White Knight Two is the follow-on to White Knight One. It is bigger, more powerful and can carry the larger SpaceShipTwo rocketship that will carry paying tourists on a suborbital flight. The first customer/operator is Sir Richard Branson and his specially formed Virgin Galactic company. The first SS2 is named Eve, after Branson's mother. The first SS2 was christened VSS (Virgin Space Ship) Enterprise (cue the Star Trek music). Branson expects to have a fleet of six SS2s in operation from the New Mexico Spaceport in a few short years. Burt Rutan, whose company Scaled Composites (now part of Northrop Grumman) built both vehicles, foresees a market for 40 to 50 SS2s. Commercial space tourism is on the cusp of reality.
It was a special thrill to see WK2 make a fly-by at this year's Edwards AFB open house. Not only did it do an nice 360 degree photo pass, but it landed and went on static display next to WK1.
Since I was at the South Base media site, I got these images of WK2 as it passed overhead. The first shot shows the art on the unside of the wing and fuselages. The second photo is a top-rear quarter view that highlights the arched center wing section where SS2 will be carried. Again, another in a long line of weirdly neat designs from the house of Rutan.
Incidentally, the silhouettes on the bottom of both fuselages are those of historically significant flying machines. They are, in order from the aft-most image: Icarus; the Wright Flyer; the Spirit of St. Louis; The Bell X-1; Boeing 707; Grumman Lunar Lander and finally Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne.
Okay, I'm going through withdrawal...it's time for some more airplane pictures.
The fascinating thing about Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites company is the wild and weird shapes they come up with in their aero designs. They are very organic-looking and almost alien. But it's the wonderfully curved lines and flowing shapes that really appeal to me. In some ways it's as appealing as the 1930s designs with their cross between art deco and streamline modernism. They all project a sensuality you can almost feel.
The close-up of White Knight One, above, shot at this year's Edwards AFB Open House media day, exudes all of that and more. In particular the round windows give an exotic, almost insectoid appearance to the crew area and cockpit. It definitely has a high coolness factor - heightened in this case by the humorous pitot tube covers: a pair of Jack-in-the-Box Jack heads; one on either side of the nose. One can clearly state that unlike Bo, who don't know Diddley, or someone who doesn't know Jack, Scaled and Rutan most decidedly DO know Jack!
I wonder if they could get a sponsorship for that?
As long as we're on the subject of space vehicles, there was one significant space-related event I did manage to witness in person. That was Scaled Composites' first flight into space with their X-Prize entry, SpaceShipOne. The Ansari X-Prize was a contest set up to stimulate private venture expansion into space. The first team that could successfully launch a vehicle to a 100 kilometer altitude (about 60 miles high), land and relaunch within a two week span would win the $10 million prize. On 27 June 2004, Burt Rutan's team at Scaled Composites completed SpaceShipOne's flight test phase by taking the craft to an altitude of 62 miles. They would later win the prize with successful back-to-back flights on 29 September and 4 October 2004. Incidentally, 4 October was the 47th anniversary of the Soviet's launch of the first man-made satellite, Sputnik.
I was fortunate enough to see that June test flight. It was like a giant block party at the Mojave Airport home of Scaled Composites, just down the road from historic Edwards AFB. Thousands of people showed up in the wee hours of the morning to witness the dawn takeoff of the White Knight mothership, with SpaceShipOne hanging from its belly (above photo). After reaching launch altitude, White Knight released SpaceShipOne and the small craft ignited its rocket motor and streaked upwards. Aside from a control glitch which caused the vehicle to corkscrew through several revolutions on its ascent, the flight was deemed a success as it broke 62 miles, the first privately built and sponsored spacecraft to do so. The smooth landing, as seen in the photo below, signaled the start of a grand celebration by all on the ground as we all knew we had seen history made that morning. It was truly glorious!
White Knight Two is the follow-on to White Knight One. It is bigger, more powerful and can carry the larger SpaceShipTwo rocketship that will carry paying tourists on a suborbital flight. The first customer/operator is Sir Richard Branson and his specially formed Virgin Galactic company. The first SS2 is named Eve, after Branson's mother. The first SS2 was christened VSS (Virgin Space Ship) Enterprise (cue the Star Trek music). Branson expects to have a fleet of six SS2s in operation from the New Mexico Spaceport in a few short years. Burt Rutan, whose company Scaled Composites (now part of Northrop Grumman) built both vehicles, foresees a market for 40 to 50 SS2s. Commercial space tourism is on the cusp of reality.
