First Flight For SpaceShipTwo

mknewman writes "Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane took to the air for the first time this [Monday] morning from California's Mojave Air and Space Port. The craft, which has been christened the VSS Enterprise, remained firmly attached to its WhiteKnightTwo carrier airplane throughout the nearly three-hour test flight. It will take many months of further tests before SpaceShipTwo actually goes into outer space. Nevertheless, today's outing marks an important milestone along a path that could take paying passengers to the final frontier as early as 2011 or 2012."

Comments

Re:Sub-Orbital == Final Frontier?

[MyLongNickName]

We landed on the moon to show we had a bigger penis than the Commies. On a dollar spent basis we got virtually nothing out of it. More than we got out of Iraq for sure. But still a misguided spending of dollars.

Re:One small step for man...

[drinkypoo]

I'm sorry that we had to go so far backwards between proof-of-concept and where we are today; on the cusp of commercialization. But if you want to get regular commercial trips to space, there are some necessary interim steps. P.S. The ISS is a hole in space into which money is thrown. It's not big enough to do anything genuinely useful. It's been good as a technology development platform but otherwise has provided minimal benefit. Some good science has come out of it, I don't mean to say it's been useless, but it, too, is only a stepping stone.

Re:Sub-Orbital == Final Frontier?

[drinkypoo]

Bill Gates' doing some good without spaceflight.

Bill Gates' stated mission is to wipe out certain diseases, but in order to get vaccinations from the Gates Foundation you have to provide various IP protections for pharmaceutical companies in your law. Meanwhile the Gates foundation makes for-profit investments in industries causing direct health issues in people they are vaccinating. Also, you abused the apostrophe, and made Bob angry.