Slashdot Mirror
Mike Melvill Chosen To Fly SpaceShipOne
ansimon writes "Mike Melvill is chosen to fly SpaceShipOne to the outer limits of this rock that we call earth. Mike will be the first to earn his astronaut wings with a privately-developed aeroplane/rocket. A new era of space exploration is about to begin! Godspeed and come back safe, so the rest of us can go too..."
Here is a mirror. Wishing Michael a safe flight!
You left a very important name off of your list, Yang Liwei, the first Chinese astronaut(or if you must, taikonaut). :P
I don't know if it is a very dramatic sounding name though
For those of us who don't have access to CNN but have a decent enough internet connection, MSNBC is planning on providing live streaming video. You can find the link in most of their recent articles about it, including this one: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5236958/
My first life insurance company didn't cover me while I was flying, took me a while to find a company that would cover me during recreational flying, and soaring, without charging me through the nose.
Also don't tell some car insurance companies your a pilot, you will get the rates of a 16 year old.
They will not win the X-Prize tommorow and they most likely will not win it in the nearest future.
The X-Prize is for 2 manned launches with the equivalent of 3 persons mass within 2 weeks.
Tommorow's flight is 1 person and less ballast mass and AFAIK, scaled has no plans to launch again in the following 2 weeks.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Then how about JUGDERDEMIDIYN GURRAGCHA, who is not only first Mongolian cosmonaut, but is also named way beyond 'dramatically'.
In fact, here is a complete list of all 436 cosmo-/astronauts. Choose your favourite
3.243F6A8885A308D313
It's appropriate to view this attempt win the X Prize with a full perspective of who Scaled Composites are, and where they came from.
Burt Rutan has been thinking outside the box, from the halcyon days of the Vari-Eze & Long-Eze to the innovative Ares and the 'appear-to-thumb-your-nose-at-physics' Boomerang.
His company; Scaled Composites, have not only survived the drastic slump of the light aircraft market in the 80's and 90' but made innovation their tradition - no small feat.
IMHO, they deserve to succeed with this attempt of Spaceship One.
and comparitively speaking a troll.
Seriously. This topic has been debated so much that I swear that this is some astro turfing by Boeing.
People are clamoring to get into space, and has been pointed out in many areas, even with this limited capability it still even has value for some research programs. This is a bridge builder, not a dead-end technology.
As has been pointed out many times, the flight distance of the original flight of the Wright Flyer was less than the wingspan of a 747. Does that mean it was a dead-end technology? In some ways yes. The flying system of a Wright flyer relied upon wing warping that has not been revisited until very recently, and that only in experimental aircraft. The body shifting a skilled pilot with that aircraft had to do is now really only used with hang-gliders, and even then it is much more refined. Even the later version of the aircraft were really only able to travel about 100 miles, and only under conditions we would call today VFR.
I do believe this is much more than symbolism. This is building infrastructure and bringing back the days of barnstorming, where pilots from WWI wanted to earn a few extra bucks, so they took an airplane (sometimes military surplus as well) and flew it around for "air shows" (usually just a simple demonstration... not the current rather extravagant versions we have now), and occasionally taking on a few passengers. With Spaceship One, this era of flight can be reborn, and it was during that critical era that aircraft technologies matured enough that passenger air service finally occured, ultimately leading to the DC-3 (a fun aircraft that I've actually flown in as a passenger on a regular commercial flight).
Right now, there isn't really anything between the Space Shuttle and the ship currently being built by the "Rocket Guy" Brian Walker And even Mr. Walker, while it may eventually work, still isn't even done.
Finally there is a system in place that can and will approve commercial space flight (as proved by Scaled Composites... they have the permit in hand). Technologies can and will be upgraded, and as just about every participant in the X-prize competition has been proving, you can get to space on less than the most exotic rockets and materials. Let's see where spaceflight can happen when you don't have contractors saying "it doesn't matter what the cost of building it is. Just get it up there." That leads to Shuttle launches that cost 1/2 Billion dollars each. This next flight of the shuttle will cost way over $1 Billion. I know that private companies could do that for considerably cheaper. Indeed, $1 Billion could cover the entire R&D budget, including FAA certification trials, of a whole launch system capable of putting seven astronauts at the ISS with extra cargo room for some expendable supplies. Why wouldn't NASA go that route instead? Just make an x-prize equivalent for the same money, and it will be going well before the shuttle is ready and flight-recertified itself. (Well... maybe, but then you might as well junk the entire shuttle program if an alternative program is close to launching).
If you don't think a $1 billion carrot for orbital characteristics would work, you really havn't been paying attention to the X-prize, have you? And that is money that will more than likely be spend in the the next two years anyway, why not put it to more valuable use?