Interesting Stuff

As I mentioned in my last post, I was invited to go see the SpaceShipOne launch by Chris Erikson. We were scheduled to leave at 3AM, so I tried to go to sleep early, so that I would be rested. However, I only got 1 or 2 hours; I just tossed and turned in my bed. At 3AM, we met in the East courtyard (I was the only non-Eastie), split into different cars, and left. It’s about 2 hours to get to Mojave from here. I say about 2 hours, because each of the three cars was delayed for a bit. One car had to stop and get gas. One car got lost for about 15 minutes. The car I was in got pulled over. Yeah, that’s right. at 4AM on a Wednesday morning, we were pulled over halfway from Claremont to Mojave (apparently we were going 88mph on a stretch of road with a 60mph speed limit). I’ve never been pulled over before, so I thought it was interesting, if not exactly exciting. I think that at first the cop thought we were doing something illegal, because we were hightailing it out of where ever we came from in the middle of the night on a weekday. He asked us where we were from, where we were going, and why we were going there. However, we convinced him that we really were just going to go see the launch. Chris got a ticket, but we weren’t stopped for very long. When we actually got there, we paid Chris’ share for parking ($20 per car). As luck would have it, our delays and various driving styles worked out perfectly, and we got all 3 cars to park literally next to each other. What luck! The National Guard (I think it was them – they were in camo fatigues, and had that military air to themselves) were all over, in charge of parking, crowd control, etc. We arrived around 5:30, and found a good spot by the runway. No one was allowed within 20 feet of the fence, and the fence was a good 30 feet from the runway, but we could still see everything really well. The crowd was surprisingly sparse – they were about 10 feet deep, but a very sparse 10 feet, involving beach towels, chairs, and all sorts of things (one guy who obviously expected a larger crowd brought a ladder so he could see over everyone). We had some food, hung out a while, and watched the sunrise. We also got to see a plane called Boomerang that Burt Rutan had built in 1995. It’s the oddest plane I’ve ever seen – it has 2 fuselages, one that holds 5 people and a propeller and engine, and one that just has an engine and propeller. To counteract this imbalance, the wings are different lengths. I’ve never seen an asymmetric plane! It was parked on the ground, and I got to go 2 feet from it.

The Scaled Composites website (SC designed and built SpaceShipOne) said that the launch was scheduled for 6:00, but I had heard on IRC the night before that it would be delayed until 7:00. So we hung around, and waited for a while. Apparently there was a VIP tent somewhere, where important people were giving speeches, and this was broadcast throughout the airport grounds on big speakers. The usual “What a grand occasion this is. We’d like to thank our sponsors, and everyone who helped…” sort of thing. At about 6:45, White Knight, carrying SpaceShipOne, came out onto the runway. What an amazing sight! It’s a lot smaller than I expected – WK is roughly the size of a school bus, and SS1 is as big as a large van. From reading stories in various newspapers, I had gotten the impression that WK was as big as a 747. At this point, I should probably include some background info.

For those of you who haven’t been following the whole X-Prize thing, the Ansari X-Prize is a competition to get a privately-funded craft to go into outer space (100km above sea level) carrying the equivalent of 3 people (SS1 had one person, life support for 3, and the equivalent weight of 2 people strapped into it), return to Earth safely, and repeat the feat in less than 2 weeks. Scaled Composites is a company founded by Burt Rutan, who is competing for the X-Prize. The craft, called SpaceShipOne, is carried by a specially designed airplane called Whight Knight to an altitude of 10 miles. WK then drops SS1, whose rockets fire, and SS1 goes into space. To keep from breaking on reentry into the atmosphere, SS1 has wings that fold backwards up above the plane, so that the fuselage takes the brunt of the heat. After falling for a while, the wings fold back into place, and SS1 glides to its landing. In June, this happened for the first time, and SpaceShipOne was the first privately built manned craft to go into space. The pilot was Mike Melville, who is a good friend of Burt Rutan, and had been the test pilot on several other, smaller flights.

Back to my story. Mike Melville was again going to pilot SS1, and he was in his seat when WK came out onto the runway. It slowly drove by everyone, and I got a bunch of pictures (when I develop them, I’ll probably find somewhere online to post them, but that might not be for a while). WK turned around at the end of the runway, and waited. A small, old prop plane took off first, and it circled around a bit to presumably get pictures for the press. It was also one of the chase planes. Then, a sleek, white, push prop took off (it was a 2nd chase plane). Finally, White Knight took off. The three of them circled higher and higher, until I lost them in the sky (after all, they were going up 10 miles). We all went back to the cars, and listened to the radio (some people in mission control were broadcasting what was going on on an AM station). Around an hour later, SS1 was ready to take off. We all got out of the van, and looked around. We figured it should be directly over us. However, after it began, it was clear to see that SS1 was actually several miles east of us. We couldn’t see the craft itself, but we could see the contrail that seemed to go on forever. And it was going fast. I don’t know how fast it was, but really, really fast. I know that on the way down, it broke mach 3, and this was faster. Wow. I’m impressed that Mike Melville could pilot it. We didn’t know it at the time, but apparently SS1 started spinning uncontrollably, and Mr. Melville shut off the engine early. However, it was still going fast enough that it did break into space (just not as high as initially expected). The feathering went flawlessly (that’s when the wings fold back), and Melville glided in for a smooth landing (this was maybe 20 minutes later). Sometime while I wasn’t watching, a military jet took off as a 3rd chase plane. The 3 chase planes and SS1 flew in a ridiculously close formation as SS1 came in to land. At first, I thought there were only 3 planes up there, because they were so close together! Just as SS1 landed, WK flew overhead very low. It was really neat, despite the noise. After WK landed, we decided that we should go, beat the crowd, and try to get back to Mudd in time for classes (we did – we got back at 10:30). As we were leaving, the chase planes were doing air-show-type formations. All in all, it was pretty neat.

SS1 is launching again on the morning of Monday, October 4, so you have one more chance if you want to go see it. I’m happy I saw it once, but I don’t think I’m going to go for the other launch (this will hopefully be the final launch for the X-Prize). I’ve got a roll of pictures which I should get developed soon. This was just amazing, and I think it’s even more incredible because this will be in the history books. 50 years from now, when many retired millionaires routinely go into space, they will look back on this and say, “this is the craft that started the whole thing.” I’m really glad I could be there.