Mike Melvill Chosen To Fly SpaceShipOne 527
ansimon writes "Mike Melvill is chosen to fly SpaceShipOne to the outer limits of this rock that we call earth. Mike will be the first to earn his astronaut wings with a privately-developed aeroplane/rocket. A new era of space exploration is about to begin! Godspeed and come back safe, so the rest of us can go too..."
I confess to a little excitement ... (Score:5, Insightful)
For one who's done a lot of reading of both science fiction as well as cosmology, the stars seem so far out of reach for my short lifetime.
Getting into space isn't exactly reaching the stars, but it's the first step on the journey. I hope the mission goes smoothly and its success is a sign of things to come.
So far..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I honestly hope that Melville completes this first trip unharmed. Not only for his sake, but for our sake. If he dies, the government will more than likely shut the whole private space exploration business down and set humanity back by an untold amount of years.
Why would anyone wish harm upon someone trying to pave the waqy for the rest of us?
Good luck and godspeed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I confess to a little excitement ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope that a partnership between the public sector and private enterprise will help to drive down the costs of access to space.
Early aviation development was partially funded by the public sector when the United States Post Office subsidized airlines by implementing air mail.
I hope that the government will use private spacelines for all launches of non-military hardware.
Re:First since Columbia (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First since Columbia (Score:1, Insightful)
The USA is NOT back in business. Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites is in business. The distinction is far more important than a simple correction, and is the whole point of the X-Prize. The USA deserves and gets no points for this one. In fact it should shame the USA that a few people and $20M can do what the USA can't.
Lets just hope (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
I am guessing your math doesn't include any births on the moon, so it would be done sooner. Besides, you put just 50 men and women in low g, several are going to at least be curious about sex.
On another note...It will be very expensive to go into space as a passenger for a while, but I think they need to focus on their market: Rich internet dot.commers who want to have sex in space. Just like VCRs, the Internet, and video cameras, the first people who want to go into space have to be doing it for some reason tied to sex, and willing to pay full price, making it cheaper for the rest of us eventually.
I'm not completely sure how this will work, but just about any new technology is always paid for by people wanting pr0n/sexchat/etc so why would this be any different? Would you pay $100,000 to get a bj in zero gravity?
Re:Wonderful! (Score:2, Insightful)
What, you mean like down-sizing itself and leaving us alone?
Re:To save everyone some time tomorrow ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:To save everyone some time tomorrow ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Godspeed - thx (Score:3, Insightful)
Bod,
p.s.
I think I will reread the "Man Who Sold the Moon" by Robert A. Heinlein" tonight.
Re:To save everyone some time tomorrow ... (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:First since Columbia (Score:3, Insightful)
The United States is, when it works, an environment in which the individual can excel and accomplish great things. The state exists of and for the people only to foster that environment. The phrase "it should shame the USA that a few people and $20M can do what the USA can't" is nonsensical in that the USA *is* the people, and the accomplishments of the people are the accomplishments of the USA.
--
Evan "...all failures too.."
Re:Yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Libertarian aspects. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To save everyone some time tomorrow ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Lissen... (Score:3, Insightful)
Being dead serious for a minute, if this guy fails--ie dies--it could very well mark the end of a very short lived experiment in private space exploration. Not because the American spirit will be dampened by it--on the contrary, I can see the Yanks trying harder than ever to make it work. On the other hand, I can already see the handwringers on CNN asking "Why isn't there a law?"
Reason to Celebrate (Score:4, Insightful)
And yes, the USA is back and buisness and it is a reason to celebrate. Beyond the petty fact that there is a distinct lack of foreign competition in this sector, the event is a milestone in civilian rocketry worldwide. Whose market was this entire effort born from again...? Yeah, it sounds pigheaded as hell, but then so does dismissing this entire project as nothing more than a invidiual/corporate victory when it's a victory for the entire country whose very way of life made such impossible dreams a possible and whose economic environment could support such flights of fancy, something for which the entire world will look upon and follow.
