HALFWAY THERE IN SPACE RACE ROCKET PLANE FINISHES FIRST LEG.Byline: Jim Skeen and Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writers MOJAVE - On a rollicking rol·lick·ing adj. Carefree and high-spirited; boisterous: a rollicking celebration. rol flight into space early Wednesday, aircraft designer Burt 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. completed the first half of a race for a $10 million prize. As SpaceShipOne zoomed skyward sky·ward adv. & adj. At or toward the sky. sky  wards adv. - reaching 337,500 feet, more than 63 miles above Earth - it rolled two dozen times, enough for a worried Rutan to tell pilot Mike Melvill Michael Winston "Mike" Melvill (born November 1941) is one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, the experimental spaceplane developed by Scaled Composites. Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne on its first flight past the edge of space, flight 15P on June 21, 2004, thus becoming the first to shut down the rocket motor. But Melvill kept going and soared 9,000 feet beyond the 100-kilometer goal during his 82-minute flight. ``It was a really good flight,'' Melvill said after his safe return to Mojave Airport. ``I felt like I really nailed it. It went straight up. It didn't seem like I had as much roll going on as I did the last time. Right at the top, I got a surprise when it really spun.'' Rutan said his whole team was committed to completing the flight but not at the expense of Melvill's safety. ``We were asking him to go ahead to abort (1) To exit a function or application without saving any data that has been changed. (2) To stop a transmission. (programming) abort - To terminate a program or process abnormally and usually suddenly, with or without diagnostic information. and shut it off where it (wouldn't) have gone the 100 kilometers,'' Rutan said. ``He didn't feel as uncomfortable as we did, and he let it run a couple more seconds. He wants to win the (Ansari) X Prize, too.'' After completing the first of two suborbital suborbital /sub·or·bi·tal/ (sub-or´bi-t'l) infraorbital. sub·or·bit·al adj. Situated on or below the floor of the orbit of the eye. n. flights required to claim the $10 million prize, Rutan and his team have until the morning of Oct. 13 for a second flight of more than 100 kilometers to prove that their rocket plane is the first reusable, privately built spacecraft. 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. was offered to foster commercial space travel - just as commercial aviation was advanced with the $25,000 Orteig Prize The Orteig Prize was a $25,000 reward offered in 1919 by hotel owner Raymond Orteig to the first allied aviator(s) to fly non-stop from New York City to Paris or vice-versa. On offer for five years, it attracted no competitors. won by Charles Lindbergh when he flew across the Atlantic in 1927. ``At the end of the day, we're expecting to build an industry,'' said Peter Diamandis Peter H. Diamandis (born 20 May 1961 in Bronx, New York) is considered a key American figure in the development of the personal spaceflight industry, having created many space-related businesses or organizations. , co-founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation. ``I guarantee that in the next two to five years, you will be able to buy a ticket for a suborbital flight.'' That already might be happening. British billionaire Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950 in Shamley Green, Surrey, England), is a British entrepreneur, best known for his Virgin brand of over 360 , founder of Virgin Atlantic airlines, announced Monday that he has signed a deal for Rutan to design a spacecraft for him to carry paying passengers into space - $190,000 for four minutes of weightlessness weightlessness, the absence of any observable effects of gravitation. This condition is experienced by an observer when he and his immediate surroundings are allowed to move freely in the local gravitational field. . Despite the corkscrew corkscrew a deformity in which the affected part is spiraled like a corkscrew. corkscrew claw a probably heritable defect of the lateral claw, usually of the front feet, of cattle causing serious lameness. roll on the ascent, Rutan said SpaceShipOne is in excellent shape and that a decision on the next flight would be made today. Before Wednesday's flight, Rutan had said he wanted to fly next Monday, the 47th anniversary of the Sputnik Sputnik: see satellite, artificial; space exploration. Sputnik Any of a series of Earth-orbiting spacecraft