SpaceShipTwo: VSS Enterprise

Abstract

The image in Figure 4.1 is of the space probe New Horizons which was launched in 2006. Its destination is the dwarf planet Pluto where it will arrive in June 2015. You may be wondering why the image is included in a chapter about commercial spaceflight but this section explains all. After the whirlwind surrounding the X-Prize had died down, there was a plan to continue flying SpaceShipOne on a regular basis. In fact Rutan planned to fly it once a week for five months, figuring that with that sort of flight experience it would be possible to present a business plan with a high degree of confidence. If Rutan’s plans had been realized, another 44 passengers could now count themselves as Virgin Galactic astronauts, but it wasn’t to be. Not long after the winning X-Prize flight, Rutan received a letter from Valerie Neal, a curator for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum. In the letter, Neal expressed the National Air and Space Museum’s interest in acquiring SpaceShipOne to present it in the Milestones of Flight gallery (Figure 4.2), where it would join the Spirit of St Louis and the Bell X-1 that broke the sound barrier. Rutan consulted Allen and, after some discussion, it was agreed SpaceShipOne would be transferred to the museum. So, after presenting the historic vehicle at the Oshkosh air show, Melvill took off for Dulles Airport, where an air traffic controller noticed an object that looked suspiciously like a missile slung underneath WhiteKnight and ordered Melvill to turn around. Melvill explained the flight had been pre-authorized but the air traffic controller was having none of it until some airline pilots on the same frequency advised the controller that Melvill was the guy delivering SpaceShipOne to the museum. And the Pluto link? New Horizons carries a small piece cut from SpaceShipOne: installed on the lower inside deck of the interplanetary probe, the two-sided inscription reads, on the front [1]: