.stm

I'm really surprised I'm the first one to join in here, but WELL DONE THE TEAM! - a terrific achievement.

Have NASA ever acheived such a feat?

Bloody well done to the team. Perhaps human ingenuity isn't as dead as we all thought after all.

Burt Rutan is not exactly what you would call a beginner :
- first round the world, nonstop unrefueled flight December 23, 1987
- first round the world, nonstop unrefueled solo flight maybe very soon.

Doesn't make it less impressive. :ok: :ok:

Scaled Composites website
Globalflyer website

The only one issue remaining: $10m prize would hardly justify Rutan's expenses of R&D + cost of building this spacecraft + tests.

If we not counting the total build cost of such spacecraft, it could be done already in 1960s, you just need one Arabian sheikh expressing interest in this area who can afford to employ Soviet or American specialists and to finance their work.

If you ask me, the whole X-prize idea is about something different.

Well, one could say many of us contributed to that project : it's funded by Paul Allen, co-founder of Micro$$$$oft.

Take a look here

I agree. It's about the size of the cojones of the man and men making it happen. My plane flies higher than your plane so there! ;)

--------------------
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Check out the other contenders on www.xprize.org; this is certainly costing a lot of people a lot of money. What chance the British Starchaser doing it first?

Well done to the Scaled Composites Team indeed! Such a humble name for a company doing this kind of thing...

Don't know how often NASA's X-15 flew - doubt it got this altitude though...at least not regularly...

Hat off to Mr. Rutan :ok:

Mav

I was lucky enough to visit Mohave Factory before Xmas and Bert showed off the Ship. What was fantastical low tech was the solid fuel rocket engine which was a rubber composite ignited with hydrogen - unlike others it could be stopped by cutting the gas.
Look at the web site, it designed so the the Mother launch ship has cockpit pod exactly the same as final stage for training etc.

That's useful - a solid you can turn off. The Shuttle doesn't have that luxury! :bored: Once you light 'em, that's 2 minutes of burning right there...no "off" switch...!

Mav

"Burt Rutan is not exactly what you would call a beginner :
- first round the world, nonstop unrefueled flight December 23, 1987
- first round the world, nonstop unrefueled solo flight maybe very soon."

He's also a great supporter of the Young Eagles program and EAA in general. What a fantastic acheivement! Good luck to all the teams involved. Its nice to read about something so positive in a week of news which has shown some of the most appalling sides of human nature.

The next giant leap for human kind? Great to see that such an adventurous and genius spirit still exists.

The X15 surpassed that altitude, reaching a height of 350,000+ ft.

http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/aero/event.../machmile.html

But at what cost? Whilst NASA didn't have the prodigious backing of Paul Allen, it might be interesting to know how much it cost the American taxpayer to achieve this feat...

AppleMacster

From what I remember, there are a lot of companies that are buying some of the technologies being developed by Burt. That combined with the $10 million should hopefully offset a lot of the costs.

Both Dick and Burt will be on the Isle of Man over the weekend of 7th and 8th August as guests of the Manx Festival of Aviation organisers.

JURBY 2004

Fly in for free and come meet the guys. Should be a great weekend !!

A damn fine effort. Well done to all concerned.

Well-done Rutan and team! The story about his non-stop flight around the planet with Jeanna Yeager was also quite inspiring. That plane had only two reciprocating engines.

As for humility, regarding the world speed record in the atmosphere; I've flown twice with that guy who set the official speed record in the SR-71 (the unofficial record is classified). There is a plaque somewhere at the front of the (Wash.) Dulles Airport terminal about the fast flight. He now flies at .76 Mach on 'steam-gauge' planes, most of which were built in the 60s.
:ok:


He is a nice, humble guy who quite often visits his aging mother.:)

Yes, well done indeed.

Love a ride in that machine!!