If Armadillos Could Fly

Well, they can!!

I would like to join with space enthusiasts everywhere to give my most enthusiastic congratulations to Armadillo Aerospace for winning Level 1 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge today. To win Level 1, you have to launch a rocket from one pad, fly to 50 meters altitude, hover for 90 seconds, and land at another pad 100 meters away. Then you have to make a similar flight with the same vehicle back to the first pad. Sound simple? It's not! It's taken them several years to win, and no one else has even come close. Level 2 is harder still. You have to stay airborne for 180 seconds on each flight, and the second landing pad has boulders and craters just like the lunar surface. Armadillo will try to win Level 2 tomorrow.

Over the past few years I have often referred to Armadillo as the poster boys of amateur rocketry. I always meant that in the best possible way. Founded by John Carmack, creator of Doom and other famous video games, they started building rockets in a garage on the weekends eight years ago. Starting with ungainly little spider-like vehicles, look at what they have achieved! They have built engines for NASA and the Air Force. This year they won the contract to provide the rocket engines for the Rocket Racing League's airplane fleet. And not only did they win the NGLLC today, but Armadillo and Rocket Racing League announced they will form a joint venture with the state of New Mexico to build and fly passenger-carrying suborbital rocket vehicles over the next couple of years. Armadillo will be building the hardware.

So Armadillo Aerospace is all grown up now. They are poster boys no more. To John Carmack & co. I say: You guys are top flight professionals in my book from now on! Congratulations on your Rocket Racer contract, on your new joint venture announced today, and again on your level 1 win. Here’s hoping for a level 2 win tomorrow!

Space Tourism

The space tourism market seems to really be heating up. So far, most of the press has gone to Virgin Galactic, the high-profile company launched by Sir Richard Branson. They recently unveiled their design for SpaceShipTwo, pictured above. Branson is working with Burt Rutan, who built SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004. Rutan won the $10 million prize by building a vehicle that flew twice in a two week period to an altitude greater than 100 km, which is generally regarded as the edge of space.


There are other companies planning to offer suborbital joyrides, of course. But one of the more credible efforts was announced just yesterday by XCOR Aerospace, a small company that has been building rocket engines and rocket planes for almost ten years. Yesterday they revealed their plans for the Lynx (above), a two seater rocket plane that will fly from an ordinary runway on rocket power and climb to 61 km. They have even received some funding from the Air Force, which is interested in encouraging the development of technologies that make it easier to get into space and back routinely and on short notice.

You can already buy a ticket from Virgin Galactic, although not yet from XCOR. The price? Only $200,000! Well, yeah, did I mention you better be rich if you want to fly in space? They say the prices will come down, though. :-)