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Mike Melvill Chosen To Fly SpaceShipOne

Posted by timothy on from the good-luck-up-there dept.

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..."

3 of 527 comments (clear)

  1. For the sake of argument . . . by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    . . . even if something does go wrong, there wouldn't be any better way to go out, especially with a flight history such as his.

    On the other hand, not much left to top this if it does go flawlessly.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  2. Disaster? Unlikely. by dinodrac · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Scaled Composites seems to have done their homework. The craft has a double presure hull, is relatively small, and uses a propellant that is arguably more stable than what we burn in our cars. Any failure is more likely to result in an abort than in a catastrophe. SpaceShipOne has been tested extensively, and the design, although radical, is comparitively simple when viewed alongside early government funded sub-orbital flight.

    Good luck and Godspeed to the SpaceShipOne team.

  3. If there's any doubt about 'space' by caitsith01 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the various articles about the x-prize and spaceshipone one could be forgiven for wondering whether these guys are really going into 'space', because relative to NASA's exploits they aren't exactly going that high. However, pictures like this and this from earlier test flights give a practical idea of just how high they are going to get... awesome! I wish there was some sort of webcast... anyone know of anything live?

    --
    Read Pynchon.