За премией X

Человеческая история полна рассказов об первооткрывателях, которые рискнули, рисковали своей жизнью и погрузились в глубины неизведанного. Благодаря их усилиям и амбициям кажется, что теперь у нас есть доступ даже к самым загадочным местам на Земле: самым глубоким тропическим лесам , самым темным пещерам, самым высоким горам и самому небу. Теперь наша непрекращающаяся потребность в исследованиях должна быть удовлетворена еще одним рубежом: космосом.

Но, в отличие от времен Дикого Запада, когда первопроходцы могли свободно отправляться в путь за славой или золотом с рюкзаком за спиной и парой хороших кроссовок, исследование этого нового рубежа требует немного больше денег, и поэтому была ограничена элитными государственными учреждениями - вплоть до премии Ansari X Prize .

В этой статье мы расскажем об истоках и требованиях « Новой гонки в космос », за которую SpaceShipOne получил приз в размере 10 миллионов долларов 4 октября 2004 года — и все это без государственных средств, частей ракеты от НАСА или специального кабинета. ровное положение для частного космического полета. Мы также обсудим некоторые другие команды и технологии, участвующие в гонке, и то, что конкурс означает для будущего космического туризма.

Личная изобретательность

Этот запрет на государственную поддержку (и условия, связанные с такими фондами) говорит о сути премии Ansari X. Фонд X Prize был основан в 1995 году доктором Питером Х. Диамандисом (генеральный директор и председатель Zero Gravity Corporation и соучредитель Международного космического университета ), чтобы стимулировать развитие индустрии космического туризма и открыть новые горизонты для общественности . Источником вдохновения доктора Диамандиса для конкурса и его уверенности в его успехе стала премия Ортейга в размере 25 000 долларов , присужденная первому человеку, который построил и управлял самолетом .без остановок из Нью-Йорка в Париж в 1927 году. В этом состязании, которое открыло дорогу авиационной промышленности с оборотом в 250 миллиардов долларов, победил аутсайдер Чарльз Линдберг .

1. Что такое премия Ansari X?
2. Нормативные препятствия
3. Команды: успешные полеты
4. Команды: неудачные полеты
5. Немного ракетостроения
6. Тактика «Новая космическая гонка»
7. Космический туризм

Так что же такое Ansari X Prize? Проще говоря, это конкурс, обещающий денежный приз в размере 10 миллионов долларов первой зарегистрированной команде, которая:

Подвиг должен был быть завершен к 1 января 2005 года, поэтому SpaceShipOne получил приз, имея в запасе много времени. В дополнение к денежному кошельку победитель получил бронзовый трофей высотой 5 футов (152 см) и весом 200 фунтов (90,7 кг). (Для ознакомления с дизайном см. призовой трофей Ansari X. )

Никакая финансовая помощь не может быть принята ни от какого правительства — это означает отсутствие государственных грантов, государственных субсидий, кораблей НАСА и запчастей НАСА. Однако недостатка в частных донорах не было. Звездный список участников включает соучредителя Microsoft Пола Аллена (Scaled Composites, SpaceShipOne), первого космического туриста и миллионера Денниса Тито, внука Чарльза Линдберга Эрика Линдберга, бывшего астронавта и сенатора США Джона Гленна, писателя Тома Клэнси и актера Тома. Хэнкс.

Побороться за X Prize смогли люди из всех стран мира, всего было зарегистрировано более 20 команд из семи стран. Конкурсанты должны были внести регистрационный взнос в размере 1000 долларов США вместе с подробным описанием предлагаемого транспортного средства и миссии, и они должны были согласиться следовать приведенным выше правилам и спецификациям (для ознакомления с конкретными требуемыми документами см. Ansari X Prize: Регистрация как Команда ).

Влияние премии Ортейга

В результате авиационного конкурса гостиничного магната Раймонда Ортейга и успешного полета Линдберга в Соединенных Штатах:

• С 1926 по 1929 год количество авиапассажиров увеличилось на 167 623 человека.
• В 1927 году количество заявок на получение лицензии пилота увеличилось на 300 процентов.
• Количество лицензированных самолетов увеличилось на 400 процентов.
• The number of airports doubled within three years.

Only time will tell if the Ansari X Prize will have a similar effect on the burgeoning sub-orbital flight industry. Already, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has created and issued two new licenses for sub-orbital space travel.

Source: http://www.xprize.org

After registration as an official X Prize contestant and all of the challenges of planning and building a spaceship that followed, a team ready for launch faced yet another roadblock: launch licensing. Most countries require a license to fly any vehicle into the air, and launching something into space and back definitely falls under that heading. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires an Experimental Aircraft Certificate and a Space Launch License. The application form is fairly simple, but the process that follows is not: The FAA's Applicant Checklist is divided into four phases, which include frequent meetings with FAA officials and regular inspections of the project's progress.

