© 2004 . All rights reserved. SpaceShipOne

Historic Flight Made

SpaceShipOne “SpaceShipOne”:http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/index.htm, along with pilot Mike Melvill, soared 100 km above the Earth’s surface today, marking the first time a privately-funded and built space craft carrying a human being entered into orbit. This marks the beginnings of commercial, manned space flight, just as the Wright brothers did just over 100 years ago with air flight.

I woke up early this morning (6:30 am :???:) just to see the launch. It was interesting how this craft takes off with the assistance of a plane (Knight One)—very slowly albeit—separates at 50,000 feet, and then engages its rocket for a single burn to reach about mach 3 and the edge of space. An interesting approach.

This is huge! Given the deadline of the Ansari X Prize in the next year, we should be seeing more such flights soon. And lately, to think, I’ve been more sceptical of anything like this in my lifetime. I like to have my scepticism proved wrong.

Check out more with this “Scaled Composites press release”:http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=14315.

2 Comments

  1. Posted 22 Jun ’04 at 4:47 pm | Permalink

    This design looks amazing. I love the detail you have put into the theme. Oh, and the calendar looks very trendy.

  2. Posted 22 Jun ’04 at 7:34 pm | Permalink

    Thanks! I’m still fighting compatibility issues with some browsers, but it’s definitely getting there.

    I want to thank you, as I based my css off of your word press design, Human Condition. I made quite a few modifications to meet my needs, but your template provided a good place to start. Once finished, it will be available for download. (Or, the very brave can get a hold of the CSS now, too.)

    Oddly enough, I had a totally different design until I created the calendar—at which point, I changed my color scheme and layout to match. Heh…design is funny like that for me.

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