Briefs: WK2 to fly in November; Rocket races

Also says that the goal is to start flying SpaceShip Two approximately 12 months from now (i.e. Nov 2009) with a goal of flying passengers 6-12 months after that, so maybe Nov 2010.

Of course, they're not going to make that schedule either.

Probably 2011, if you're being optimistic.

Posted by Dwayne Day at 10/17/08 14:54:28

Hi Dr. Day,
If they are test flying SS2 before the end of 2009, that will be great by me. Sounds like they plan to do at least a hundred flights if not a lot more than that before flying passengers. Might see weekly flights in Mojave by mid 2010.

FAA rules unfortunately don't allow flying commercial payloads of any kind under an experimental permit. However, I expect that will get an operational permit a good time before they start flying paying passengers. So they could be doing NASA/NOAA/DARPA sorts of payloads in 2010 even if they don't start carrying passengers by then.

There is no "of course". The SS2 schedule could just as easily speed up. 2011 is pessimistic not optimistic. A couple of months delay in the first WK2 flight hardly seems like a big deal.

Besides Scaled, I think Armadillo will do high altitude unmanned in 2009. Blue Origin is very quiet these days but I'd be surprised if they are not doing high altitude unmanned in 2009. XCOR will start Lynx flights in 2010. A dark horse project here and there might pop up, so to speak, as well.

Lots of interesting suborbital space stuff to look forward to.

- Clark

Posted by TopSpacer at 10/17/08 15:31:54

VG should have moved directly to commercialize SS1 while developing SS2. Even if disaster struck early, the solution would have been much simpler to implement and subsequently scale than to build it directly for the SS2 before a single flight. These delays have been of absolutely no value to the cause of manned space.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at 10/17/08 18:29:27

Hi Brian,
Yes, the question of a SS1.5, i.e. a slightly improved SS1, has been a topic of discussion here and elsewhere. It might not have been suitable for passenger flights but it could have provided additional operations experience, tested systems for the SS2, and flown the occasional science/engineering payload as DARPA wanted to do on the SS1. However, Burt made it clear that he wanted to get right to work on SS2 and not bother with flying the SS1 again.

In retrospect maybe SS1.5 looks like a reasonable thing to do but, of course, everything is clear in retrospect. With 20-20 hindsight, they would have also avoided the accident and not lost 3 people and a year in the SS2 program.

One other aspect of all this to consider is that the WK1/SS1 were rapid prototyped experimental vehicles while the WK2/SS2 are production vehicles intended for paying passenger service. They want to build dozens of them just as if they were airliners. That means developing assembly lines, setting up component suppliers, insuring super-high quality control, etc. Those things just take time. A car company, for example, can knock out a concept car virtually overnight for almost nothing. But it takes a few years and billions of dollars to take it into production. WK2/SS2 is of a much smaller scale than that but the challenges are similar.

- Clark

Posted by TopSpacer at 10/17/08 21:48:49

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