SpaceShipTwo, a six-passenger commercial spaceship owned by Virgin Galactic, has been cleared by the Federal Aviation Administration to begin test flights beyond the atmosphere. Spaceship builder Scaled Composites received an experimental launch permit from the FAA on May 23. (news.discovery.com) さらに...
Great, I applaud the ingenuity, creativity and imagination which has gone into this project so far, but....
Isn't it about time Mr. Rutan et al started putting some of that ingenuity and creativity into something more worthwhile than (not so) cheap carnival thrill rides for people with a lot more money than they know what to do with? Even if I had that kind of money I still wouldn't be interested because I grew up a long time ago.
I'm talking about sub-orbital flights here. How about a ship that could actually go somewhere and do something useful, such as say, flights from one end of the continent to the other, or even inter-continental flights in a few minutes - how's that for a wild concept? Ya, ya, I know all about the heating effects and the rest of the technical problems, but it seems to me that would be a far, far better goal to pursue, a challenge worthy of his skills and full attention.
What a week for space!! Save your money and buy stock in VirginGalactic and SpaceEx. We are witnessing the birth of two new industries that will never die off - passenger and cargo businesses in space.
"Where never Sparrow, or even Eagle flew ..." - apologies for any inaccurate quote from "High Flight" - I'd love to reach out and touch the Face of God, myself.
Then add me to the list with Lenny Kravitz ... "Oh ... I want to get away ... I want to flyyyyy away! Yeah, yeah yeah!" Or, Frank Sinatra's "Fly me to the moon!"=D
FAA clears Virgin Galactic spaceship for test flights
* License is good for one year * Only test pilots can fly, for now * Virgin Galactic selling suborbital rides for $200,000 The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has cleared SpaceShipTwo, a commercial six-passenger spacecraft owned by Virgin Galactic, to begin rocket-powered suborbital test flights, the company said on Wednesday.