Lord British on Personal Spaceflight

FleaPlus writes "The Space Review has an interview with Richard Garriott (aka "Lord British"), best known as the creator of the genre-defining Ultima series of role playing games. In the interview he talks about his current work as the vice chairman of Space Adventures, and his thoughts on private-sector spaceflight in general. It includes an anecdote about how he funded the initial Russian studies which opened the door for Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, and Gregory Olsen's flights to the International Space Station, but was unable to go himself after the late-90s stock market bubble burst."

Comments

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

omg wtf i rtfa and lmao... BFD! aamof wafwot!

(oh my god i read the fucking article and laughed my ass off... BIG FUCKING DEAL! as a matter of fact, what a fucking waste of time)

Inevitable Ultima Comments

[buckhead_buddy]

First, I think the interview attributes spaceflight as part of the wrong Ultima. Ultima III has "underwater" activity, but it's Ultima ][ that uses the Russian rocket program and has the reference to his dad Owen Garriot looking for his shuttle. Ultima I has a small bit of space flight in shuttles. And of course someone will mention the crashed alien spacecraft in a farmer's field in the later Ultima, but that has even less to do plot wise other than being an in-joke about another Origin title.

Richard Garriot has always been a hero of mine for his ability to make a cool game, feed his family, and pay for his computer education with his series of Ultima titles. Probably most others don't share this perspective. But even though I do regret the consumption of Ultima into nothing more than yet another corporate brand of Electronic Arts, I do have a small bit of nostalgia for the guy who created it even if the modern game does nothing for me today.

It is cool to see someone spending their dot com bubble money on things other than fancy cars.

Re:Hats off to LB for helping average folk into sp

[nuclearpenguins]

YOu bring back such fond memories of long hours in front of the screen shouting out loud "Ok, just one more mission!" I miss Origin. They started the entire big-budget gaming industry.

My interview is better

[Groo Wanderer]

Two for the price of one, and it answered THE burning question with regards to Lord British.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23377

Strangely, after that fateful day by the pool last May, neither Garriot or Spector will get within 100 yards of me, restraining order or no.

            -Charlie

Re:Private Sector is already hot on the ball

[QuantumG]

The one big thing it does offer is that lots of people want to go there: tourism and adventure. Hence the only things showing signs of commercial life are tourism and adventure companies.

Except, you know, communications and earth observation. That's where 99% of the "signs commercial life" go. It's only a trillion dollar industry, nothing big or anything.

I thought he was assassinated!

[front]

WTF? I thought 'e was dead.. did'nt I?!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_British#Assassin ation_of_Lord_British

cheers

front

Re:Gotta Love the Russians!

[_Sprocket_]

To me it's more evidence that NASA is a fossilised bueuracracy. Of course the Russians being strapped for funds have a great motivator to be open minded, but still. That's sort of the point: if NASA was forced to operate with less lavish budgets, new possibilites might suddenly "appear".

Read the CAIB Report, specifically Volume 1, Chapter 5 Section 5.3 entittled "An Agency Trying to do Too Much with Too Little." The Board found problems with NASA... beurocracy is certainly a large part of it. A lavish budget is not.

Well, that makes sense, his dad was an astronaught

[mandrake*rpgdx]

Yup. He was one of the first men to orbit the earth.