Another thing to keep in mind: According to the FAA, you can't just build and launch a sub-orbital rocket in your backyard. Launches are allowed only at specific government-funded and privately funded sites (see FAA: Launch Sites); however, according to X Prize rules, a team could not use a government site unless it was open to all teams (including those from other countries).

Only two sub-orbital, manned rocket-launch licenses have ever been awarded in the United States, both of those within the last six months. Add the time it takes to get FAA approval to the 60-day notice required by the X Prise Foundation to launch, and time was of the essence.

Therefore, many teams came quite far in their development of spacecraft but could not get ready to launch before the January 1, 2005, deadline. Their ideas and technological innovations will live on, however. In the next section, we'll a look at some of the teams that were involved in the Ansari X Prize.

Red Tape

To view the FAA guide to RLV approval, including the application and checklist, visit the FAA and Industry Guide to Reusable Launch Vehicle (PDF).

To check out the process of approving an RLV, see RLV Safety Approval Process (PDF).

The Ansari X Prize garnered teams from countries as varied as Russia, Canada, Romania, Israel, England, Argentina and the United States. Contrary to the expectation that big aerospace companies would jump to get involved, many of the teams' companies were founded after the announcement of the contest, and teams often consisted of their founders. When Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne took the prize, more than 20 teams were registered. Most only managed to complete the design or build the spacecraft, but a few did have test flights with demonstrator rockets -- some successful, others not so successful. Here's a breakdown of the successful ones:

WINNER: Scaled Composites LLC

Mojave, California

Vehicle: SpaceShipOne, a 16.4-foot (~5-meter) rocket launched mid-air from carrier aircraft White Knight

Team Leader: Burt Rutan

Web Site: www.scaled.com

To learn much more about SpaceShipOne and its flights, see How SpaceShipOne Works .

GoldenPalace.com Space Program

da Vinci Project

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Vehicle: Wild Fire, a 16-foot (~9-meter) rocket launched mid-air from a huge helium balloon

Team Leader: Brian Feeney

Web Site: www.davinciproject.com

High Altitude Research Corporation (HARC)

Huntsville, Alabama

Vehicle: Liberator, a 40-foot-tall (~12-meter) rocket launched vertically from an ocean-going vessel

Team Leader: Tim Pickens

Web Site: www.harcspace.com

Aeronautics & Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA)

Aeronautics & Cosmonautics Romanian Association (ARCA)

Ramnicu Valcea, Romania

Vehicle: Orizont, a 55.7-foot (17-meter) rocket launched vertically from the ground

Team Leader: Dumitru Popescu

Web Site: www.arcaspace.ro

Space Transport Corporation

Forks, Washington

Vehicle: Rubicon, a 22-foot (~6.7 meter), 7-engine rocket launched from a movable platform

Team Leaders: Phillip Storm and Eric Meier (co-founders)

Web Site: www.space-transport.com

See MSNBC: Space-race rocket blows up.

Armadillo Aerospace

Mesquite, Texas

Vehicle: Black Armadillo, a 24-foot (~7-meter) rocket launched vertically from the ground

Team Leader: John Carmack, creator of the popular first-person shooter video games Wolfenstein 3D (1992), DOOM (1993) and Quake (1996)

Web Site: www.armadilloaerospace.com

See Space.com: Armadillo Aerospace’s X Prize Prototype Crashes.

To understand the challenges the X PRIZE teams faced and the individual solutions they engineered to conquer them, you may need to brush up on some basic rocket science. (If you're up for a more extended course in rocket science, be sure to check out How Rocket Engines Work .)

When creating a space-bound rocket, you need to know about two main things:

These two basic elements affect the complex Ansari X Prize spacecraft similar to the way they'd affect something as simple as a golf ball. When a golfer takes a swing, the golf club functions as the propulsion system and thrusts the golf ball high into the air, flying in the direction of the swing. Because it is hit from the side, it forms a long, wide arc before returning to the ground. If the ball could be hit from the bottom, it would go straight up -- which is pointless for golfers but great for rocket scientists.

The traditional way of propelling a rocket or a spacecraft into sub-orbit is to fire up the propulsion system directly beneath the vehicle to thrust it straight up. Upon reaching burnout (the point at which all of the fuel is used up), the rocket continues to ascend for a short time. As it slows down from lack of propellant, it begins to make an arc -- this is where it reaches its highest point (or altitude), known as apogee. It then begins to descend, completing the arc until it falls in a straight line back to the Earth's surface. To prevent the destruction of the rocket on impact, many are equipped with parachutes to slow the fall.

There are plenty of resources for the at-home rocketeer. Do-it-yourself, beginner rocket kits -- complete with engines -- can be purchased for as little as $5 to as much as $150 at hobby stores nationwide. For the serious hobbyist or budding rocket scientist, high-powered versions can be purchased that fly as high as a commercial jet -- more than 30,000 feet (9,144 meters). A word to the wise: Use of these and H-class rockets require National Association of Rocketry approval for a reason -- these launches can be dangerous. FAA approval may be required as well.

