...but doesn't Space Ship One attempt the first of two flights to win the X-Prize today?

I think it got delayed.

Yep.

****, you mean I just woke up to watch the webcast for nothing?

Actually, no:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/09/29/news.space.xprize.dc.reut/index.html

Score! I just watched it, and they were successful!

Welcome to the future.

Isn't John Carmack competing in the same contest?

Yes, as a matter of fact he is. Here is the website.

Carmack is gonna win cause he always does.

Well, he's got less than two weeks to hurry up and get into outer space! Twice!

Well, actually, Rutan is planning on launching again on Monday... so that leaves very little time for Carmack if he wants to win.

But if he does, I want to see a Union Aerospace logo on his spaceship.

No, I don't think John Carmack had any intentions of actually winning the prize... It seemed he was more worried about the commercial viability of the venture. (after all, the X-Prize was a mere $10 million US, which is a fraction of the development costs of any of the contenders) When it comes to this, I see that John Carmack very well may be the clear winner; Armadillo Aerospace's craft will be far less expensive to construct and use, and has a far higher capacity; only two people actually can fit on SpaceShip One, as they've taken the option of stowing an extra 200 lbs. of equipment instead of a third person. Carmack's craft, on the other hand, may fit more people than a Space Shuttle (but only for sub-orbital zero-G flights)

Space Ship One is also just a prototype, and was only used to prove that certain techniques and technology would work. The future craft from Scaled Composites will have better performance all around than SSO.

Also, nottheking, where did you get the price of AA's spacecraft? I can't find anything mentioning it.

I didn't get the cost of building one (I mis-worded myself there), but I got the estimated cost of a flight. AA suggested in their news that the cost, per person, for a flight would be $100k. By comparison, Virgin suggested that the cost for a flight on a craft inspired by SpaceShip One would be arround $190k. I couldn't help but think that that would stem from the cost of building and maintaining the craft.

Uh, Space Ship One HAS to carry 3 people. Otherwise it fails. That's part of the contest rules.

The equivelent of 3 people at least.

Yeah, but in the end it has to be able to carry 3 people. If they opt to put in 200 pounds of equipment instead of another person, they fail, because that's equipment, not people. :p

It has to be able to carry 3 people. This is mostly geared for a successful launch rather then moving people at this time, hence they can use the weight equivilent. Here is the official rule...

for complete rules,

go here.

Great thread title!

Walter: "Am I wrong?!"

Dude: "No, but -"

Walter: "Am I wrong here?!"

Dude: "But -"

Walter: "That rug really tied the room together, did it not?"

It's good to see that this wasn't a creation of NASA.

It's kind of funny that these guys are the only ones to have a successful space program (so far).

I know the rules, outlaw--and as I said, if it can carry 2 people and 200 pounds of equipment, it's not able to carry 3 people. It's able to carry 2. :p

Welcome tu da futah.

"We are nihilists, Lebowski. We believe in nothink!"

Anyway, so far SSO has been designed and produced with $20 million. I can't really say how well AA's space craft will do until they actually build it, and so far, from looking through their past tests, it looks like they've had a few bugs.

I was thinking the other day, I was watching Space Ship one take off and I was thinking, hey this is all great and such, but in the back of my mind there was another subconscious thought, took me a good 30 minutes to realise what it was.

Why does it have to be so damn ugly?

I mean call me wassisname zoolander, but seriously, I wouldn't go into space in a thing looking like that. Even the crap in star trek looks better than that thing.

I know what you mean. It looks like a giant penis with stubby wings attached to the sides. And I don't like how all those little round windows look.

Now that I think about it, there's also a Canadian team in close competition with Rutan...davinciproject.ca or something. However, at this point it's not clear if the design will work or go crashing into a nearby city...