John Carmack To Cut Space Tourism Prices 50%

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like John Carmack, through Armadillo Aerospace, will be battling Burt Rutan and Richard Branson to make space travel affordable. From the article: 'Space Adventures is going to use an Armadillo Technologies rocket to launch amateur astronauts 62 miles into the sky. Nothing new, except that they will do it at half the price of Virgin Galactic's ticket, and in a real rocket!' Perhaps I'll visit space, after all."

Comments

Re:Half of 200k is still 100k

[QuantumG]

Do people still need the "early adopter" concept explained to them? We live in a technological society where new gadgets and experiences come onto the market all the time. The early adopters pay top dollar for them, this attracts competitors, and the price starts to drop.

Re:Just a thought

[MichaelSmith]

Doesn't Mark Shuttleworth feel like a sucker now?

No, because Mark went into orbit in a fair dinkum Russian spacecraft, which he got to fly (partly) himself. The vehicle being discussed here won't go into orbit.

Re:It'll never get that low.

[zach_the_lizard]

If you think those industries are unregulated, then I would like to see what you consider to be regulated. I mean, once you have governmental control over the money supply, how much a bank can and cannot loan, etc., it becomes pretty hard to call it unregulated. Poorly regulated, perhaps, but not at all left to its own devices.

Re:It ain't space below 7km/s

[BiggerBoat]

It ain't space below 7km/s

Hmm, I guess Alan Shepard wasn't the first American in space after all (considering Freedom 7 had a suborbital trajectory, and had a max velocity of well below 7km/s).

Re:100k... Cheap enough for porn industry?

[fractoid]

Srs face now: This is something that annoys me no end. Just like you'll never meet someone on the internet who doesn't have at least a 9 inch cock, and still thinks it could be an inch or two bigger, every time people talk about endurance they always say "20 minutes is still too quick, you have to last at least an hour!". That's bullshit. On the first count, anyone over about 6" who's been with more than one or two women will know that sometimes, more than 6 inches just. won't. fit. Anyone who says they're "9 inches and that all the bitches love it" is either 5" or less, or a virgin. On the second count, no matter how much lube you use, you're going to start chafing after about 15-20 minutes unless you're either fully tantric or you're both on IRC at the same time or something, and forget to make with the thrusting.

The only correct answer is "if it's big enough that she couldn't take any more, without being too big and hurting her, and if it lasts long enough for her to get off a couple of times, but not long enough to chafe, then you're doing it right."