Diary of Tim Strand's trip to Mojave to see the first private launch of a manned space ship
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Mojave California is a 300 mile drive from San Jose. Head down the central valley and turn east at Bakersfield, climb up through Techapi pass and drop down to Mojave. Mojave is a place you might go through, but never to. Although I had been through it many years ago, I didn't remember anything about it other than its general location. As I came up Tehachapi grade I was greeted by hundreds of rapidly spinning windmills strewn across the hillsides. It was a impressive sight but the significance of it didn't sink in until I pulled into Mojave airport, pardon me, "spaceport" as they like to be called, on the downslope side of the pass about 6:30pm. The wind was whipping up the dust, snapping flags to attention and grabbing anything that wasn't tied down, flinging it quickly out of sight. Then I remembered that wind was a part of life in Mojave, but that it was usually calm early in the morning, before the solar generator of the desert started heating up the air and sucking the cooler air from the central valley through the pass. When I asked at the entrance, when the wind would die down, I was told "When we turn off the fans", nodding back towards the mountsides covered with wind turbines. I offered to take over his job at the entrance while he went and did that, but he declined. The camping parking lot had maybe 100 RV's and a couple dozen tents. I found myself and spot and started to set up camp, wondering whether my cheap, old 3 man dome tent would stand up to this wind. I had to stake down half the floor before putting it up just to keep it from blowing away during the setup process. With a little effort, I got it up and put the heaviest stuff I had inside to help anchor it. I had to leave the fly off because it was getting whipped to death. The tent seemed to hold even though occasional gusts would practically flatten the dome.
At this point I took a walk to see the viewing area for the morning launch. This was a nice stroll down a paved taxiway that ran along our parking areas to the main taxiway and runway. It was a beautiful evening with comfortable temperatures and the warm wind blowing. The taxiway was filled with people out strolling as I was; couples young and old, families with their kids skipping and running in circles, and groups of friends, all of whom had come to share this experience. It was like an evening on a Spanish paseo and with the setting sun, every bit as romantic in spite of the ugly hangars and old airplanes taking the place of old city walls and buildings.
Sunday Evening Strollers
By the time I got back to my tent (which thankfully and somewhat surprisingly was still there), the warm wind had undone the work of the watering trucks that had been running earlier and the dust was blowing in a sheet across the parking lot. At one point I noticed a bird, maybe a lark, flying into the wind, beating his wings as hard as he could, but his ground speed was zero. If I had been closer, I could have walked up behind him and grabbed him. Given the wind and the blowing dust, I decided to eat my dinner in the car and not to drive into town for dessert as I had originally planned for fear my tent might not be there when I returned. After eating, I got out my book and tried to read, putting off crawling into my tent until the last possible moment. The wind was bouncing the car around enough that it made it difficult to concentrate if not to actually read. At one point a fellow came by passing out flyers for the "National Space Society", trying to find potential new members. He said they were hosting an all night party in town, with food, music, and after noticing I was an unaccompanied male, "girls". I must be showing my age, because I opted to stay with my tent and try to get some sleep! Before turning in, I made one last trip to the "facilities". Standing in one of the port-a-potties which was being buffeted by the wind, I wondered if I was about to be a victim of an outhouse upending. I wasn't, but the next morning, 3 of the 4 were laying on their side. Whether the wind did that or "other forces", I don't know.
I had taken some earplugs with me because I anticipated being surrounded by noisy generators from all the RV's. There were in fact lots of generators running, the noisest being for the temporary lights they had installed. Here the wind was a help. It drowned out the generator noise and everything else! Since I enjoy listening to the wind, I actually slept more than I expected and didn't mind the time I wasn't sleeping, except for the sides of the tent slapping me on my head and feet. The wind finally died down around 3am and I slept even better.
Monday, June 21, 2004
I got up a little before 5 am, ate my breakfast and "broke camp". The temperature was comfortable and the sky was starting to lighten up.
Cars streaming into the parking lot early Monday morning
The sun had to make climb up over the mountains, so it didn't make its appearance until about 6 am. The sunrise over the mountains in the east was as beautiful the previous night's sunset.
Sunrise
I loaded up my gear for the 1/2 mile hike to the viewing area. Besides 2 cameras, binoculars, hat, water and a snack, I was carrying a stepstool. That turned out to be a very clever move. Since there was no grandstand, just flat ground to stand on, you couldn't see much unless you were in the front row. But with my stepstool I had a good view of the taxiway and runway where most of the action was. Mojave airport may be mainly known for being a graveyard for old jetliners which are parked all over the grounds, and perhaps for being a good glider port given the reliable winds. The surroundings are scenic in a stark way with the mountains which are again sprinkled with wind turbines on this side of the pass.
Preflight crowd.
The rest of the day's proceedings seemingly went off with the reliable precision of the sunrise. A couple of helicopters were in the air already when I got to the viewing area, checking that the airspace and surrounding ground areas were clear. A little before 6:30, when the space ship was scheduled for takeoff, the first chase plane, a little acrobatic prop plane, came out on the taxiway and took off. Next was a small, maybe 10 seater prop plane. The next was an odd looking plane designed by Burt Rutan.
Chase Planes
After that came the White Knight with its outrigger landing gear and with SpaceShipOne tucked under it's belly.
WhiteKnight and SpaceShipOne come down the taxiway.
