On 5 Oct 2004 05:21:06 -0700, ChuckSlusarczyk
wrote:

The flight of SpaceShipOne is the opening of the door to space flight
for industry and the world in a way that could never be approached by
the governments of the world.

You got that right .When did Government ever do anything better then the private
sector?

Any operation driven by the desire for knowledge, not profit. SS1 was
different; it was enabled by the personal fortune of Paul Allen, who tends
to spend it on stuff like professional ball teams and goofy-looking
museums.

Jay Leno had a good line about this, last night: "They just won the $10
million X-Prize, but the spacecraft cost them $25 million to build. Guess
there weren't any rocket scientists on that team...." :-)

If space development had depended on the whims of billionaires, space
flight would probably still be a dream. When a billionaire's personal will
is missing, the government is really the only alternative.

My guess is that no spacecraft showed a profit until communications
satellites could be deployed into geosynchronous orbit. And it took a lot
of government-funded development to enable that kind of operation.

The government *is* getting better. They're doing a lot of funding without
demanding the level of oversight they previously had. The Mars Rovers were
an example of this sort of approach.

I taped CNN's post-landing coverage and watched it last night. Dr.
Diamandis is arranging additional money to encourage the other X-prize
entrants to keep going. He says there's going to be a big Fly-Off in
Arizona in 2006; they're going to bring all the contestants together and
spend a week launching their vehicles. THAT'S going to be fun to watch.

Ron Wanttaja