Monday, June 21, 2004
SpaceShip One's first flight to space
The most exciting news story today, and the story that is mostly likely to have this day go down in history, is that the Scaled Composites flight of SpaceShip One succeeded this morning ;-). The engine cut off prematurely, and pilot Mike Melvill reported some loud bangs, but he did make it to an altitude of 100km (internationally considered the edge of space) and fly back to the Mojave runway. He is the first person to enter space in a vehicle built without government sponsorship ;-).
Some good URLs (which'll probably rot very fast):
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/040620preview.html
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/21/suborbital.test/index.html
At the risk of trying to seem geekier than thou, let me remind you that Christopher Pike, the Enterprise captain who immediately preceded James Kirk, was born in Mojave; you can see a glimpse of it as a bustling city in "The Cage" (and "The Menagerie"). Currently Mojave is a small town indeed; as of the census of 2000, there were 3,836 people. But if it truly becomes a spaceport, I can easily imagine it growing exponentially.
Some good URLs (which'll probably rot very fast):
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/040620preview.html
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/status.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/21/suborbital.test/index.html
At the risk of trying to seem geekier than thou, let me remind you that Christopher Pike, the Enterprise captain who immediately preceded James Kirk, was born in Mojave; you can see a glimpse of it as a bustling city in "The Cage" (and "The Menagerie"). Currently Mojave is a small town indeed; as of the census of 2000, there were 3,836 people. But if it truly becomes a spaceport, I can easily imagine it growing exponentially.
