Categorize this as another unsubstantiated Google rumor, but the word on the street is that Google has acquired SpaceShipOne and is putting it inside building 43 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. No word on the purchase price, or if this was a donation, or why the ship is not staying at the Smithsonian.
SpaceShipOne made headlines in 2004 when it won won the $10 million Ansari X prize. To win the prize, aerospace designer Burt Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen led the first private team to build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to 100 kilometers above the earth’s surface twice within two weeks. In 2005 Rutan and Richard Branson formed a new company to produce a new ship, called SpaceShipTwo, for a new spaceline company, Virgin Galactic.
This rumor is either true or someone has played a very good joke on me. I have independently confirmed that there is some odd construction going on in building 43, although it could be something unrelated. If this is accurate, SpaceShipOne should arrive at Google on Saturday, October 21.
Update: This is getting interesting. A reader emailed to point out that Larry Page is on the board of trustees of the X Prize foundation (see picture, dead center bottom), while a commenter points out that SpaceShipOne is doing just fine at the Smithsonian in Washington DC, thank you very much. If you live in Washington, will you please drop by the Smithsonian tomorrow and see if it is still there? 
More: I will send an iPod shuffle to the first person who sends me a picture of SpaceShipOne taken any time on Saturday, October 21, 2006. You have to verify the date somehow, although if you can’t and the picture turns out to be accurate I’ll honor it. I don’t care if it’s in the Smithsonian or on a crane being lifted into building 43 - I just want to know where it is (bonus points if you get a picture of it while being installed at Google, though). Easiest way to judge this is to have people put it on flickr or somewhere else online and put a link in the comments.
Final Update: Mystery Solved.
I just heard from the grapevine that Google also bought a scale replica of the Death Star made out of cheese.
Yeah, yeah. I’ll post that next.
SpaceShipOne is in the Smithsonian:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.....sonian.jpg
This is obviously a joke. SpaceShipOne is currently at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.
If it were true, it would mark a new low for Google…
Why would google want to buy a plane? … I guess we could have said the same about YouTube
At least YouTube could be justified for business and strategic reasons.
This would be nothing short of corporate excess (if they paid for it) or a PR stunt if they didn’t.
New Low? I disagree. I would see this is as a sign that Google’s sights are set high. To infinity and beyond!
Maybe they should buy Buzz Lightyear too though while they’re at it.
I could really use a new fridge Larry and Serg. Oh and Shauna and I need a new camera for scriggity.
I live in DC, I could confirm this by visiting the air and space museum tommorrow….
… for a price
Mike - just sent you a photo - saw it in DC on Tuesday. ;b
.. It’s probably photoshopped… Nice try though.
Maybe it’s making a stop at the NYC offices first.
It was about time some one outbid Golden Palace.com
picture is legit, although I am trusting him on the date. If anyone goes there tomorrow, please let us know either way.
Unrelated to the rumors of SpaceShipOne… but for the Art Bell fans…are the wooden stairs seen in the board of trustees photo… located in building 40?
next thing you know you will be able to book a flight to sub orbital cyberspace
*ahem* - might want to remove this post mike…………………clearly the good old shuttle is not going away from the Smithsonian as I just saw it down the block…………….
This post needs less rumors and more products, mike!
I believe that the “SpaceShipOne” that you heard about going into Google is actually an exact replica of the vehicle that one the Ansari X Prize on October 4, 2004. There is also one in the Bakersfeild airport.
Another board member of the X Prize Foundation, Anousheh Ansari (title sponsor of the space prize) recently went to the Space Station… she was the first female/iranian space tourist. She was also the first person to blog from space.. and detailed here voyage on her space blog… http://spaceblog.xprize.org/ She also called Google campus while she was on the Space Station… http://googleblog.blogspot.com.....space.html
This is getting so silly…
no, it’s actually simple.
Google is preparing to go to another planet and conquer it too :p
But wait, Google’s plan of Earth domination isn’t finish yet and they’re planning on dominating a new planet!!
Given that their profit almost doubled in a year it seems like an appropriate acquisition.
To the moon, Alice!
Hahaha. This is brilliant. I wonder how will it help Google. Tourist attraction. LOL
To boldly go……
Why not just by Richard Branson instead?
There’s a full-size, functioning replica of SpaceShipOne (built by the same team) at the OshKosh EAA museum, too.
Once again Michael gets a great scoop on Google. Apparently on a night that will go down in the records of silicon valley lore a poker party was held with several heavily intoxicated billionaires. Paul Allen being the most intoxicated put everything on the table including a few Da Vinci notebooks and Space Ship One.
For now the space ship is not moving but I did manage to get a shot of the exchange taking place:
http://www.seanpercival.com/spaceshipone.php
oh dear
i don’t think so
Scaled has made several mock ups (mostly they just supplied fiberglass parts made for the original SS! molds). The EAA has one in Oshkosh with working wing actuators hanging in the museum and Richard Branson was seen with one at the Javits during the Virgin Galactic rollout of the SS2’s cabin mock up.
Perhaps this is what Google bought?
Here’s the latest photo I could dig up on Flickr– taken on October 19th. Tried Smithsonian webcams, but they are only available in the hangar.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/footy/275037665/
http://www.gearthblog.com/blog....._phot.html
Is this picture OK for the iPod shuffle?
Oh, and there’s another mock up at the XCup right now.
I swear to God, that picture of the X PRIZE foundation with Larry in it is shot at the lobby in B.42 of Googleplex, next to the No Name cafe.
