Henry Spencer wrote:
[snip]
Only if you are the government, or have government sponsorship, are the
technical problems dominant. Only in that case does the *technical*
difference between suborbital and orbital make the former doubtful as
a step toward the latter.

The government-aerospace mindset goes deep, but it is possible to break
out of it, if you try.

As I pointed out in another post, manned rocketry is
fully 6 *decades* old. Space rocketry as well. Manned
spaceflight is over 4 decades old. Yet today it's
still nearly as expensive as it always has been. It's
only more common because it's slightly less risky and
the politics of manned spaceflight keep it budgeted.
It's worthwhile considering how thin a volume listing
all the manned rocket flights in history would be.

SS1 is very definitely a technology demonstrator. But
it is not a demonstrator of rocketry, or pressure
hulls, or reentry systems, or any technology of
subsystems. It's a demonstrator of the technology of
putting it together and managing it without
unnecessary overhead.

SS1 as a thing is not terribly impressive. It's way
behind the technology and sophistication of today's
manned spacecraft. But SS1 as a thing built for a
fraction of the cost and with a fraction of the
workforce of any other sub-orbital rocket in history,
even the X-15, is quite an achievement. One that has
the potential (along with the other folks doing
similar things like X-COR) to open up that thin
volume of manned rocket flights to damned near
everyone and make it quite a bit thicker very soon.