First Private Manned Space Mission

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http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/062104-2.htm
SpaceShipOne Makes History: First Private Manned Mission to Space

The world witnessed the dawn of a new space age today, as investor and philanthropist Paul G. Allen and Scaled Composites launched the first private manned vehicle beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The successful launch demonstrated that the final frontier is now open to private enterprise.
Under the command of test pilot Mike Melvill, SpaceShipOne reached a record breaking altitude of 328,491 feet (approximately 62 miles or 100 km), making Melvill the first civilian to fly a spaceship out of the atmosphere and the first private pilot to earn astronaut wings.
This flight begins an exciting new era in space travel,” said Paul G. Allen, sole sponsor in the SpaceShipOne program. “Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites are part of a new generation of explorers who are sparking the imagination of a huge number of people worldwide and ushering in the birth of a new industry of privately funded manned space flight.”
The historic flight also marks the first time an aerospace program has successfully completed a manned mission without government sponsorship. “Today’s flight marks a critical turning point in the history of aerospace,” said Scaled Composites founder and CEO Burt Rutan. “ We have redefined space travel as we know it.”
“Our success proves without question that manned space flight does not require mammoth government expenditures,” Rutan declared. “It can be done by a small company operating with limited resources and a few dozen dedicated employees.” A large crowd watched the momentous flight live from the grounds of the Mojave Airport, joining millions of others around the world who tuned in by television, radio, and the internet. Dignitaries attending the event included U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, the Commanding Officer of Edwards Air Force Base, General Pearson and the China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center, Admiral Venlet; former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, and Konrad Dannenberg, one of Werner Von Braun’s lead scientists on this country’s original space development effort. Hundreds of media representatives were also on hand to record history in the making.
...So, any thoughts on this?

-- -- (dermondstate@citywoxley.org), October 04, 2004

Answers

Looks like NASA is in BIIIIIIIIIG trouble. heh heh heh.

-- Garret Ford (Parallax281457689@Yahoo.com), October 05, 2004.

As much fun as it will be to ride in space, where do we have to go that's worthwhile? The moon? Ha! Who wants to go to the moon? That'd get boring after a month or two. While you're up there, you'd be thinking... "Wow. Earth. I wonder what it's like there? I've forgotten." We should fix this fucked up planet before we go anywhere else. Just a thought.

-- U msut Feers Me (W.lovesblow@blank.com), October 05, 2004.

I totaly dissagree. Our planet is extroardinarialy fucked up, and that's why we need to expand. Not to the moon...fuck that...but to Mars or Europa...preferably Mars, because it's got the potential to be terraformed to suit the envornmental needs of humans (I read an article once about a plan to make the atmosphere thicker by simply pumping a bunch of greenhouse gasses into their atmosphere...sounds like a colossal money pit to me, but it's an intersting thought). If we could create an artificial atmosphere on Mars and introduce plant and animal life from Earth, it would solve about fifty bazillion of our problems at once. We could create self-sufficient colonies, create huge nature preserves for all our endangered species, and grow enough food with all that available land to pretty much feed the entire world. Plus it would act as a saftey valve for our population. Earth's population is on its way to reaching critical mass in the next century or so, so it's important we get on this now. Throughout history, humanity has always had "safety valves", laregly unsettled territory (or, in the case of the Americas, land that was settled by people nobody gave a shit about) that people could settle. It provided cheap land, and lots of it, for poor people tired of living in slums in the cities. It was a place criminals and troublemakers could go so they weren't making trouble back home. It also provided a hell of an adventure for anybody who was bored with the same old shit. But now, we've pretty much paved over most of the planet, so we've got to find a new celestial body to fuck up.

I mean come on, how many Palestinians would glady hop on a space ship headed for Mars rather than blow themselves up?

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), October 05, 2004.


Well...

Anti, that can't possibly be right. Number one, creating an artificial atmosphere? What are we going to do, pump out trillions of gallons of Nitrogen, Oxygen and Ozone? And Terraforming wouldn't work worth half a shit. Mars is much to far from the sun and any potential heat to support our plant and animal life. the average surface temp is about 30 degrees, excluding extremely rare summer days which have reached about 80 F. I am not saying that going to Mars is a mistake, it is inevitable and will be cool as hell, but we need to handle all the shit that is going on on Earth before we fuck up the only other semi-habitable cellestial body in this Solar System. So, basically, let's get Earth under a relative amount of control, and then go to Mars and build a fucking McDonalds.

-- U msut Feers Me (W.lovesblow@blank.com), October 05, 2004.


It seemed a little out there to me when I read it too. I'm really not a science person, but it seems to me that if they CAN do it, it will take a hell of a long time and a hell of a lot of money. Sounded kind of cool to me, but I know jack shit about that stuff.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), October 06, 2004.


"They'll be no acusations, just friendly crustations under tha SEAAAAAAA...."

But thats just my opinion on where humanity should go next. The weak and stupid would find some way to drown.

-- Kayce (kay@cee.com), October 08, 2004.

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