Remember Today.

[bzarcher]

I don't know if a lot of people will realize it, but 6/21/2004 is going to be as important as a flight by two brothers on a North Carolina beach.

For we have slipped these bonds, and touched the face of God.

Yes, it took a lot to do it, but it's now been done. And they're going to do it again, and again, and again. The engine design will probably get duplicated, improved, refined, and expanded, and it would not surprise me if suborbital travel starts getting commercially availible in the next five to ten years.

From there, especially once orbiters are ready, it's going to just be a matter of steps...

Comments

[flying-landon.livejournal.com]

Yea, I read about that. Isn't it cool?

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Exceedingly cool.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

I still think the name is lame and incorrect.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but in this case, I'm willing to sacrifice some art for the sake of function. Besides, White Knight is pretty damn cool for the name of the launch craft.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

Now, silly names aside, I don't exactly see how this is such a greater feat than when Sputnik went into space, or when Glenn orbitted the Earth for the first time. While the liftoff was done 15 clicks higher, there's not a lot of difference between what happened today and what happened in the beginning of space travel. The 'vehicle' is still little more than a bomb with a seat. The US and Russia have been doing this for decades - it's not like Orville and Wilbur were the first in flight after an established national program.

What I do feel it signals is the beginning of proliferation. No longer is space travel privilged and regulated, it will soon go the way of the vaunted 'horseless carriage' or 'computational adding machine'.

We must preserve this as a humanist pursuit, and under national guidance that was assured. I am concerned this will become a commodity that will be driven by greed - afterall, the immediate big push is to win a cash prize. I can see the problems already.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

Well, the first of the 'big differences' is that these guys did not do it with the resources of nations behind them. Just a will, a dream, and some hard work.

It is certainly the proliferation, and I hope it will be a wide one, because I think that is actually the only way to keep it as a humanist pursuit. Giving more and more people the ability to go out there and try to make their way is exactly how terrestrial colonization and expansion was made viable, and I can only hope the same will occur here.

Will there be people driven by greed? Probably. But there will be altruists, too. And the X-prize itself doesn't concern me that much, because in most cases, it's not going to cover that much of the development costs. It's a reward, but it's not the type that'll be pushing people to do stupid things.

[alathaniel.livejournal.com]

Personally I'd make a case for it being even more important than the Wright Brothers.

Then again, that could just be a side effect of having read "Fallen Angels" for my recent dose of Niven-fiction.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

On par with, I think. Credit where credit is due.

[alathaniel.livejournal.com]

True - without the Wright Brothers and their contemporaries, it'd be pure rockets.

[remotesensing.livejournal.com]

I strongly suspect that if the Wright Brothers were alive today, they'd think rather highly of Burt Rutan.

[remotesensing.livejournal.com]

I don't know if a lot of people will realize it, but 6/21/2004 is going to be as important as a flight by two brothers on a South Carolina beach.

Funny, last time I checked, the whole 'first powered flight' thing was designed in Dayton, and executed in NORTH Carolina.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

*blush*

Okay, I'm allowed to make 2 mistakes after working on completely emptying 2 houses into one.