Nasa Vs Rutan-branson

[Antoninov]

AAAAAAAA ma gauche la NASA:

You might have heard already in the radio this morning that NASA declared

that the Shuttle fleet is grounded. In fact, photos and videos taken during

the Shuttle ascent flight have shown that Discovery's external tank lost a

large piece of foam, about 50 cm long, similar to what happened during

Columbia's launch in 2003, but apparently not leading to the same effects on

the orbiter. The piece of foam lost during the launch originated on a

so-called protuberance air load (PAL) ramp that stretches out from the

external tank and protects cables, wiring and pressure lines running along

its length, in an area where the tank was redesigned after the Columbia

accident to avoid further teal-off of foam. The tank used by Discovery was

the second of the redesigned tanks delivered to NASA.

NASA representives said that while there is currently no indication that the

foam contacted the Discovery orbiter, the incident should not have happened

in the first place and is reason enough to put a hold on future flights. In a

press briefing at the Johnson Space Center yesterday evening (01:00 h this

morning our time), Bill Parsons, Space Shuttle Programme Manager, said that

"until we've fixed this, we're not ready to fly. You could say that we're

grounded." Deputy Shuttle Manager Wyne Hale said "We need to do better than

this," and added that it was fortunate the incident occurred when it did. "If

this had happened earlier, it would have been bad." Because of Discovery's

high altitude at the time of the PAL foam loss, there was not enough air to

carry it back fast enough to impact the orbiter.

In a press release that was distributed at JSC (but not yet published on the

NASA Internet site) NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is quoted with the

following words: "As with any unexpected occurrence, we will closely and

thoroughly evaluate this event and make any needed modifications to the

Shuttle before we launch again. We have said repeatedly that the first two

flights in our return to flight sequence are test flights. Among the things

we are testing are the integrity of the foam insulation and the performance

of new camera equipment installed to detect problems. The cameras worked

well. The foam did not."

Et AAAAAAAAAAAA ma droite le privé:

http://www.space.com/news/050727_branson_rutan.html

British entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson, has teamed up with aerospace designer, Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites to form a new aerospace production company. The new firm will build a fleet of commercial suborbital spaceships and launch aircraft.

Called The Spaceship Company, the new entity will manufacture launch aircraft, various spacecraft and support equipment and market those products to spaceliner operators. Clients include launch customer, Virgin Galactic—formed by Branson to handle space tourist flights.

The Spaceship Company is jointly owned by Branson’s Virgin Group and Scaled Composites of Mojave, California. Scaled will be contracted for research and development testing and certification of a 9-person SpaceShipTwo (SS2) design, and a White Knight Two (WK2) mothership to be called Eve. Rutan will head up the technical development team for the SS2/WK2 combination.

(…)

Seat price expected to drop

At present, seats onboard Virgin Galactic spaceships are price tagged at $200,000 each.

But Branson hopes that this seat price will drop over time. “Our aim is to bring the price down,” he said.

“Our principal aim behind this is not to make money.   The principal aim is to reinvest any money we make into space exploration,” Branson said. “We expect to double, triple, quadruple the number of astronauts in the next few years that have currently experienced space,” he said.

To date, Branson said, about a 100 pioneers have been willing to pay $200,000 to be the first people to go into space via Virgin Galactic. “These are the kinds of people who are going to enable us to bring the cost of space travel down,” he stated.

(…)

“We would like to be in development and in experimental test flying by the end of 2007. And we would like to be operating commercially by the end of 2008,” Whitehorn said. “But this is a unique project. We’ve made it very clear…that we are not going to be hidebound to a particular timetable.”