I saw what looked like spaceship one on a the back of a semi-truck at the freeway exit at 101 and Shoreline in Mountain View probably 8 weeks ago. This is the exit to get to google, but it is also only one exit past NASA Ames Research Center.
Joe — I saw SS1 on the same bay area flatbed truck that you saw it on. It was on my commute route, so I watched it on 880 (shocked to see it uncovered). I followed it to 237, 101 and when the driver stopped at the Moffett (north) offramp, I asked him if he was there to put SS1 at NASA (since that’s the exit where he had stopped). He said no, he was on his way north to take SS1 to Paul Allen’s place in Washington for a party. I had first seen him going south on 880, so that didn’t make sense — but I figured he had no reason to lie to me. Anyway, I’m headed to Mountain View today (I work there) so I’ll stop by Google and hope to see it (or a mockup) in a couple hours…
http://flickr.com/photos/20709518@N00/274954042/ - Theres a picture of it from yesterday (Friday).
Another picture http://flickr.com/photos/omegaman70/274861072/ that reads “The vehicle that started it all–or at least a replica of it. The real SpaceShipOne now hangs in the Smithsonian. This replica lets visitors see how small the record-breaking suborbital craft really is.”
It’s there! Just scooped some pix of Building 43 at 12:05 Pacific Time. Sitting on a flatbed with a crane ready to lift it up and over!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59666465@N00/?saved=1
Cheers from Sunnyvale and happy to be a TechCrunch reader! (looking forward to that iPod!)
I’m not trying to talk my way out of an iPod, but there’s a chance it’s a copy. I walked right up to it and it is very clean, even the exhaust outlets. Now that I’ve entered my claim for the iPod, I will now go back to Building 43 and take a closer look.
Karl, lies do not become you.
SpaceShipOne is still in DC, I was at the air and space museum today and took a movie of it today with a copy of the Washington Post held up next to it. Google HAS NOT purchased the SpaceShipOne according to the lady at the info desk, who was horrified at the rumor. Little does she know it was purchased by Searchles (we pulled some of our Washington DC strings) and will be soon transported to Searchles HQ.
here’s the video:
http://www.searchles.com/links.....zuddvcwno4
thanks
Chris Seline
founder/cto
Searchles
Washington DC
I was at the Air and Space Museum day before yesterday, 19 Oct, and took this picture with my cellphone:
http://members.verizon.net/~vze27dkg/SS1.jpg
Spaceship One is definitely in its place here in DC. Prime location, too, right next to the Wright Flyer (when they hang it back up; it’s down being restored right now), just above the Apollo 11 command module, and smack in between The Spirit of St. Louis and the Bell X-1. Good company.
Mike White
Sterling, VA
Karl D, you and I are in a horse race for that shuffle. Your post was at 12:34, and I emailed my cameraphone picture just before then. Michael, whose email did you get first?
BTW, the truck driver said that a) yes, it’s a mockup, b) no, it didn’t come from mojave, but from a warehouse down the street, c) yes, it was built in that warehouse, d) it’s constructed from fiberglass using the original molds, e) on the inside of the nozzle in the tail, someone wrote a large “#1″ in pencil, suggesting it’s first in a series of mockups.
Thanks for the heads-up Michael — ever since we saw the flights, any SS1 sighting (mockup or real) is big big fun for my family! Let me know about that shuffle…
to quote Mike: “I will send an iPod shuffle to the first person who sends me a picture of SpaceShipOne taken any time on Saturday, October 21, 2006.”
Kevin, if you are into “rules”, then it looks like I won… I took a picture (a moving picture) of the actual SpaceShipOne, not a piece of fiberglass that looks the part. That’s like taking a picture of Ted Kennedy and telling everyone you saw JFK!
here it is again: http://www.searchles.com/links.....zuddvcwno4
(just joking about the lies Karl, you seem like a good man)
It’s a replica. I could send you a dated picture of the replica hanging in the lobby of the local airport here and claim that it was SpaceShipOne. It would look just like the real thing. Doesn’t mean it is. Apply a little logic here folks.
I love this. how funny!
just in the Smithsonian Air and Space today with the kids…
http://homepage.mac.com/garmen.....bum49.html
MEL
If the shuffle is not avaliable, can I have some adversing space on TechCrunch?
Awesome. I didn’t think about the fact that they’d have acquired a duplicate. Shuffles to Chris for taking a video of the actual ship, and to Kevin and Karl for sending pictures of the fake one being unloaded at Google HQ (pictures were sent at nearly the same time). Guys, email me your names and addresses and a site that you would like me to reference. Mel, sorry, you just missed being first.
woohoo!!!!
email: chris -@- searchles.com
website: http://www.searchles.com/
address:
Chris Seline
Dumbfind Inc
1150 17th St NW
Suite 407
Washington, DC 20036
Bummer on no shuffle! Michael - will you take me up on my “runner up” offer?
MEL
BTW - Chris - nice “Midnight Run”/”Proof of Life” proof-without-a-doubt video with today’s Post!
Hey,
Remember Google’s list of 100 things they want to accomplish?
…..one of which includes a space elevator…..
we can’t begin to imagine what must be on that list.
I posted more pix in the comments section of the follow-up article
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006.....ry-solved/
They show the Ship being lifted over Building 43 and entering the building thru a second story scaffold
Thanks to Michael for being generous with the iPods!
Wow, Michael offers one shuffle prize and ends up giving away three in order to make it fair — that’s integrity, folks! Rock on Michael, and thanks much for the shuffle!