Welcome to Space Flight ?

Davidth88

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8400353.stm

Who would invest 180 k Euro ( or whatever ) in this ? I know if I won the lotto I would be tempted for sure .

involves one of my all time heros Burt Rutan and the guys at Scaled Composites .

I always loved the Long Eze/ Vari Eze and was in awe of the endurance flights by Voyager etc.

But on the space flight thing , can people see this taking off ( in the monetary sense ) or will it be a flash in the pan and after a couple of years quietly wound up ?

Did these guys ever actually win the X prize ? ( I can't remember )

Dacian

They did win the X prize. They sent SpaceShipOne up to over 50 miles twice in the space of a month (I think?) with two different pilots and less than 10% equipment change, to prove that it was a reuseable spacecraft.

Saw the docu on Discovery/NatGeo. First pilot was funny,brought jelly beans in his sleeve pocket,when he hit weightlessness he tossed them around the cockpit. Camera was above and behind him,very surreal to see him 'piloting' in soace with a constellation of jelly bean floating around him. His wife meanwhile was on the ground shouting at the radio for him to concentrate and stop fooling around!

Nice touch calling the first craft the VSS Enterprise. I I won the lotto I would try this.

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pclancy

That does look incredible. I can't wait till the Chinese mass produce them cheaply someday and take over the universe.

On a serious note, how many more test flights will be taken before they bring up fare paying passengers? Seem's a large potential for a lot of stuff to go wrong with these new types of aircraft especially considering the use of rockets.

ynotdu

I love manned Spaceflight,but in this case i hope Richard Branson is the first purely civilian to fly this and he just keeps going and never comes back!:D