|
Anticipating a your site getting Slashdotted, or succuming to the Digg effect? Mirror your site for free with LynxCache.
Look! In the Sky. It’s a Rocket Racer. - New York Times
mirror of http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/sports/othersports/14rocket.html?_r=2
Look! In the Sky. It's a Rocket Racer. - New York Times
Skip to article [1]
Get Home Delivery [2]
Log In [3]
Register Now [4]
Home Page [5]
My Times [6]
Today\'s Paper [7]
Video [8]
Most Popular [9]
Times Topics [10]
[11]
Sports
All NYT
[12]
OTHER SPORTS [13]
World [14]
U.S. [15]
N.Y. / Region [16]
Business [17]
Technology [18]
Science [19]
Health [20]
Sports [21]
Baseball [22]
Pro Football [23]
College Football [24]
Pro Basketball [25]
College Basketball [26]
Hockey [27]
Soccer [28]
Golf [29]
Tennis [30]
Other Sports [31]
Opinion [32]
Arts [33]
Style [34]
Travel [35]
Jobs [36]
Real Estate [37]
Autos [38]
LOOK! IN THE SKY. IT’S A ROCKET RACER.
Rocket Racing
The planes the league will use are based on a small jet sold by Velocity Aircraft, a
league-owned company in Florida.
Sign In to E-Mail or Save This [39]
Print [40]
[41] Reprints [42]
[43]
By JOHN SCHWARTZ [44] Published: April 14, 2008
The racers may finally be reaching the starting line.
The Rocket Racing League, a long-promised attempt to create a kind of Nascar [45] of the
skies, will hold its first exhibition races this year, its founders said.
The races are promised as a kind of living video game -- but louder -- with a virtual
raceway laid out in the sky that will be visible on projection screens at the site of each
event.
Racers in rocket-powered aircraft will fly four laps around a five-mile "track" at
anywhere from 150 feet to 1,500 feet above the ground. The planes, designed to fly at 340
miles an hour, will start side by side, two at a time. The pilots include professional
test pilots who received their training in the military and a former astronaut.
As pilots follow the course, spectators will be able to see alternate views from remote
cameras and the cockpits. The league has signed up six teams so far.
"We're taking the business of auto racing and the business of air shows and we're
combining them," said Granger Whitelaw, the league's chief executive and a partner in
professional auto racing teams. The races will consist of four heats, each of which will
take about 15 minutes, he said.
The announcements are to be made at a news conference planned for Monday at the Yale Club
in Midtown Manhattan.
The planes the league will use are based on a small jet sold by Velocity Aircraft, a
league-owned company in Florida. The planes will be modified to handle a rocket engine
that burns liquid oxygen and kerosene.
The engines should be loud enough to satisfy the decibel-hungry fans of racing and air
shows, Whitelaw said, and produce a bright 10-to-15-foot flame.
The engines will come from two companies, Whitelaw said: Xcor Aerospace of Mojave,
Calif., and Armadillo Aerospace of Mesquite, Tex. Armadillo was founded by John Carmack, a
high-tech businessman who created successful video games, including Doom and Quake.
The first public taste of rocket racing will take place Aug. 1 and Aug. 2 in Oshkosh,
Wis., Whitelaw said, at the annual Experimental Aircraft Association air show. It will
involve two of the sleek aircraft developed for the league. The racers will also perform
at air shows in Nevada and New Mexico. (More information is available at
rocketracingleague.com [46].)
Competition should begin in 2009, the founders said.
That is quite a bit later than the league planned. Rocket Racing was announced in 2005,
and the company released animations showing what a race might look like, with plenty of
swooping and blazing rockets. The founders said then that the first races would be held in
2006.
The league's plans have faltered in the interim. A video game based on the races that
the founders said would be produced has not emerged, and one of its original teams,
Leading Edge Rocket Racing, dropped out last year, issuing a statement that suggested the
league was in disarray.
"Some of the things took longer than we had anticipated," Whitelaw said. He added,
"We're 15 months behind where I thought we would be, which is not too shabby."
The league's co-founder, Peter Diamandis, served as chairman of the X Prize Foundation
[47], which awarded the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 for the first privately
financed human flight to space. Diamandis said in an e-mail interview that "most pioneers
who enter this business are, typically, optimists, and tend to believe things can be
accomplished faster than it really takes."
The league, he said, fits into a broader goal of "making space a firsthand experience"
for people, and driving down the cost of getting to space through commercial ventures.
Whitelaw stressed that the league was a business. It will patent technological
innovations on its racers, like safety features, in hopes of making money off them should
they make their way into general aviation, and it will try to build profits out of
television and merchandising rights. The company will also sell conventional jet-engine
versions of the Velocity racer, he said.
Diamandis said, "If we do our job right, many of these new technologies will end up in
both space-related hardware and general aviation -- just like technologies pioneered in
Formula and Indy Racing end up in the cars we drive."
He acknowledged that flying rockets involved the risk of accidents and death, an issue
that has raised questions about the viability of space tourism. Racing, however, is a
different arena, with a higher level of accepted risk, he said. More Articles in Sports
[48] Need to know more? 50% off home delivery of The Times. [49]
TIPS
To find reference information about the words used in this article, double-click on any
word, phrase or name. A new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia
entry.
RELATED SEARCHES
Airlines and Airplanes [50] Add Alert [51]
More Articles in Sports [52] [89] [90]
nytimes.com/theater [91] [92]
MORGAN FREEMAN IN "THE COUNTRY GIRL" [93]
Also in Theater:
Harvey Fierstein in "A Catered Affair" [94]
David Hyde Pierce in "Curtains" [95]
Laurence Fishburne in "Thurgood" [96]
Advertisements
All the news that's fit to personalize.
In a world of second opinions, get the facts first.
Inside NYTimes.com
Opinion [100]
Art & Design [101]
Politics [102]
Opinion [103]
U.S. [104]
Health [105]
[106]
Op-Ed Contributor: Abolish All ‘Taxes’ [107]
[108]
A Gigantic Job For Window Fixers [109]
[110]
Clinton’s Dedicated And Often Blunt Promoter [111]
[112]
[113]
[114]
Donors And Souvenirs Fund A Costly Visit [115]
[116]
Who Are We? Coming Of Age On Antidepressants [117]
Home [118]
World [119]
U.S. [120]
N.Y. / Region [121]
Business [122]
Technology [123]
Science [124]
Health [125]
Sports [126]
Opinion [127]
Arts [128]
Style [129]
Travel [130]
Jobs [131]
Real Estate [132]
Automobiles [133]
Back to Top [134]
Copyright 2008 [135] The New York Times Company [136]
Privacy Policy [137]
Search [138]
Corrections [139]
RSS [140]
First Look [141]
Help [142]
Contact Us [143]
Work for Us [144]
Site Map [145]
All content mirrored on this site is generated from the open-source browser, Lynx. Ads are included simply to pay for our bandwidth in supplying this free service. All content is copyright the original owner (see mirror of: in the header).
|
