The Meaning of Monday
Jeff Foust in the Space Review writes SpaceShipOne makes history — barely, an issue that's sometimes lost in the (rightful) hoopla surrounding Monday's flight. While the all-important goal of 100km was reached, the flight was not without problems.
However, the flight also demonstrates the reason why incremental testing is viewed as a requirement by the space access community. Monday's goal was 107km to meet the record previously established by the X-15), without carrying the ballast required to meet the X-Prize requirements. This would have established that Spaceship One had sufficient performance to reach the required altitude in an actual X-prize attempt. They fell short of this goal because of control system problems of currently unknown origins. Had this been an actual Prize attempt (as many believed it should have been) the attempt would likely have failed, doing significant damage to the reputation of the Prize. However, the emphasis on reusability inherent in the Prize saved the day, Astronaut Mike Melvill was able to continue the flight and land safely. SpaceShip One will fly another day once the issues from Monday's flight are resolved and once the system is proven functional, take a shot at the Prize.
Monday's flight has also obscured another important point; the real goal of Cheap Acess to Space lies much higher - in low earth orbit. As Robert Heinlein wrote "If you can get into orbit, then you're halfway to anywhere".
2 Comments:
A very public failure is rarely good publicity. Balloon flights are frequently problematic for reasons beyond the control of the pilots, and thus are viewed in a very different light. A serious failure on a prize shot (had Monday been a prize shot) would have reinforced the public perception that 'space is hard and dangerous and not for the common man'.
As it stands, it's argueable that Monday's problems were are good things, not for the publicity, but because it shows that you can have serious, but non fatal failures, and that man-in-the-loop is an important capability.
I mostly watch baseball Jake; there falling short is often a disaster regardless of how spectacular the performance.
(Prime example; the 2001 Mariners.)
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