On 4 Oct 2004 05:18:44 -0700, (bryan chaisone) wrote:

I just saw 'Black Sky, The Race to Space' on the Discovery Channel.
Boy! Wish I was on the team. What an opportunity to do something
good and exciting at the same time! I full of emotions when the
landing gear collapsed and when they Melvill made that beautiful
landing after reentry. Rutan is good and he has surrounded himself
with good people, that's the formula.

Only caught part of it, but it was an outstanding show. Got a kick out of
Rutan showing his orbital and space station designs. See my "OrbitOne"
postings for the problems inherent in scaling up the design...but if anyone
can solve 'em, Burt can.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?A14252179

That Melvill guy's got balls. From being a high school drop-out to
first civilian in space in a 'homebuilt'!

And an immigrant as well...

They had a sign that said:

Space Ship One
Government Zero

That is a great statement! Only in America do you get the freedom to
do something like this and to publicly say such a statement and not be
imprisoned or killed.

Didn't realize things had gotten that bad in Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and Britain. :-)

History in the making. I have confidence that Rutan has the
experience to address the roll problem.

From the sounds of it, they know what the problem is, and will correct it
in the Generation 2 design.

Ron Wanttaja