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SpaceShipTwo Mothership Makes Maiden Flight
RobGoldsmith writes "Earlier this week images were appearing on the Net showing the WhiteKnightTwo craft doing some tests in Mojave. The earliest tests showed perhaps two of the engines being used, while a later test showed all the engines working and some further testing. Today the four Pratt & Whitney Canada PW308A engines finally carried the craft into the air. The maiden flight of the WhiteKnightTwo lasted just shy of one hour and happened today at around 08:15 local time, at Mojave air and spaceport. Rumors suggest that a Beechcraft King Air was used for a chase plane. The craft will be used to position Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo craft to fly into space; this is estimated to happen around 2010."
That's a little presumptuous, don't you think? In the multi-billion year history of the Universe, and all the innumerable planets that have ever existed in it, you're really SURE that there hasn't ever been any affordable space tourism?
No technologically inclined species on a small planet with rather low gravity? No planets with super-volcanic mountains that peak just slightly shy of orbit? No species of living beings robust enough that they can handle the massive G-forces of being fired out of a cannon on the ground? etc.
Boy is your face going to be red when the Quixblarxians land their space ship in the parking lot of the nearest courthouse just to sue you for defamation of their space tourism industry...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
For readers in the USA, the equivalent model is the PW308.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The field of personal space travel is opening up!
This is the beauty of capitalism.
And it's only just getting there over 50 years after socialism did it.
Both socialism and capitalism have their places. Capitalism wouldn't have gotten us to the Moon in the 60s. Socialism won't get the masses into space in the 10s. A healthy society has a balance of both.
Capitalism is hardly responsible for it. No private company did this, until the Ansari X Prize subsidized them. That prize money was donated, making SS1 of charitable origins. Capitalism is anything but charitable. In fact, between the charity money and the academic foundation that dreamed up the whole thing, it's closer to a centralised, socialist model.
"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all." -- John Maynard Keynes
Besides, I don't think it's ugly at all.
Neither do I, but on to your main point...
Would you prefer it work well, or look good?
Both are generally possible.
Unless, of course, it's designed to reach (sub)orbit by being repulsed by the Earth.
I would say its not socialism or capitalism that got us into space to begin with. It was nationalism, the military and propaganda. Both the soviets and Americans didn't go into space as a normal part of their economic development / output - they did it to one up each other and to explore military possibilities and advantages from having a pedestal in space. Its still plays a large part in the recent revival of national space programs.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
the Toyota Prius is hardly fundamental research or cutting-edge technology. however, the Japanese government did invest in Toyota's hybrid gas-electric technology, purportedly subsidizing 100% of its development cost.
so while there's no Toyota Government Agency, Japan does however have:
and their government actively funds science and public research through these organizations. the Japanese government also owns a large (1/3rd) share of their national ISP/telecom, NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone). and this kind of active support and funding of technology is why Japan has become a global technology leader. it's also why Japan is leading the world in FttH deployment and its citizens have access to 1 Gbps symmetric broadband connections for $0.057 per Mbps, whereas Comcast is charging $3.00 per Mbps for asymmetric "wideband" connections.