Damn right it's a reason to celebrate.
okay i'll bite (Score:1, Insightful)
the craft itself looks like a ripoff of the bell x-1, 1950's technology.
note that i said "bell". not nasa. pls. remember that the apollo series, shuttles, etc might have been funded by nasa, the government, taxes, etc. but were all designed and built by private industry.
okay, scaled composites is cool and all, but they could not have done this on their own.
it took a billionaire, one who made his money by a stroke of luck, one who made billions off selling the government and many busineses and people crappy software, using illegal business practices--people who wouldn't be billionaires if the USA wasn't so inept at enforcing their own laws.
so in effect, this was paid for by the microsoft tax. it might not have gone through the government first, but the money certainly flew out of the people's wallets in much the same fashion.
finally, in closing, yay. i agree that there is no way the government could have done this for $20 million. there is just too much overhead in everything the government does.
it's not unusual to see one overhead person (manager, supervisor, secretary, etc) for every engineer/technician/"worker" that the government funds. sickening.
so overall this is a good thing.
Re:YURI GAGARIN (Score:2, Insightful)
- Virgil I. Grissom
- Edwin Aldrin
- Wallace Shirra
- ... ?
I suspect the names you listed are "dramatic sounding" because of what they've done and not the other way around. I'm pretty sure there was an issue about "astronauts are not named Gus" regarding a press conference with Grissom.Re:So far..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Your posting demonstrates that you do not understand jokes. Sure, you can read them at a superficial level, in which case you will probably be insulted. Use your brain when you read them and you will realise that a good joke can be a form of respect, or make a point far stronger than the equivalent point without the humour.
So far, I've taken the jokes you see as 'crossing the line' to be odes to the courage of Mike Melvill.
It's no different to calling Mr. Melvill 'crazy'. In this context, 'crazy' doesn't have to mean 'insane'. It more likely means 'you have more courage than me, and my own constraints would stop me from doing what you are doing, but I salute your courage'.
Re:"earns his wings"???? (Score:3, Insightful)
He's a professional test pilot, and is being paid money to ride this thing into space.
And he hopes he won't have to do much, but I'd guess that he's much more able to pilot a space glider back to Earth than anyone here......
This puts NASA in a very interesting position (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not like they deserve this kind of treatment, but the question will be raised for sure.
Re:To save everyone some time tomorrow ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Best wishes .. this gives me goosebumps (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at pictures taken from the edge of space make my spine tingle - especially when they're taken by what amounts to a shoestring budget done by private enterprise. Pictures are one thing; tomorrow if all goes to plan, private enterprise will have put a man up there at the edge of space. Maybe not in orbit; I'm sure that will come in time.
I can't imagine what it must feel like to look up and see black, then look down and see the glowing blue curvature of the earth.
If you're reading this Mike, and everyone at Scaled Composites, you did a damn good job and we'll be waiting for your safe landing!
Re:I confess to a little excitement ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was a kid when the Columbia took its first trip in '81, so I've never lived in a time when space flight wasn't a reality. However, when I looked at pictures of SpaceShipOne tonight and read about the people filling the motels for miles around the world's first civilian spaceport, I literally started crying out of pure joy. Space has always been the domain of guys with The Right Stuff - bigger-than-life heros that risked it all. However, as of tomorrow, the rest of us get to take our shot at it. Tomorrow, I fly into space, and the universe will be a lot closer for me and my children.
Bring 'er home safe, Mike. A whole world full of regular Joes are praying for you.
Re:I guess the question here is (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yes, but (Score:3, Insightful)
We are by no means a united group of "commie hippies" out to undermine capitalism. Some of us even own businesses and would take exception to being collectivized. All most of us are trying to say is that making money is not an excuse to throw ethics and morals out the window. There is no problem with having a lot if money if you a) earned it honestly and b) don't use it to buy fake journalists and politicians.
