Comments on: Will historic flight launch space tourism?

With Richard Branson poised to go galactic, the days of right-stuff heroics could be long gone.
Photo gallery: SpaceShipOne's historic flight

Roll

If the fairing supporting the engine bent slightly letting the engine thrust become slightly eccentric would that not cause the rolling.

[zaz.net]

Coming to an Airport Near You?

Before you see commerical flights in to space, you will have to get airports ready for the task. Landing a craft from outter orbit takes a lot more pre-planning and ground level coordination. They landed Space Ship One in an isolated airstrip in the middle of the desert.

The X prize should have included a requirement to land the craft at any International airport at least once. If we want space travel to be common place, we need to do the trials in a common way, from commercial airports.

Re: Coming to an Airport Near You?

> The X prize should have included a requirement to land the craft at any International airport

Good lord, that's a terrible idea. One of their competitors' rockets just exploded.

Melvill over-corrected

I watched the video and it appears the ship started rotating one
direction and then changed direction violently. He probably
over-corrected the roll with the thrusters as he was too high for
the rudders to work. What do you think?