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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBack in 2004, Brian Binnie flew this little rocket-powered beauty, built in his garage, into space
Back in 2004, a guy named Brian Binnie flew this little rocket-powered beauty, basically built in Burt Rutans garage, into space. No computer controls, not even hydraulics
the control surfaces were connected to the joystick by cables and pulleys, like a WWI biplane. THIS was the first privately built aircraft to fly to space, twice within two weeks.
So when Amazon man emerges from his ridiculously expensive toy that he had nothing to do with designing, building or flying (he even thanked all of us for paying for it), wearing a cowboy hat as if he some living-on-the-edge maverick whos risking it all
well, Ill tip my hat in respect to Brian.
Great little documentary about Burt and the whole crew if anyones interested
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)relayerbob
(6,508 posts)well, except Paul Allen
niyad
(112,432 posts)Bayard
(21,802 posts)Thanks!
2Gingersnaps
(1,000 posts)these guys. Just saying.
TomWilm
(1,832 posts)William Seger
(10,742 posts)... of the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall, and the round-the-world Voyager plane hangs in a gallery above. That's why I didn't quite understand the hoopla over the latest flights.
Among the achievements celebrated here: Charles Lindbergh's solo trip across the Atlantic in his Spirit of St. Louis; the first American jet aircraft, the Bell XP-59A Airacomet; the Bell X-1 in which "Chuck" Yeager first broke the mythical "sound barrier;" the Mercury capsule Friendship 7 flown by John Glenn; Mariner, Pioneer, and Viking planetary explorers; and the first privately-developed, piloted vehicle to reach space, SpaceShipOne.
https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/boeing-milestones-flight-hall
Lancero
(2,979 posts)Quite the expensive toy, eh?
Jon King
(1,910 posts)How myths like this being built by one guy in his garage get started is comical.
Jon King
(1,910 posts)It was a joint venture of several companies and hundreds of engineers. Costs were a minimum of $25 million in 2004 dollars and that does not include thousands of free engineering hours donated.
So the true cost in today's dollars was likely around $40 million.
YoshidaYui
(41,759 posts)I seem to recall something like that.
obamanut2012
(25,906 posts)He had over $25 million from Paul Allen to build it, and the guy whose "garage" he built it in was an aero executive. This is literally no different than Beezos, Branson, and Musk. Not an ole shucks! This regular joe built a rocket in his bud's garage!
I loathe Steve Jobs, but he actually built stuff in his parents' garage. Not this dude.
elevator
(415 posts)That's a huge difference.
Xoan
(25,294 posts)Mr. Evil
(2,746 posts)I remember this. I was also amazed that they used old ground up tires as fuel. So cool!
muriel_volestrangler
(101,149 posts)The pilot on the first run into "space", and the 1st of the 2 flights that were close enough together to get the Ansari X Prize was Mike Melvill. I presume this detail is buried somewhere in the 1h49m video, but it's easier to see from the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne . You may as well mention both pilots, if it's credit for pilots you want to give out.
And, for that matter, the control surfaces were electrically controlled, not just "by cables and pulleys, like a WWI biplane", as Wikipedia says, and Rutan too:
...
But in a telephone interview Tuesday, Rutan said the flight-control anomaly on June 21 was not serious. The problem, he said, had been traced to an actuator a device that drives flaps and other aircraft control surfaces.
https://www.wired.com/2004/07/spaceshipone-back-on-course/
And if the Wikipedia entry is basically correct,
The SNU is a GPS-based inertial navigation system, which processes spacecraft sensor data and subsystem health data. It downlinks telemetry data by radio to mission control.
The FDD displays data from the SNU on a color LCD. It has several distinct display modes for different phases of flight, including the boost phase, coast, reentry, and gliding. The FDD is particularly important to the pilot during the boost and coast phase in order to "turn the corner" and null rates caused by asymmetric thrust. A mix of commercial and bespoke software is used in the FDD.
So, yeah, computer control. Because you have to, really.