Oh and remember this: "DOS ain't done until 123 won't run." This isn't jealously at the success of another. We are expressing moral outrage at behaivor that should not be acceptable to anybody. Even megacapitalists.
Re:This puts NASA in a very interesting position (Score:3, Insightful)
Seem?? The are ridiculously ineffective.
Like a giant corporation where no one gives a crap about what they're doing and comes to work every day not to do something to change the world, but to collect the paycheck every two weeks.
They're even worse because they're government funded yet really answer to no one. They need not show a profit or even a reasonable effort. In corporations you have stockholders to answer to and you need to make money to stay in business. NASA only need to hold out their hand. The only reason I support NASA is because they're the only game in town... for now. Hopefully that will change tomorrow.
It's not like they deserve this kind of treatment
Why don't they deserve to be questioned and criticized? I pay their way. I want results and frankly I'm sick of their pussy-footing over matters. They are not beyond reproach. They need to be overseen and beat on a bit. They've wasted enough time and tax payer money. I want an alternative. I'm want NASA to have a fire under it's ass and realize that unless they get their shit together they'll be outside looking in.
Re:So far..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So far..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Most importantly the largest nation on earth pioneered the principles that Space Ship One will rely on. If you think this project even compares to the achievements of the Russian space program you are either very ignorent or very stupid.
I am not Russian or anything but I am sick of morons that can't tell the difference between launching a Cosmonaut for two round trips of the planet 43 years ago with the aid of possibly a single computer (not on board), primitive materials and theoretical equasions and flying a plane at a sub-orbital altitude with the aid of 40 years of space research to build from. Oh, and also the morons that can't tell the difference between putting people on the moon and "winning".
I of cause wish the Space Ship One Team luck, but they can never achieve such a victory for the human race as Gargarin did that day when he left the planet for the first time ever.
Re:This puts NASA in a very interesting position (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the X-33 program was somewhere in that class. It was supposed to be a half-scale demonstrator for the next generation shuttle. Of course, in NASA's case they spent ~8 years, and around $200M, and didn't even produce flying hardware (let alone something that could attempt an actual suborbital hop). Whereas Rutan and Scaled Composites have apparently spent roughly a 10th the money that NASA did and now have something that has been off the ground, and will soon be suborbital.
Re:Yes, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does it takes cancer to come to this view of life is beyond me, but kudos all the same.
I tend to disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not exactly easy to quantify their impact on our daily lives, but if you watch TV, use cell phone and/or pager, or GPS you see your tax dollars at work pretty much. None of these things would be easy or even possible without NASA.
Saying that NASA is too expensive is like saying that Wright brothers had wasted too much money on their first crappy airplane. Sure they did, but it was the FIRST working airplane. These days any fool can build a working airplane out of readily available parts. Back then it was state of the art.
It sure did cost billions to send rovers to Mars, too. And it's not something anyone else will be able to achieve within the next decade.
This costs a lot. Can NASA be improved? No doubt. Is the cost justified even given the current inefficiencies? It sure as heck is.
Re:I confess to a little excitement ... (Score:3, Insightful)
It'd *really* *really* be nice to know *somewhere* , there is a place outside of millitary juristiction.
Re:I confess to a little excitement ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I was born in 1970 and was at home when the first shuttle exploded on liftoff. I've read so much from the masters and grand masters of Science Fiction.
I've always felt that 'Out there' is where our destiny as a species lay. And this is clearly apart of the next major step for us on that road.
While I applaud and admire the great men and women who've 'boldly gone' and took those first steps off this tiny little hunk of soil we call home, It is indeed time for the 'rest of us'.
Thanks for help summing up just why this is so important to so many of us.
Good luck Mike, there is a lot resting your sholders monday. Come back safe.
Mycroft
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First to earn his astronaut's wings.... (Score:3, Insightful)
cute.. however, he's not going high or fast enough to experience significant heat on "re-entry". Have a look at the Scaled site where they show the minimal heat shielding on SS-1.
