On 23 Jun 2004 02:43:58 GMT, (B2431) wrote:

Yuppers..... You can just imagine all those NASA and public trough
government people watching the spaceship being towed back to the hanger
by a pickup truck with a couple of average joes sitting on the
tailgate.

And not wearing white overalls etc.

I think one of the tidiest actions was when the pilot left the aircraft just a
few minutes after landing unlike 20 minutes or so while the space shuttle is
purged of poisonous gasses.

I wonder how many NASA types felt as if they were slapped.

They probably feel the same way Air Force or airline pilots feel when they
see a Cessna rolled out of its hangar, preflighted, and taxied out for
takeoff in a period of about 15 minutes...by just one guy.

....or, for that matter, how a typical Cessna driver feels when he sees a
guy with a Kitfox on a trailer roll up, unfold the wings, and go flying.

The Space Shuttle and SpaceShipOne have different mission requirements,
thus different performance levels. It's the difference between an
ultralight and a 737. It's not surprising if the ground-handling
requirements and overall acquisition costs are far less, as the required
performance is commensurately lower as well.

It took about forty years from the date the first government-sponsored
manned aerospacecraft left the atmosphere and glided down to a safe landing
in the California desert to the successful flight of the first private one.
If the same timescale was used for conventional airplanes, the first
privately-owned aircraft would have flown in 1943.

If it was easy, it wouldn't be rocket science. All the more credit to the
SpaceShipOne developers and crew.


Ron Wanttaja