The small desert town of Mojave, Calif., is bracing for a close
encounter with space history later this month as the first privately
funded rocket plane attempts to soar to the edge of space.
Oddly, this tourist stopover for people en route to the largest open-pit
borax mine, as well as nearby gold and silver mining ghost towns from
the 1890s, is also a nexus for technology and innovation. A dry and
sandy expanse of remote landscape, Mojave has historic roots that run
deep through decades of American aerospace progress.
To the east of Mojave is Edwards Air Force Base, home for legendary
pilots and milestone-making aircraft. The NASA X-15 rocket plane, for
instance, roared to life high above the Mojave landscape for nearly a
decade, piercing the sky to attain speed and altitude records starting
in the late 1950s.
Fast forward to the 21st century and Mojave Airport, also known as the
Civilian Flight Test Center - and soon to be the first inland spaceport.
It has taken center stage in making public space travel both real and
reasonable.
Ground-bound majority-
Mojave Airport is homeport for Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne,
presently being readied for a June 21 mission to become the world's
first commercial piloted space vehicle. If all goes by the book, the
craft will rocket to 62 miles (100 kilometers) altitude above Earth,
flying a suborbital trajectory above the commercial airport, followed by
a glide back to a runway stop.
Call it a space travel version of early aeronautics: A mix of white
scarf, goggles and a rudder stick gripped by sweaty palms.
The point is to demonstrate that the space frontier is open to private
enterprise. More to the point is that SpaceShipOne could signal a
breakthrough in access to space for the "ground-bound" majority.
Meanwhile, the Mojave Chamber of Commerce is doing city business by
tagging the June 21 public invited event as "Space Day." A Space Day
fundraiser form has been made available for nonprofit organizations in
Mojave and California City to file in order to be considered for
participating in the sale of souvenirs and food during the upcoming
flight of SpaceShipOne. A "mandatory meeting" at the local Camelot Golf
Course was recently held for all organizations interested in
participating.
Woodstock of space?
At the epicenter of action, Mojave is already booked. So too are
neighboring towns. Motels, hotels, recreational vehicle parking
operators, restaurants, convenience stores and the like are preparing
for the onslaught of ogling out-of-towners.
"Landing SpaceShipOne safely is the No. 1 issue on our mind," said Bob
Rice, director of airfield operations at the Mojave Airport.
"We're dealing with parking locations right now. We can fit only so many
cars. As soon as we got wind of the date when SpaceShipOne was going to
fly and this was going to be a public event . I immediately opened up
what I call the War Room and started assigning duties to everybody,"
Rice told Space.com.
He said the key is fast turnaround: transforming a commercial airport to
a spaceport, launching and landing a spaceship, then reverting quickly
back to a general aviation airport.
With the National Space Society hosting an all-night rave in celebration
of the launch, the event is taking on Woodstock feel, with screaming
rockets taking the place of the screaming guitars from the 1969 pop
festival and concert. "We've got plans for everything," Rice said. "And
yes, there will be T-shirts."
Critical bridge
Rice is no stranger to spaceships slashing through local sky. He was the
senior Air Force person accountable for handling NASA space shuttle
landings at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1990s.
Rice helped write and revalidate shuttle procedures at Edwards -
including how to deal with accidents. "Landing spaceships is not new to
me," Rice said, "but they each present their own unique circumstances."
Scaled Composites
SpaceShipOne pilot Mike Melvill, right, describes a=A0May 13=A0test
flight at the Mojave Airport as Scaled Composites chief Burt Rutan and
crew chief Steve Losey listen. The edge of the rocket plane's wing,
covered with colored strips to measure aerodynamic heating, is visible
behind Melvill's head.
How best to manage the crowd of public spectators, invited VIPs and
media is being mapped out, as are the preparations for any "incident"
involving the piloted rocket plane, Rice said.
This month's flight is a critical bridge to future back-to-back flights
that SpaceShipOne must carry out to claim the $10 million Ansari X
Prize. That cash purse will go to the first team that privately
finances, builds and launches a craft capable of hauling three
individuals up to 62 miles (100 kilometers) altitude, returning safely
to Earth, then duplicating the flight in the span of two weeks.
SpaceShipOne's upcoming excursion to the heights "is not a dry run .
it's a wet run," Rice observed. "It will be a precursor to what the X
Prize flights will be like. Much of our planning and preparation will be
the same," he said.
"I never thought I'd be in this position now," Rice said. "It just
hasn't sunk in yet . this is awesome."
Flight day
Stuart Witt, general manager of the Mojave Airport, is geared up for
action. He has already posted an advisory notice to all concerned:
"Mojave Airport will be engaged in spaceport operations June 21st with
potential extensions through June 22nd. Aircraft will be PPR (prior
permission required) for landing beginning June 18th. ."
On flight day, the White Knight carrier plane will lift SpaceShipOne
from the runway. An hour later, after climbing to approximately 50,000
feet in altitude just east of Mojave, the mother ship releases the
rocket ship into a glide.
The spaceship's pilot - still to be announced - is to fire the craft's
rocket motor for about 80 seconds, reaching three times the speed of
sound (Mach 3) in vertical ascent. During the pull-up and climb, the
pilot will feel forces three to four times the gravity tug here on
Earth.
SpaceShipOne then coasts up to its goal height of 62 miles before
falling back to Earth. The vehicle's wing and tail are then canted into
a high-drag configuration. That slows the craft in the upper atmosphere
and automatically aligns it along a flight path. Upon re-entry, the
pilot reconfigures the ship back to a normal glider, touching down like
an airplane on the same Mojave Airport runway from which it departed.
All in all, from taxi to rocket ship touchdown, the mission is slated to
last roughly one hour and 25 minutes.
Suborbital one-upmanship
SpaceShipOne's private trek to the edge of space will earn its pilot
"astronaut wings" - a feat that mimics several of the half-plane,
half-rocket flights of the X-15 decades ago.
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