An article on SpaceShipOne
Jun. 22nd, 2004 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreRocket ship loops into space -- and glides home safely
First privately financed spaceflight -- 'Yeeee-haw!'
Mojave, Kern County -- The era of privately financed manned spaceflight began over the high desert here early Monday with a bumpy 88-minute voyage that sent a shuttlecock- shaped rocket plane and its pilot 62.2 miles up out of the atmosphere and safely home in a setting that felt more like a rock concert than a space mission.
For the most part, a good article. But then a former NASA engineer named Dr. Bruce Murray chimes in with this:
For that reason, Murray said, rockets like SpaceShipOne might end up being viable largely as tourist attractions for those wealthy and fit enough to afford brief journeys into space on their vacations.
"It's like going to Mt. Everest," he said. "If there is a market here, it is for adventure touring, in my opinion."
Hello? What was the commercial value of the Wright Flyer? Of Eniac? Of the very first steam-powered horseless carriage? All were odd, didn't fit the current paradigm, and took time to find their markets. It took time for flight to evolve from the rickety Wright Flyer buzzing along above the dunes to the L1011 and SR-71!
This is just another of our tentative first steps, there will be more.
Now I need a copy of Jordin Kare's "Bloody Bastards" on mp3.
First privately financed spaceflight -- 'Yeeee-haw!'
Mojave, Kern County -- The era of privately financed manned spaceflight began over the high desert here early Monday with a bumpy 88-minute voyage that sent a shuttlecock- shaped rocket plane and its pilot 62.2 miles up out of the atmosphere and safely home in a setting that felt more like a rock concert than a space mission.
For the most part, a good article. But then a former NASA engineer named Dr. Bruce Murray chimes in with this:
For that reason, Murray said, rockets like SpaceShipOne might end up being viable largely as tourist attractions for those wealthy and fit enough to afford brief journeys into space on their vacations.
"It's like going to Mt. Everest," he said. "If there is a market here, it is for adventure touring, in my opinion."
Hello? What was the commercial value of the Wright Flyer? Of Eniac? Of the very first steam-powered horseless carriage? All were odd, didn't fit the current paradigm, and took time to find their markets. It took time for flight to evolve from the rickety Wright Flyer buzzing along above the dunes to the L1011 and SR-71!
This is just another of our tentative first steps, there will be more.
Now I need a copy of Jordin Kare's "Bloody Bastards" on mp3.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Let's hear it for the L1011!
Date: 22 Jun 2004 19:48 (UTC)During his career at Lockheed, he worked on the P-38 and the L-1011.
He always said he never worked at the Skunkworks, but he knew *a lot* of people who did.
Almost got him going about the Aurora once...almost. He had that WWII era sense of security.
Ok, flag waving done. I'm majorly pumped over the flight of SpaceShipOne.
It's the opening of a new era. A much cheaper way to get people and cargo to low orbit is here.
That's damn important.
no subject
Date: 23 Jun 2004 09:53 (UTC)That is, I am so excited, even though it's 40 years after the Air Force was working on the same damn thing before the funding was cut.
The first Wright Flyer test went, what, the wing span of a 747? Or, to quote Franklin (probably), what's the use of a newborn baby?
I am *so* excited.