Flight International magazine has an extensive article on the state of space tourism in its latest issue. It covers a lot of ground, ranging from vehicle development to regulatory, treaty, and insurance issues; I suspect much of it is based on the Royal Aeronautical Society’s space tourism conference held last month in London.
One interesting item in the article is an illustration of what the magazine believes SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft, White Knight Two, might look like. Both are similar to SS1/WK1, with the most obvious changes being a stretched, cylindrical fuselage with the same diameter as a Gulfstream V jet, and a new single jet engine mounted on top of WK2’s fuselage, in place of the two smaller side-mounted jets on WK1. WK2 would also have a significantly larger wingspan. Of course, it might turn out the Scaled Composites will turn up something very different. We’ll know some time late next year, when the first test flights of the vehicles are planned.
Would it really be that differant? You have a proven design, so it seems like it would be pretty complicated to change the design very much.
Don’t expect it to be too differant. The cabin will be differant but that won’t really affect flight performance. The description is good but don’t buy into that drawing much. When up in the sky the pair won’t look too much differant other then the paintjob.
As for the single turbine theory… Due to the high altitude and the fact that the turbines aren’t designed to operate that high there is a inherant risk of flame-out due to low oxygen. On a recent flight of White Knight taking the X-37 up to altitude one of the turbines flamed out after releasing the x-37. WK2 will certaintly have two (or more) turbines as a safety precaution for this risk.
Not to mention the fact that two side mounted turbines will be lower than a single. You don’t want to have the thrust profile significantly higher then the CG. With SS1 attached WK1 already had the problem of down-pitch with throttle up and an up-pitch with throttle down.
I don’t see a post yet about Bigelow’s test habitat module getting launched. According to the Space.com article, they intend to send up several more for testing and proof of concept.
Even though it is 99.999999999% certain I will never be able to afford to visit one of his orbital hotels, I am still excited that that percentage will no loger be 100%. My hats off to Mr. Bigelow for the achievement
I find the single engine design a little iffy also. I’m hoping for four J79’s with afterburners.
I expect that Burt will tell us a bit more about the SS2 program at Oshkosh next week. For the first time in five years, I can’t go. grrrrrrrr