Re: [Mpat][michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] SpaceShipOne

[AndertonBargo@xxxxxxx]

Friends -

What is in question? 

That SpaceShipOne has won a competition by reaching a defined height using private finance and new technology that they have developed at a fraction of the cost of the government sponsered space programmes?

No. You can't take that away from them. What Burt Rutan and his team have done is a remarkable, amazing triumph and they deserve all the pats on the back they are getting.

But is the new blueprint for human exploration of space? That is the real question!

Using the X Prize analogy to Lindeburghs' prize-winning trans-Atlantic flight doesn't exactly hold water. The conquest of the air has always had private enterprise pioneers in fact they have made nearly all the early breakthroughs from the Wright brothers onward. Are we to expect that flights into space will be as common as commercial airflights? 

That would be nice ... but I doubt it - the scale of the job is just too immense. Perhaps a better analogy is the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch & English exploration of the world. Just about all of these were bankrolled by their respective governments - remember how Columbus had to get the Queen to finance him? In this case they did it to expand their political & trading empires and private ventures followed, like Sir Walter Ralieghs expedition to Virginia.

NASAs' job has always been to be the technology front-runner and they've done that pretty well. Are they to blame if private enterprise hasn't taken up the challenge up until now? In my opnion that is what we are seeing now. NASA has done the "Proof Of Concept" work - they have shown that man *can* get into space and work there. What Burt Rutan has done has been to show that a private Research & Development programme can develop and build a vehicle that can do the same thing as Alan Shepherds' Redstone ...

... and do it again within weeks 

... and do it cheaper!

The next step? America's Space Prize ...
<http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/spaceprize_techwed_041006.html> 
... Does this mean the rest of the world is not included? That seems rather short-sighted. Another spin-off is the WTN [The World Technology Network] X PRIZES ...
<http://www.wtnxprize.org/>

America's Space Prize is *not* a replacement for NASAs' manned space programme - but it could be the start of commercial and private space travel to orbit. You *can* have both.

Kirok of L'Stok