http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6230245.stm Good stuff, lets hope it turns into a success, with projects like this and Virgin Galactic going space is getting ever nearer
Fuel? Range? Otherwise, I've seen Disney rides that do better. At least Rutan made LEO even though it was ballistic. Additionally, setting that thing down under power is going to take one hell of a lot of fuel...where they keeping it?
No, SpaceShip One has only managed suborbital thus far. LEO means a low orbit around the earth, which hasn't happened with them yet.
Technically, Rutan made it up high enough for a safe orbit, but he didn't attain orbital velocity. Spaceship 1 did a ballistic arc.
No... he didn't. The lower boundary for LEO is generally assumed to be 200km by convention. Rutan's rig hit a peak altitude of 112km in October of 2004.
LEO means Low Earth Orbit. Spaceship One was a ballistic vehicle. Like Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, all they did was go up and then come back down in a big arc- they never orbitted the Earth. In fact, spaceship one is not capable of attaining orbit in its present form. It would have to be modified to the extent of being a new vehicle, and its life support systems MAJORLY beefed up.
LEOS weren't ballistic (assuming you mean ballistic as in a crazy idea not ballistic as in trajectory)... ok maybe they were ridiculously expensive and had far too short of a lifespan, and required far too many satellites to give coverage... However they are the only hope for low latency satellite internet (at least unless we get light to travel faster somehow). The original concept behind a global field of LEOS was pretty nice if it ever got afloat. Imagine broadband internet ANYWHERE on the globe (it would also extend to phone service etc). And good broadband with decent latency, not the 1000ms satellite stuff we have now.