In the next section, we'll describe some of the technology used in the X Prize competition and take a detailed look at the top teams' flight plans.

The spaceship designs are as varied as the origins of the teams, making use of established as well as innovative technology.

Traditional Tactics

Several teams took the "oldie but goodie" tack, basing their sub-orbital rockets on technology developed as early as the 1940s. A popular design to copy was the German V-2, a World War II rocket that launched vertically from the ground into the Earth's stratosphere so as not to be detected and destroyed by enemy aircraft -- the world's first guided ballistic missile. Teams that chose this model for their spacecraft, such as Canadian Arrow, were forced to make some serious adjustments to fulfill the contest's requirements: Primarily, the rocket had to be large enough to carry three people, and the passengers couldn't explode when the rocket touched back down. To tackle this, some teams divided the rocket from the launch vehicle, turning the launch into a two-stage affair. The first stage involved lift-off from the ground, the craft propelled by the main rocket engine. During the second stage, the cabin of the spacecraft disengaged from the bottom portion, propelled by its own engines into sub-orbit. In the case of the Canadian Arrow, the two portions were equipped with parachutes to ease the landing.

High Ambitions

The most successful teams in the contest took a slightly different tack. Using the rationale that launching from the Earth's surface is twice as difficult as launching from high altitudes, Scaled Composites and the da Vinci Project developed spacecraft that actually launched from the sky care of a carrier plane and a gigantic helium balloon, respectively. These high-altitude launches reduce the amount of rocket fuel required (a major factor in keeping down weight and cost) because the rocket has a shorter distance to travel to get to sub-orbit, and the thin air provides less resistance than that on the Earth's surface. Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne released from its carrier plane White Knight at about 45,000 feet (~13,700 meters), boosted itself into sub-orbit, cut its engines for a three-minute view of the Earth in weightless conditions and then fell back down to Earth, slowing its decent by creating aerodynamic drag (see How SpaceShipOne Works for detailed information of the flight).

The da Vinci Project used a slightly different approach, dangling its spaceship from a reusable helium balloon until reaching 80,000 feet (~24,400 meters), at which time the engines were fired. Since propelling the rocket straight up would destroy the balloon (disqualifying the entry), the GPS-guided vessel first shot out at a 75-degree angle to clear the balloon and then changed to a 90-degree trajectory to go straight up to sub-orbit. The cabin then separated from the bottom portion and, after three minutes of weightlessness and an awe-inspiring view, plummeted back to the Earth while using parachutes on both sections to break the fall.

Innovative Effort

Some of the more unique designs did not make it to the flight-testing stage, but certainly deserve an "E" for effort. American Discraft of Portland, Oregon, had the inspired idea to create a 100-foot-diameter (~30.5-meter) "hypersonic wave rider aerospace craft" -- a flying saucer. In theory, the ship (called the Space Tourist) would take off horizontally from a runway at 60 miles per hour (~97 kph) by creating suction along the top surface and would then thrust the air through the ship's exhaust to create propulsion and steering.

In the next section, we'll discuss future developments and what is expected to arise from the efforts of the Ansari X Prize contestants.

Sub-orbital Wings

For a look at the new set of "wings" the FAA is awarding to this new class of sub-orbital astronauts, click here.

So what does all this rocket science mean for the average person? Well, for starters, it means that space tourism could be widely available before we even lay eyes on those flying cars we thought we'd be driving by now.

The developments and efforts of the X Prize contestants have both sped up the time-table for such an adventure and potentially driven down the cost. According to market studies cited by X Prize founder Diamandis, as many as 10,000 Americans would be willing to pay up to $100,000 for the opportunity to ride in a sub-orbital spacecraft -- the question, of course, is whether that fee is a realistic one to cover costs and profit. The X PRIZE chairman and CEO equates the near future of space tourism with the "barnstorming" of the 1920s, when people flocked to freelance pilots and paid them a fee for riding along. According to Diamandis, the X Prize contest is the first of three phases in the development of a privatized space-flight industry:

In addition to space tourism, it is anticipated that Ansari X Prize vehicles will provide cheap satellite launches, faster point-to-point passenger travel and same-day international mail delivery. The sky is truly the limit.

For more information on the X Prize, private spaceflight, space tourism and related topics, check out the links on the next page.

What's Next?

According to Space.com: New $50 Million Prize for Private Orbiting Spacecraft, the next big thing in private-spaceflight competition is America's Space Prize -- and this one’s for $50 million. The race is to "build an orbital vehicle capable of carrying up to seven astronauts to an orbital outpost by the end of the decade."

And NASA's getting in on the private spaceflight action, too. The government organization, through its Centennial Challenges division, plans to offer cash awards -- anywhere from $250,000 to $30 million -- for a wide range of space-related achievements including soft lunar landings.

Source: Space.com

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