2008, The Year of the Spaceship

DynaSoar writes "2008 Could be a the year of the Spaceship. Virgin Galactic intends to unveil White Knight 2 as well as Spaceship 2 during the next year, at this point planning for January. Burt Rutan, always reticent to comments on progress of any project, says nothing to support or contradict Virgin Galactic's announcement. However, the report states that Spaceship 2 is 50% complete and White Knight 2 is 60% complete. In addition, Virgin Galactic is considering using White Knight 2, or possible its successor White Knight 3, to put small satellites in orbit for a cost of US$3 million, less than half the current front runner in (projected) low cost orbital launches; SpaceX's Falcon at US$6.7 million. Tourism aside, this could be an extremely lucrative spin off of Virgin Galactic's original plans. If this turns out to be a profitable endeavor, the cost of tourism flights could drop significantly."

Comments

Re:Year of the Spaceship?

[orasio]

I'm tired of "This is the Year of..."

"This is the year of the linux desktop"
"This is the year of the space ship"
"This is the year I lose my virginity"

As much as I want these things to happen, they wont come true. :( For me, the year of the Linux desktop was 2002. From then on, it was easy enough for me to have a Linux desktop, and interoperate with only minor annoyances (much less time involved than increased maintenance involved with a windows desktop, at least in my case).

You are right about the spaceship, but with the other thing, it's a non issue. Eventually you grow up and get laid, or at least there's "the year of the hooker".