Ironic... Slashdot cheering for Microsoftie :) (Score:5, Insightful)
P.S. best of luck and successful flight to Mike and SS1 people.
-DVK
Re:YURI GAGARIN (Score:5, Insightful)
We note the first Chinese guy in space, but not the first East-Asian in space. Do you know who the first blonde person in space was? The first person with green eyes?
The reason your country has such an issue with racism STILL is that you create such significance in skin colour, where really there should be none.
To be fair to Nasa (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why we should never be discouraged from attempting something like this. A Government has its strengths such as
Can open up political doors
Revise laws (to allow spaceports etc.)
Afford large R&D projects
However a small commercial venture has different advantages
Not hamstrung by red tape and management
Much quicker development cycle
More efficient with funds (sometimes less money is a blessing makes you think up innovative cheaper solutions).
Less hampered by safety restrictions
Not having to cater to external parties.
I think Scaled is a brilliant example of what can be achieved by a wealthy benefactor with vision and a very talented engineering team. Long may it continue
Re:This puts NASA in a very interesting position (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA's engineers are going to be as excited as anyone, but NASA's managers are most likely terrified. Every one of them is thinking "What if the gov't decides to spend my budget with a company like Scaled Composites next year?".
NASA is an obstacle to space exploration, has been for decades. The US gov't should take its budget and use it to start a foundation offering prizes: first orbit by a privately-developed vehicle the next one, eventually, first return trip to Mars. Then we'll see some action. NASA itself has outlived its usefulness and should be dismantled and its facilities and equipment auctioned off.
Re:YURI GAGARIN (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't just distinctions based on skin color, ancestry, religion, or anything else.
The problem is that people want to hate each other, and they will find any necessary excuse to do so. Skin color is just extremely convenient, because you can tell what color someone's skin is by looking at them. Even if you make it unacceptable to discriminate based on skin color, the root problem still exists. People want to hate. And they do.
The reason our country still has a problem with racism is because our people still want to hate. And instead of solving the root problem (hate), we're putting bandages on it by trying to eliminate the symptoms (racism, discrimination) with laws and manipulation.
I agree with your main point, but your statement about racism is just plain wrong. Racism isn't a disease you can cure with some sort of vaccine or magic treatment. People truly, deeply hate each other.
Libertarians ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Space flight has always been an argument against the free market:
a)'duh, who is going to pay millions of dollars just to visit space'
b)'yeah, but it will get cheaper with time, as companys put huge investments into it to archieve the profits that can be realized when spaceflight has truly become a consumer good'
a)'hahahahaha, look at how much NASA has to spend, going to space will always be expensive and dangerous, even the government hasn't managed it yet'
b)'no, its expensive and dangerous *because* the government is doing it not despite.'
a)'yeah right, thats what you always say, I'll believe that when I see it'
Re:YURI GAGARIN (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To be fair to Nasa (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I beg to differ........ (Score:3, Insightful)
Rutan will be speaking at Airventure at the end of July. Questions for you:
1) Will he have won the X-Prize by then?
2) Will he bring SpaceShipOne and/or White Knight?
3) Could he get clearance to win it at Oshkosh?
4) Is there a reason not to if he could?
Re:YURI GAGARIN (Score:3, Insightful)
I wasn't being obstinate or intolerant, I was just stating a fairly reasonable position.
So, lets check that position again.
China modified a Russian rocket and rented a facility in another country to launch one of their own men. Meaning, they made no new equipment, prepared no new facilities, and went nowhere new. Guess what, that really isn't very important, no matter who-the-fuck does it.
And, in case you're wondering, "When the country with most of the worlds population starts to move its shit into LEO," I'll be saying, "Wow, that's damn impressive, but I still don't give a shit who the first Chinese man in space was, because that really didn't matter very much."
Idiot.