SpaceShipOne: only the beginning
p2pnet.net OT News:- It’s history now. A civilian craft has almost touched the stars and Paul Allen, the man whose enormous wealth made it possible, will probably be remembered more for this than for the fact he’s a co-founder of Microsoft.
"SpaceShipOne, designed by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, soared to 328,491 feet above Earth on Monday, just a little more than 400 feet above the distance scientists widely consider to be the boundary of space," says an Associated Press story here.
"The flight lasted 90 minutes."
"It was really an awesome sight," the 63-year-old pilot Mike Melvill is quoted as saying. "You really do get the feeling that you’ve touched the face of God when you do something like this."
What’s next?
Part of the draw for this flight was the X PRIZE, a $10 million award to the first private concern to launch passengers to an altitude of 100 kilometers (about 60 miles), recover them safely and then do it all over again within two weeks.
"Stage one is where we are now – it’s a research and development test-pilot stage," Peter Diamandis, founder and president of the X Prize Foundation is quoted as saying in a Wired News article here. "It’s still dangerous, and people may die working out the demons in their systems."
"The second stage," adds the story, "will start when the first paying passenger gets strapped into a craft like SpaceShipOne. That could happen in the next couple of years if government regulations allow it, he said. ‘People will be flying who realize it’s dangerous, realize the risks involved, and frankly that’s part of the attraction. It’s extreme-adventure space flight’."
June 27th, 2004 at 6:34 pm
Let’s only hope that the name of the money-man doesn’t overshadow the true genius behind SpaceShipOne—that of Burt Rutan the designer and the extraordinarily talented people at Scaled Composites who built and maintain the craft.
Remember, genius is rare but the money can always be found to back a worthwhile endeavor.
Bill, the “Anonymous Coward”