Points of Interest | Green Energy News

May 16, 2004 – Vol.9 No.8

POINTS OF INTEREST.

A weekly collection of websites worth visiting.

Soon, possibly by the time you read this, a private company, not a government-backed entity, will send a spaceship with a crew of three to the edge of space, hopefully twice in a two-week period.

The company that will accomplish this is the Mojave, California-based Scaled Composites/

The driving force and founder of Scaled Composites is Burt Rutan who is truly a modern-day Thomas Edison. Rutan’s genius is not in things electric, it’s in the flow of air and the ability to build things that are light, efficient, strong and safe. His company builds prototype aircraft out of composite materials. And, they are unlike any aircraft you might see parked on the tarmac at your local airport.

But Scaled has not just built prototype aircraft. It has also built prototype concept cars (the body shells only). Those cars were commissioned by Advanced Engineering Staff of General Motors as technology demonstration vehicles. The cars, two of them, were called, appropriately, Ultralite.

Ultralite had room for four adults, excellent handling and, because of its low weight, high fuel efficiency and reduced emissions. The car was specified to also to meet strict crash resistance in front, side and rollover testing.

Under an aggressive schedule, Scaled was able to build two of the body shells of carbon fiber, PVC foam and other composites in less than 12 weeks. Each body shell structural weight, including two doors, front and rear bumpers and interior components, was only 420 lb, within 1 percent of the original structural weight estimate. Structural stiffness tests conducted later by GM showed Ultralite to be considerably stiffer than anything they’s previously tested.

The Ultralite project was completed in 1992 and considered too expensive at the time for mass production. Though expected to get more than 100 miles per gallon, reports indicated that it would get only 62. (Think of mileage it could get today. In the 12 years since Ultralite, mass production technologies for composite construction have been improved as have efficient vehicle drive trains, such as hybrids.)

And where is Ultralite today? Hopefully just collecting dust in GM’s attic, not crushed or shredded.

The trip to the edge of space will be in SpaceShipOne, an all-composite rocket-propelled aircraft. SpaceShipOne will be dropped from high altitude from mother ship White Knight. Scaled, if successful in making the two flights to 100 kilometers (62 miles) in two weeks, will win the $10 million X-Prize for the accomplishment. Visit Scaled Composites at http://www.scaled.com/ (see Projects for Ultralite) and the X-Prize at http://www.xprize.org/ .