The cockpits of both the mother ship and the space ship are adorned with lots of little portholes rather than one big windshield because they are easier to make such that they can withstand the rigors of a space flight. As they taxied by, arms waved out of one of the small portals on each of the planes to the cheers of the crowd. Without further delay, they headed to the runway and into the air. Another example of the stark differences between this venture and a NASA launch where delays are built into the countdown process because they know they are inevitable.
The launch of private spaceflight!
A little while later, after having given the heavily loaded White Knight a good head start, a jet that acted as the high altitude chase plane took off. The White Knight has to carry SpaceShipOne to an altitude of about 50,000 feet. They do this by spiraling upwards, circling around the airport as they climb. This made for great spectator viewing. It takes about an hour for them to reach the release altitude.
Some of the crowd was as interesting as the planes.
You could visually follow the planes for quite a while, especially with binoculars. About the time they were no longer directly visible, they hit an altitude where the White Knight started leaving a contrail, so you could follow the spiral a while longer with that. Eventually that faded out and we just had to wait for the release. When they reach the desired altitude, the White Knight drops SpaceShipOne. After a short delay, SpaceShipOne fires its rocket, blasting it into space (if all goes well). By the time of the release, about 7:30, the sun had risen well above the mountains, but was still fairly low in the sky. We were directed to look below the sun for the rocket blast of SpaceShipOne. Right on schedule, the plume of a contrail appeared halfway between the sun and the horizon, directly under the sun. As another cheer went up from crowd, the contrail shot straight up, apparently piercing the sun and continued until it almost reached the zenith and then abruptly ended.
SpaceShipOne blasts off!
From the loudspeaker we got the news that the pilot reported everything was AOK, a report that sounds overly positive given later descriptions of the flight. After the rocket shuts down, the pilot has about 3 minutes of weightlessnes as he goes through the apogee of the flight and then starts coming down again. As he starts his descent, he has to flip up the tail sections of the plane. This brakes the plane, ending weightlessness, and is supposed to assure that the plane automatically goes into its desired attitude for re-entry. The SpaceShipOne gets to at least Mach 3 at some point in its flight. Presumably it's fastes speed is at the end of it's rocket boost phase, although it could be as it's falling back to earth. We did hear what seemed to be a sonic boom sometime after the rocket blast, but I don't know if that came from SpaceShipOne or the jet chase plane (or if it indeed was a sonic boom). After SpaceShipOne has re-entered the atmosphere and gotten to an altitude and speed where it can glide, the tail sections are brought back down to the normal flight position and the plane glides back to earth. This is something of a repeat of the first part of the flight, except now the plane is spiraling down rather than up, and it isn't under the protective wing of it's mother ship. We got some more spectacular views as the ship flew overhead with the 4 chase planes in formation around it.
SpaceShipOne gliding home.
It got down to where it did one fairly low altitude pass over our heads and then the next round it headed for the runway. It was a great sight to see the plane come in for a smooth landing right in front of us.
Touchdown!
Even the landing gear is strange on this plane. There are wheels on either side of the fuselage, under the wings as with most planes. But the front landing gear is a skid that serves to brake the plane on the runway. I think it was this front landing gear that collapsed on one of the early flights, sending the plane skidding off the runway, into the desert in a cloud of dust. Now for the first time, we had to wait impatiently as they hooked a tow truck up to the ship and took it over by the hangar. There they extricated the pilot (the door is also just a small porthole) and did whatever else they had to do. For one, they had to do a preliminary inspection of the plane. The pilot had heard a bang during the rocket phase and apparently something was seen dangling from the ship as it came down or after it landed. I haven't heard what that was. They may have had to take out any fuel that was left, although I suspect it was all gone. Preliminary reports said that the burn didn't last as long as expected, one of many little gliches in the flight. This may have been part of the reason he also missed his reentry point by some 25 miles according to reports. The official altitude they reached was about 100.1 km. That was not a lot of margin from the 100 km altitide required to qualify as "space". The rocket fuel is another of the interesting aspects of this ship. The fuel is a cylinder of a form of pentabutadiene, basically rubber. This is quite stable, safe and non-toxic by itself. It needs an oxidizer to burn. To supply that, they use a tank of liquid nitrous oxide, another material that is safe and non-toxic. Laughing gas and burning rubber, quite a difference from NASA's fuels. When they open the valve between the nitrous oxide and the rubber, the rubber ignites and burns furiously. The nice thing is that they can shut is down just by closing the nitrous oxide valve.
In any event, as we waited for them to complete all their post-flight inspections, the chase planes did a couple of nice flyby's, adding to the days' thrills.
Goodbye from WhiteKnight and the chase planes.
Finally, Mike Melville, the 63 year old pilot, climbed up on top of SpaceShipOne and they towed him past the cheering crowd, a wonderful end to an exciting day (and it wasn't even 9am yet!).
The returning hero.
After buying a few souvenirs, I climbed into my car and headed home, a much longer and much less eventful trip than the one I had just witnessed.
Details of the flight only came out later. Apparently the ship started yawing 90 degrees to the left and right shortly after the rocket started. The pilot almost aborted but was able to bring things under control and finished his flight. At another point, he heard a loud bang and there were rumors of visible damage to the spaceship on its return, but nothing concrete. I think I am just as glad I wasn't on that flight although if they had given me the opportunity, I might have taken it.
Tim Strand
6/21/2004
Here are some related links that may be of interest:
The web site for Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, makers of SpaceShipOne.
The "official souvenir" web site.
News reports on the voyage from the San Jose Mercury News.(This is a large image file!)