Talks About X-Prize Project: SpaceShipOne

Pioneering aviation designer Burt Rutan, who has continually expanded the envelope of personal flight over the past three decades, will talk about his latest vision - private travel into space - at two forums during the 51st annual EAA fly-in at Oshkosh (WI) July 29-August 4 at Wittman Regional Airport. Rutan unveiled his "SpaceShipOne" aircraft in Mojave (CA) on April 18 (ANN, April 19, 2003: "Scaled Composites Unwraps Commercial Space Plane". http://aero-news.net/news/military.cfm?ContentBlockID=38FA8808-D897-4C9B-A990-7623425E7371&Dynamic=1 It is designed to become the first private craft able to successfully achieve sub-orbital space travel, and win the $10-million "X-Prize" offered to the creators of the first private vehicle to accomplish such a feat. Always a popular speaker at EAA AirVenture, Rutan will talk about the project on Saturday, August 2 at 10 a.m. and Sunday, August 3 at 2:30 p.m.

Tent Talk

Rutan will also host two other forums: The annual "Tent Talk Show" with designer John Roncz on Saturday, August 2 at 2:30 p.m. and "Life After Airliners" with NASA's Bruce Holmes on Sunday, August 3 at 8:30 a.m. All of his presentations will be held in EAA AirVenture's Forums Plaza.
"There are few people as well known in the world of aircraft design and innovation as Burt Rutan," said Tom Poberezny, EAA President and AirVenture Chairman. "Interest in Burt's work has certainly increased this year with his SpaceShipOne design, so we're pleased to welcome him to AirVenture once again. His efforts are helping bridge aviation from its first century, which we celebrating at Oshkosh in 2003, to the incredible promise of the future."

SpaceShipOne is a three-person craft designed to be carried to about 52,000 feet above earth by a twin-engine jet aircraft, named the "White Knight," which carries SpaceShipOne under its fuselage. On a typical flight, the White Knight would fly to an altitude of about 15,000 meters before releasing SpaceShipOne. Once clear of the aircraft, SpaceShipOne will fire its single rocket engine and climb steeply. The engine will burn for just over a minute, putting the spacecraft on a trajectory to reach an altitude of 100 kilometers, a widely-accepted boundary between the earth's atmosphere and space. 

After passing through its peak altitude, SpaceShipOne will quickly descend, again on a steep trajectory. The spacecraft also has a unique feature to deal with the heat of reentry: the trailing edge of its wings, and the twin tail sections attached to them, rise from the horizontal to nearly the vertical position. This puts the spacecraft into a stable orientation, making it less susceptible to errors in the angle of attack. That concept is much different than today's space vehicles, which must be carefully oriented for reentry. Rutan, who received EAA's Freedom of Flight Award in 1996 for contributions to aviation, has not announced whether he will bring the aircraft to EAA AirVenture, as the project is on a demanding flight-test schedule.

Rutan is best known for the creation of the Voyager, which in 1986 became the first and only aircraft to fly around the world non-stop on a single tank of fuel. Within the aviation world, however, he is also admired for a constant stream of innovative airplane designs, from the VariViggen, VariEze and Long-EZ of the 1970s to later concepts such as Boomerang and Proteus, which he brought to Oshkosh over the last decade.

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