whose launching by the Soviet Union inaugurated the space age. satellite launch. ``I think we just change out the engine and fill it with gas and do it again,'' Melvill said. The cause of the rolling was not immediately known. Rutan said because of the design, the spaceship is prone to roll from wind shear wind shear, a sudden, drastic change in wind direction or speed over a comparatively short distance. Most winds travel horizontally, as does most wind shear, but under certain conditions, including thunderstorms and strong frontal systems, wind shear will travel in a , an issue all on the team have known about since flight testing started. Rutan said the spacecraft is, however, very sturdy. Melvill said he might have moved a control inadvertently, joking: ``It's nice to do a roll at the top of the climb.'' The rocket plane could have climbed higher, he said. ``We had clearly made the altitude, so I shut it down 11 seconds early. It clearly could have gone a lot higher. We probably could have made it to 350,000 or 360,000 feet.'' Among the spectators was James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is an Academy Award winning Canadian director, producer and screenwriter. , the Oscar-winning producer, director and writer of the movie ``Titanic.'' ``This is obviously a very, very historic day, and I think anyone with any passion for space should want to be involved in it,'' said Cameron, who serves on a NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. advisory council. ``I see today's moment as symbolic of the small entrepreneurial companies being able to be a major contributor to space exploration and space flight in the future.'' Thousands of spectators turned out before dawn to watch the flight, although the crowd was far smaller than the estimated 27,500 who came June 21 to see SpaceShipOne's first flight out of the atmosphere - a preliminary test before the official space race. Among the watchers Wednesday was Noah Glass, 34, of San Francisco, who came with his grandmother, Dorothy Ward. ``I just wanted to see it in person - to see history in the making,'' said Glass, who runs a company that produces software for putting audio on Web pages. ``This type of thing is totally inspiring - what possibilities for the entrepreneurial spirit!'' Aviation enthusiast Ray Bloch started driving from Fresno at 2 a.m. to see the launch from Mojave. ``This is so awesome,'' said Bloch, 50, a systems analyst for a Fresno hospital. ``It is one thing to see it in pictures. It's just awesome to see it up close like this.'' A requirement for winning the Ansari X Prize is to carry the equivalent weight of two passengers. The rocket plane took aloft personal mementos of employees of Rutan's Scaled Composites company and of Vulcan Inc., one of the companies owned by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, SpaceShipOne's financial backer. Among the items were the ashes of Burt Rutan's mother, Irene, who died four years ago at age 84. Also on board were four seedlings of a pine tree variety Rutan said can grow well both in the Mojave Desert and in Allen's rainy home city of Seattle. Jim Skeen, (661) 267-5743 james.skeen(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 7 photos Photo: (1 -- color -- ran in Valley edition only) Pilot Mike Melvill gives a thumbs-up Wednesday at Mojave after his 337,500-foot-high, 82-minute flight in SpaceShipOne. (2 -- color -- ran in Valley edition only) SpaceShipOne takes off from Mojave Airport on Wednesday in the successful first of two suborbital flights required for a $10 million prize. The craft rolled, but pilot Mike Melvill refused to abort the flight. (3 -- color in AV edition; ran in SAC and AV edition only) Pilot Mike Melvill gives a thumbs-up Wednesday at Mojave after his 82-minute, 337,500-foot suborbital flight in SpaceShipOne. (4 -- color in AV edition; ran in SAC and AV edition only) Designer Burt Rutan, left, applauds and pilot Mike Melvill gives a thumbs-up Wednesday after Rutan's rocket plane completed the first half of a race for a $10 million prize. (5 -- ran in AV edition only) Backer Paul Allen, left, and SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan check out the craft after its flight Wednesday. (6 -- 7 -- ran in AV edition only) The crowd looks up, left, as pilot Mike Melvill soars in SpaceShipOne on the sucessful first leg - more than 63 miles above Earth - in a race for a $10 million prize. Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News |
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