SS1 Team Project
One of the most inspiring human achievements in recent memory is the first and only successful private civilian venture to put a man into space. If you don't know the story, please go read it [HERE!]. It is a tale of inspirational leadership, uncommon courage, pioneering audacity, and unmistakable American entrepreneurialism.
This is our most ambitious team project yet -- a 1/4 semi-scale replica of the winner of the Ansari X Prize, the history-making craft SpaceShipOne, designed and built by Scaled Composites of Mohave, California. This is the team project we had originally intended to build for GHS 2005 -- but at this writing the timer is at almost three years and still counting. It has proven to be no small undertaking, with a lot of experimentation on smaller scale models.
Scaled Composites is owned and managed by adventurist Burt Rutan. His designing skill has been pushing the envelope of aerodynamic design for decades. Mr. Rutan was also the designer of the catamaran captained by Dennis Connor in the America's Cup challenge and the gondola for Richard Branson's attempted non-stop balloon flight around the world, as well as the only non-stop around-the-world aircraft. Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites are in no way associated with this project, and as far as we know have no idea of our intention to honor them in this way. However, we would like to believe that they would think it's pretty cool.
The SS1 has an airframe diameter of about 15 inches (0.38 meters) and stands 80 inches (2 meters) from tip to tail. The total wing span exceeds 72 inches (1.83 meters). The primary difference between SS1 and SpaceShipOne is the tail cone; ours is symmetrical because we already had the mold to make it*. But the rest of the craft was built as close to the original dimension as possible.
Our initial design calls for the SS1 to return to earth via a radio-controlled glide path, but we are making every effort to build in the ability to blow a parachute out the snout just in case. We won't build in the capability to fold the wings into 'feather mode' since we don't need to worry about re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The SS1 will also launch directly from a ground-based pad rather than from a scale version of the White Knight high-altitude launch vehicle (although that would be a pretty nifty thing to try in the future...).
* In case it isn't real obvious, the forward and aft transitional sections will be made using Brad's bulbous rocket molds. We had to make a 27-inch long section of fiberglass tubing to extend the airframe in the center, which was a fabrication challenge all its own.
This is a composite picture created in Photoshop - this is not the 1:4 scale model. Click [HERE!] for the full confession.
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