Postcards from the Bleeding Edge
Sunday, July 10, 2005

  Xprize Cup

I was wearing my Xprize "Crew" T-shirt in a bar last wednesday when a guy walked up to me and asked if I had anything to do with SpaceShipOne winning the Xprize last October. He'd just seen the TV special... (which I still haven't seen)

"Yes, I was there. Twice. We helped change the world. And we're still working on changing it. " I said. "But all I did was park cars and guide guests to their seats in the Mojave for the launches."

Notwithstanding my minor role, probably not hearing me describe what I'd done, too deep in wishing he too had been there somehow... he shook my hand, with that glistening look in his eye I've come to know well. (from looking at other space enthusiasts, and from looking in the mirror!)

Afterwards, outside, later, he introduced me around his circle of friends, explained the event I'd been a part of, and 4 people shook my hand and wished me further luck on the conquest for space.

I've never been so friggin proud to have parked cars and vetted guests around a spaceport in my life. I swaggered out of that bar.

The first ever Xprize Cup is coming up in October. It's going to be more of a tradeshow than a racing event, at least this time.

Armadillo Aerospace is working on a new engine:
We have committed to doing demo flights at the X-Prize cup event in October of this year. While they would have been fine with us just dusting off our 2’ diameter mixed-monoprop vehicle (the “flying crayon”), we are going to use this as a firm deadline for having the new LOX vehicle in robust flying shape. We will be aiming to do several back to back 15 second boosted hops to demonstrate operational efficiency. Flying on a biprop, this should be quite exciting.

It looks like we are going to use our last 15 degree crush cone as the aeroshell for the little vehicle, which will make it look like a little SSTO model. We would be a lot more aerodynamic packing it into a 2’ diameter cylinder, but I want to give it a wider base for better landing stability.


I'm toying with the idea of going to new mexico for the cup, but there are a few other conferences that I'd rather attend elsewhere. When they start flying serious new hardware, though... I'm there.
 
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David Täht writes about politics, space, copyright, the internet, audio software, operating systems and surfing.


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