Our message
at the April 18th 2003 unveiling of the Tier One program
Flight research has always been Scaled Composites'
forte. For the 21 years since Scaled's founding, we have
designed, built and flight tested 23 unique manned research
aircraft types and developed over 40 unmanned products.
Counting the homebuilt and milestone aircraft developed
earlier by Rutan Aircraft Factory, 38 different types of
Rutan-designed manned aircraft have flown research test
programs. None have had a significant accident or pilot
injury during flight test activity. Our flight safety approach
of "question, never defend" has allowed us to
take courageous steps by safely flying new ideas and new
performance envelopes. We are now focusing on the big step
of developing a high-altitude supersonic light aircraft.
This program, if successful, will result in the first non-government
manned space flight (above 100 km altitude).
Sub-orbital manned space flights have been
done before by Redstone - Mercury in 1961 and by the B-52
- X-15 in 1963. Even though the experience, as described
by Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Joe Walker was awe-inspiring,
sub-orbital space flights were ignored for the next 40 years.
The view from the apex of a sub-orbital flight is similar
to being in orbit, but the cost and risk is far less.
Our goal is to demonstrate that non-government
manned space flight operations are not only feasible, but
can be done at very low costs. Safety, of course is paramount,
but minimum cost is critical. We look to the future, hopefully
within ten years, when ordinary people, for the cost of
a luxury cruise, can experience a rocket flight into the
black sky above the earth's atmosphere, enjoy a few minutes
of weightless excitement, then feel the thunderous deceleration
of the aerodynamic drag on entry.
Our plan involves flight in a 3-place spaceship,
initially attached to a turbojet launch aircraft while climbing
for an hour to 50,000 feet, above 85% of the atmosphere.
The spaceship then drops into gliding flight and fires its
rocket motor while climbing steeply for more than a minute,
reaching a speed of 2,500 mph. The ship coasts up to 100
km (62 miles) altitude, then falls back into the atmosphere.
The coast and fall are under weightless conditions for more
than three minutes. During weightless flight, the spaceship
converts to a high-drag configuration to allow a safe, stable
atmospheric entry. After the entry deceleration which takes
more than a minute, the ship converts back to a conventional
glider, allowing a leisurely 17 minute glide from 80,000
feet altitude down to a runway where a landing is made at
lightplane speeds.
Our concept design work began in 1996 and
some preliminary development began in 1999. Our full development
program began in secrecy in April 2001. This extensive experimental
research effort is a complete manned space program. It consists
of all new hardware including a launch aircraft (the White
Knight), a three-place spaceship (the SpaceShipOne), a hybrid
rocket propulsion system, a mobile propulsion test facility,
a flight simulator, an inertial-nav flight director, a mobile
mission control center, all spacecraft systems, a pilot
training program and a complete flight test program. All
our hardware components are full-scale, full space-capable
performance, not mockups or interim vehicles.
The hardware, technical descriptions and a
flight demonstration of the White Knight were revealed to
the press on April 18th. We are now back into hiding, to
complete the rocket development and flight tests. We will
provide progress reports monthly via test reports posted
in the "test updates" section of this site. We
will again invite the press when we fly the first flight
above 100-km altitude. This milestone will be significant
in that it will represent the making of the first non-government
Astronaut, and it will be flown on a system that shows the
level of affordability needed for future space tourism.
I strongly feel that, if we are successful,
our program will mark the beginning of a renaissance for
manned space flight. This might even be similar to that
wonderful time period between 1908 and 1912 when the world
went from a total of ten airplane pilots to hundreds of
airplane types and thousands of pilots in 39 countries.
We need affordable space travel to inspire our youth, to
let them know that they can experience their dreams, can
set significant goals and be in a position to lead all of
us to future progress in exploration, discovery and fun.
Burt Rutan
