SpaceShip1 First space flight

This is my video of the first spaceflight SpaceShipOne, prior to the X-Prize flights. SpaceShipOne was designed by Burt Rutan and Built by Scaled Composites. This was the first civilian manned spaceflight.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• spaceshipone
• rutan
• x-prize
• space
• rocket

[PetrFM]

Space flight and "astronaut" are overly optimistic. For real space flight you must reach orbital speed of 7 km / sec. This is not the case of "Space ship one" which performed only maneuver called ballistic jump.

[gregatragenet]

The internationally recognized boundary of space is the Kármán line, at 100KM from sea level. One of the stills at the beginning of the video is of the FAA awarding Mike Melvil astronaut wings. So if it's good enough for international standards bodies and the US government.... *shrug*

[Zim804]

whats the name of the music?

[gregatragenet]

It's 'Beautiful Strange'. I found it on a somafm stream, and it identified the artist as 'superclub'.. Doing a little research now I think it was mislabeled with the album name as the artist name. I believe the artist is John Digweed.

[tuor1984]

History on film. One day, these courageous men and women taking our first real steps into space will be in books in elementary schools, all around the world.

[melloman134]

yea there is such a thing as sub-orbital space flight...

[PetrFM]

@weirdguy7 Although i hate Russians I have to admit that first REAL astronaut without any doubts about the definition of what "astronaut" is - was Yuriij Gagarin. Gagarin´s Vostok rocket gave him aditional 7 km/sec of speed which made indefinite orbiting around Earth possible - that is the important difference.

[weirdguy7]

@PetrFM Ok, if you don't get to orbit, does that mean that Alan Shepard or Gus Grissom flying the Redstone-Mercury missions don't count as Astronaughts? I seem to recall that Alan Shepard got a president to shake his hand, give him a medal, and a parade down 5th Avenue.

[VIR092]

SpaceShip One and Two are amazing little airplanes, rocket airplanes that is. I'm sure the air up there was very soft, the winds usually die off at around 240,000 feet. A real record for a civil aircraft. Of course any flight activities that go on within the atmosphere (under ~370,000 feet) is aviation, not space flight. But it's damn close. In the U.S. you're known to be an astronaut if you've flown over 264,000 feet, but that is only aorund the Mesopause. Still got about 100,00 feet to go.

[ronpaulspanish]

Wow! I loved the sign: "SpaceshipOne / GovernmentZero"

[datzfast]

@PetrFM actually that you can go to altitude at any speed free fall to orbit is what your think of.

[GameTheory]

I think you did a great job on this video. In the years to come people will look back at this event with, I hope, some sort of reverence and awe. I'm glad your video helped me relive it again.

[flyby7a]

Now that they are getting rid of the space shuttle, will they be using this prototype???

[barthoedemaker]

You can go into space yourself, if your a really good DIY. Just need to build a rigid frame and strap rocket motor.

[quagmire475]

nice, but shit quality