Paul Allen Confirmed as SpaceShipOne's Sponsor

Shafe writes "Space.com confirmed suspicions that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was the secret investor in Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, which completed a successful supersonic flight on the same day as the centennial of flight. Allen hopes Rutan's ship will win the $10 million X-Prize to help kickstart private manned space flight."

Comments

Re:No anti-Microsoft statements yet?

[mcc]

Microsoft... uh... sucks?

What has Linus done for us lately?

[t0ny]

Its nice to see people like Bill Gates, now Paul Allen, and id Software's John Carmack doing things with their wealth that benefits humanity.

By contrast, all I hear about Linus is him buying some expensive sports car. Oh well, I guess the guy isnt really the second coming of Christ, after all.

Re:TechTV reported this last night on TechTV live.

[James in Iowa]

moving forward in technology and space travel is just as important as moving forward in medicine and food production.

You're kidding right? What percentage of Shuttle experiments have yielded results that were genuinely useful?

Contrast this with advances in Medicine; the average life span of someone born in an industrial nation is about 74 compared to what about 54 in 1903. Also advances in medicine will hopefully save a whole continent, Africa, from the catastrophe of AIDS.

Look at food production; a hundred years ago there was famine and starvation fears in industrial countries. Now the fears are obesity. Advances in food production have helped us support many more people then we previously could have.

So it's government sponsored after all?

[Anonymous Coward]

...given the illegal monopoly and mandated use of Microsoft products throughout the US government.

Re:uhm...

[lifebouy]

oh you mean like the flu shot, which has only served to strengthen the viral strains? Same thing applies to vaccine (take your pick). tampering with DNA is equally bad, which is the direction of most AIDS research. All you are telling me is that when the world gets wiped out by a super-virus, Gates is likely the one whose money paid for our deaths. Now space exploration, colonization of space, that will give mankind a chance of not being wiped out of existence. I'm all for making sick people better. But not if it means putting the rest of the world at risk. That's like smoking crack to make your finger stop hurting. It just makes more sense to cut the finger off.