Monday, June 21, 2004
SpaceshipOne is a success
Built by Scaled Composites, piloted by Mike Melvill, the first privately funded manned space flight occured today. Quite a big thing, approximately equivalent to Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight. Like Lindbergh's flight which was motivated by the Orteig prize, today's space flight is motivated by capturing the Ansari X-Prize. A little different than the Orteig prize, to win the $10 miiiilion dollar X-Prize, the winning team has to satisfy three conditions:
Now they haven't won the X-Prize yet as SpaceshipOne hasn't ferried any passengers yet. But that should be coming quite soon. Nonetheless, I think this is a major accomplishment, worthy of national recognition.
My question: Can we have a tickertape parade, or have we grown too cynical for such public displays of national and species pride? I ask 'cause I want one.
Update: here's a bio on Michael Melvill that I didn't see on the Scaled site before (for some reason, their site seems to be overloaded today. hmmm....)
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1. Privately finances, builds & launches a spaceship, able to carry three people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles)
2. Returns safely to Earth
3. Repeats the launch with the same ship within 2 weeks
Now they haven't won the X-Prize yet as SpaceshipOne hasn't ferried any passengers yet. But that should be coming quite soon. Nonetheless, I think this is a major accomplishment, worthy of national recognition.
My question: Can we have a tickertape parade, or have we grown too cynical for such public displays of national and species pride? I ask 'cause I want one.
Update: here's a bio on Michael Melvill that I didn't see on the Scaled site before (for some reason, their site seems to be overloaded today. hmmm....)
Comments(0) |
