A Look At XCOR's Rocket Development

[selenite0]

Bill Whittle celebrated the Apollo XI anniversary by dropping politics for a bit and visiting XCOR Aerospace to look at their rocket-powered aircraft. Part One of the video looks at XCOR's success in converting conventional aircraft to fly under rocket power. Part Two looks at their Lynx suborbital design. I'm a serious fan of XCOR. I'd met Jeff Greason before he started doing professional rocketry and got a chance to present to his crew in Mojave once. They're taking the best approach to developing new technology--incremental steps, getting a working system they can test and operate at each step. The next step is a custom-built vehicle that'll actually exit the atmosphere. I'm looking forward to seeing it fly.

Comments

[count-01.livejournal.com]

That is wonderfully mad. The kind of madness that led the Wright brothers to invent a nearly-perfect propeller on their third attempt. (the one they flew at Kitty Hawk was almost 85% efficient: not bad for not even having heard of a wind tunnel)

[bitpig.livejournal.com]

But the Wright Brothers did have a wind tunnel -- they built one themselves, in 1901 1.

[count-01.livejournal.com]

Oh, so they did. I never knew that. No wonder they were able to get such good wings built without crashing the first dozen times.

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

Good, solid stuff.

The future is still apparently a "go" on some fronts.

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

I'm forwarding that link to the Aerospace Education Officer in the local Civil Air Patrol squadron. This looks like about three meetings-worth of Current Events, and now we know another site to keep tabs on for future reference.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it!

Um, keep tabs on XCOR's site. PJTV's usual fare is outspoken commentary on politics.