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Burt Rutan On his Upcoming X-Prize Attempt
dkleinsc writes "The BBC is running an article about Burt Rutan, the head of Scaled Composites and creator of SpaceShip One. He talks about his motivation (besides fame and a big pile of cash) for the project."
I was under the impression that more money was being spent than he'd win on the X-Prize.
It must be like that joke: I made a small fortune on the stock market. Problem is, I started with a large one.
Putting dreams into actions - gotta love the guy!
Energy: time to change the picture.
You can't but like Paul Allen sometimes just because of how insane he is. Watching an old Windows 1.0 "commercial" he did, it almost seems like a parody of a computer commercial. It might be, but I cannot tell ;)
They talk a lot about space tourism in the article, but I believe that is a long, long way off still. The first thing that would happen is private launch of payloads, but that already happens..
Even so, even something like $20,000 is cheap for a ticket and right now you'd only get a 10 second ride in space, and back down ya go.
The X-Prize is a 10 million dollar privately funded prize, not a 1 million dollar government program. NASA, the FAA, and any other agency of any government have nothing to do with it other than issuing launch waivers.
It has everything to do with kickstarting private, commercial space flight.
This
It's a sad reflection of the /. bias that everything has to be turned into a bash Microsoft topic.
Lucky me, I have cool boss. ;-)
Your boss isn't that cool if he's making you come back in on Saturday.
Probably never even heard of the Xprize. Nasa doesn't want competition, the government doesn't want lots of rockets taking off without control over them, large corporations don't want satellites to become cheap enough for smaller companies to get into the game (and the government tends to help the larger ones out a tad more..)
You just here for the karma?
Moderators please note: The above link is the same as the main link in the articlee /3676312. stm
/. duplication.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/natur
It would be best to resubmit this story for proper
The X-prize isn't a government program. Why would the government spend $1 million on private research when they can spend $1 billion slobbing pork-fat all over the pockets of Halliburton and other government contractors, and projects in every district.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
How much do you think your friends at Google gave of their IPO profits?
;-)
Hey, some free web searches for all the school kids, maybe? Or (wait!) for teens, and adults, and seniors as well? As in YOU and ME?..
And somehow they managed to do that even BEFORE their IPO! Must be sure that $$ are coming their way...
Paul B.
Why is it that we, as a society, have been so obsessed with the absurd idea that the height of technology in advertising will be the giant orbiting billboard?
.. If the ads were from Playboy or Spice TV, I may even consider opting in. I probably wouldn't even mind drinking Starbucks in that ad--but please, keep Carrot Top out of this.
It would make much more sense to just beam advertisements straight to my dreaming mind.
Every thing that MS does is tied to getting MS sales. Do not pretend that it is purely out of generosity. Google is busing helping in the OSS world and making contributions to the real world without any ties of any kinds.
Likewise, Paul Allen does the same (paul is not MS). Most, if not all, of his contributions do not have strings.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
But he will get to see black sky during daytime. So maybe he can die happy.
I don't think Microsoft is giving much money for global health care. I think that it is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that is doing that. I think it's a big mistake to confuse the Microsoft Corporation with the Gates family. I appreciate the choices the Gates family has made for the disposal of their fortune, but it doesn't make me forgive Microsoft.
from what I understand, NASA decided to cancel the successor of the X-43.
Because the Peoples' Representatives said "prioritize"?
This reminds me of the X-20? The successor of the X-15, that was planned to go into orbit.
Bacause the Peoples' Representatives said "Apollo and Great Society and Viet Nam" over "Apollo and X-20"?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Point being, if you've got fuck loads of cash, then you can afford to pay £20,000 for 10 seconds in space. Space tourism just requires the public to be able to buy tickets to get into space - it's not far off, at all, IMHO.
Think about it - if Rutan succeeds, then he's proved that his vehicle is reusable. This shows that that he can take people into space and all it takes from there is for him to take someone from the public into space.
Space tourism isn't about taking people to the moon - that's definitely a long way off. The first bit is just getting people into space, and people will pay for it.
im in ur
Please re-read the article you posted and note the 1) lack of justification for the accusations and 2) blatant errors and 3) hostile tone.
Afterward, step back and try to reconcile the conclusions of the article with the following facts. The B&M Gates foundation is an autonomous entity that has already been given the funds to operate, it has no reason to collude with Gate's to increase his fortune. Bill Gates has no more need of any money so has no real incentive to force TRIPS on any government, especially those in which there is no money to be made anyway. And lastly, that the donation of not only medicines, but the staff to administer it is better than having the country attempt to sell the same drugs at any price!
I may agree with you that TRIPS is a poor treaty. We may even agree that the WTO makes an aggregious error requiring small, developing nations to honor the same standards for intellectual property rights that rich nations can afford. However, I would never attempt to spread such disinformation as presented in that worthless blog you provided to attempt to discredit a foundation that is clearly working towards such noble ends.