Spaceship One

GaryKelly · Post by **GaryKelly** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 9:22 am

How very cool.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3811881.stm

But I suspect he wasn't noodling on a whistle while it was whistling along at Mach 3...

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 9:29 am

Yes...I saw a description of this in the paper this a.m.
Interesting.

Cyfiawnder · Post by **Cyfiawnder** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 9:32 am

If you whistled out of the window at three times the speed of sound, when you stopped and your music caught up with you, would you be listening back in time? LOL foot for thought

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 9:36 am

I'd heard earlier that the mothershp had lifted but this is the first confimatoion I saw that the flight had succeeded. As a space junkie from as early as I can remember, I think its awesome. Maybe now that the private sector has shown that something like this is possible, the world's governments and our own dear NASA will get off their fat dead arses and get back to the business of opening the 'final frontier'.

IDAwHOa · Post by **IDAwHOa** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 10:33 am

Not to be a downer on this accomplishment, but this person thinks that the first frontier (stomp your foot if you have forgotten where that one is) needs quite a bit of working on before getting too excited about expanding our horizons.

lonewhistler · Post by **lonewhistler** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 11:29 am

...I agree with both of you!!!

mconners · Post by **mconners** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:02 pm

NorCalMusician wrote:Not to be a downer on this accomplishment, but this person thinks that the first frontier (stomp your foot if you have forgotten where that one is) needs quite a bit of working on before getting too excited about expanding our horizons.

Always the veiled critiques from the Luddites and hand wringers when someone, somewhere accomplishes something that doesn't improve/resolve some list of (perceived) injustices in our world.

Same folks that will run the "Those who aren't as rich as you" stories on the local news channels as we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner. It's designed to generate personal guilt instead of thanking God for what we do have. Do we still have personal guilt? Yup. Do those stories encourage/distract us from giving thanks to God for what we do have? Yes, they can.

Guess what - it's never going to be perfect here on the first frontier.

I think that it's pretty cool that SS1 was successful for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it's PRIVATE enterprise, not the government that was successful.

Secondly, it was done without the multiplicity of governmental layers, bureaucracy, etc..

Also, 62 miles up with no governmental strings attached is great on any day in my book.

Have a nice day.

lollycross · Post by **lollycross** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 3:36 pm

Yes, this is VERY awesome. Not far enough or fast enough for
the Vulcans to have seen it tho! (A Star Trek reverence for
all you trekkers out there)......but we WILL get there eventually.
Lolly

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:15 pm

NorCalMusician wrote:Not to be a downer on this accomplishment, but this person thinks that the first frontier (stomp your foot if you have forgotten where that one is) needs quite a bit of working on before getting too excited about expanding our horizons.

Yeah, Queen Isabella was a real spendthrift to give that Italian guy Cristobal Colon those three ships to go looking for a new world when there were so many problems in Spain that needed fixing.

Liberal though I am, I don't really go in for all the hand-wringing about all the "problems"here, many of which are perpetuated or created by the so-called victims. Our nest is permanently fouled and headed for hell on a waxed toboggan. The little bit that's spent on space research wouldn't even pay for one day of all those needs, not to mention a week of Daddy's War or any other "need" that the naysayers would present as "alternatives".

(edited to cool off tone of reply

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:29 pm

lollycross wrote:Yes, this is VERY awesome. Not far enough or fast enough for
the Vulcans to have seen it tho! (A Star Trek reverence for
all you trekkers out there)......but we WILL get there eventually.
Lolly

The shortsighted and fearful notwithstanding, if Homo sap survives, the breed will eventually have to leave Sol III's rather degraded womb. My only regret is that, because of all the luddites and little men in government losing their guts for space after we got to the moon, I likely won't live to see it.

Daniel_Bingamon · Post by **Daniel_Bingamon** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:56 pm

This is great, finally Ralph will be able to send Alice right straight to the moon!

Seriously, that X-prize competition has been great. There have been numerous attempts by other to do this and their all finding inexpensive ways to make it into space. Once again industry has found ways of doing things much cheaper than our government can.

But I can't totally put down NASA either. They seem to be making a comeback with the Mars probes, the Saturn Flyby, some of our spacecraft is reaching the Oort Cloud regions of space (That's probably were the Crystal people live).

All we have do now is to find oil on Mars and there will be no stopping us.

amar · Post by **amar** » Mon Jun 21, 2004 11:57 pm

Cyfiawnder wrote:If you whistled out of the window at three times the speed of sound, when you stopped and your music caught up with you, would you be listening back in time? LOL foot for thought

we always listen back in time, because by the time the sound has reached your ears, and for that matter especially your brain, the sound has already passed.

Zubivka · Post by **Zubivka** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 12:42 am

Space junkie ever since I heard Gagarin on the radio, I was glued to CNN to watch the event.

Private or not, space tour-operator or not--I don't really care. Fourty year later, the same venture is redone but lighter and cleaner, with just over a minute of a small rocket thrust.

What I see is a start and stop from a standard airfield, and a two-stage system where the launcher itself is recoverable, as opposed to expendable. The second stage is a pressurized hang-glider compared to the Shuttle. And it really glides as a bird, not as an oversize flat iron.

What I see there is the spirit of the Spirit of St-Louis.

So I'll wait for the first orbite after this encouraging Shepherd-like flea-jump.