If you watch the Discovery Channel show Black Sky which is all about Scaled Composites efforts to win the X Prize, you can see a segment where Burt
Rutan describes the hierarchy of his tiered space program. Then, go to Scaled's site and you'll see that the White Knight and Space Ship One are
Tier One craft...fringe of space, 62 miles up.
Tier Two...low earth orbit.
Tier three...I forget...a little help
and Tier four...again, a little help
but he mentioned four and if that's not enough to get you curioius...
What's going to be next in Burt's bag of tricks?
Scaled has completed 34 manned research aircraft. None were announced until they were ready to fly.
-from Scaled Composite's Web Site
Tier One General FAQ's
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.
-from howstuffworks.com
How SpaceShipOne Works
Inventory of equipment reusable or scalable for orbital and beyond travel:
Hybrid Rocket Propulsion System,
Mobile Propulsion Test Facility, check
Flight Simulator, check
Inertial-Nav Flight Director, check
Mobile Mission Control Center, check
Space Craft Systems, check
Pilot Training Program, check
Flight Test Program, check
During the June press conference, Rutan alluded to a second-generation vehicle that would tote more tourists. “It makes an enormous difference to fly
6 to 10 people,” he noted. SpaceShipOne incorporates a scalable design that could balloon in size without necessitating significant changes to its
shape. Such a craft would not only be larger but would fly higher than SpaceShipOne, to give more “time to unstrap and float around,” Rutan says.
Frank Macklin, an engineer at SpaceDev, a company that built components for SpaceShipOne’s hybrid rocket, says it’s feasible to build a rocket motor
large enough to power a suborbital bus.
-from Popular Science
Liftoff for Space Tourism?
Burt Rutan also said in 2004 "we're heading for orbit sooner than you think".
-from Wikipedia.org
Tier One
If only you could buy stock in Mojave Aerospace Ventures. They're winning the America's Space Prize, I'm confident of it. They have over five
years for crying out loud!
