DOWN-TO-EARTH LEARNING STUDENTS CREATING SPACESHIPONE REPLICAS.Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer LANCASTER - University students from around the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and Canada are in the Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley to build full-size, nonflying replicas of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. Ten students spent Thursday and Friday at Antelope Valley College Antelope Valley College is a comprehensive community college located in Lancaster, California, USA. It is operated by the Antelope Valley Community College District, with a primary service area of 1,945 square miles covering portions of Los Angeles and Kern counties. getting hands-on instruction in working with graphite carbon fiber and other high-tech composite materials that will be used to build the mock-ups. ``It's a way to learn - we're learning about composites and about spaceships,'' said Michael Conti Conti (kôNtē`), cadet branch of the French royal house of Bourbon. Although the title of prince of Conti was created in the 16th cent. , a 22-year-old University of Orlando graduate student in mechanical engineering. The students are the first in what is expected to be a number of groups through summer who will be making five or six SpaceShipOne replicas for tours and displays around the country. The students will create the replicas in Mojave, which is where Rutan's Scaled Composites Scaled Composites (often abbreviated as Scaled), formerly the Rutan Aircraft Factory, is located at the Mojave Spaceport, Mojave, California, United States and is headed by aircraft designer Burt Rutan. built the real SpaceShipOne, the first reusable privately built spacecraft. They are working in an intern program organized by the Ansari X Prize The Ansari X PRIZE was a space competition in which the X PRIZE Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. Foundation, which also sponsored the $10 million prize that Rutan's rocket plane rocket plane n. 1. An aircraft powered by one or more rocket engines. 2. An aircraft designed to carry and launch rockets. won last October. On Friday, the students were in Antelope Valley College's composites laboratory getting instruction from composites instructor Gary Eisenberg, a retired skills-training manager for Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of the 1994 purchase of Grumman by Northrop. The company is the third largest defense contractor for the U.S. in Palmdale. Started four semesters ago, AVC's composites class draws a mixture of students, from aerospace workers seeking to acquire new skills to private pilots planning to build kit airplanes to people seeking to make custom or racing auto parts Auto parts are components of automobiles. They mainly are, in alphabetic order (only car specific articles or articles with car section):
Composite materials are what the Northrop Grumman's B-2 stealth bombers and Rutan's aircraft are made from. The preimpregnated graphite carbon fiber the college students were working with Friday looks like squares of cloth stiffened with glue. But laminated in layers and baked in an oven, it is lighter than aluminum but stronger than steel, Eisenberg said. Few colleges offer such instruction, said Eisenberg, who set up the college's composites-training laboratory and now teaches two days a week. `It's very rare. There's probably only a couple in the country that do hands-on composites. I think ours is the best,'' Eisenberg said. Not all the college students helping build the SpaceShipOne replicas are planning on aerospace careers. Eighteen-year-old Dayne Godwin plans to major in journalism and technical theater production at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada. Composites material, he said, is finding uses in making theatrical and motion picture props. The students expect to be in the Antelope Valley through May and to build one or two replicas. Other groups will follow to build more. Charles F. Bostwick, (661) 267-5742 chuck.bostwick(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Students in Antelope Valley College's composites class are building full-size, nonflying replicas of Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. (2) AVC's composites class offers hands-on experience working with graphite carbon fiber and other high-tech materials. Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer |
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