Herb Schaltegger wrote:

Again, if the requirement is so lenient as to allow dead weight ballast
in place of actual human beings, what's the point of using ANYONE?
Pat's cute, personality-filled monkey(s) would fit the bill perfectly.


I can see the rationale for allowing ballast instead of people for the
prize flights; even with the basic "straight up out of the
atmosphere/fall back into the atmosphere/glide back to launch site"
nature of the mission without much horizontal velocity being involved,
this is a fairly risky enterprise, given that a lot of the flight will
leave no escape option for the pilot or passengers should the aircraft
suffer a serious malfunction. Given that aspect of the flights, I can
see why the rules allow an equivalent amount of ballast to be carried in
the interests of safety; in much the same way that the first 5 Shuttle
flights went up with just the minimal crew to operate it and get it
home. I would consider Spaceship One to be a _very_ experimental
aircraft, and the FAA says no passengers during the first 40 hours of
flight with a non-FAA certified motor installed. I assume that it only
is considered to be "flying" when it's separated from White Knight, so
40 hours flight time could take a while to accrue.

Pat