"Mike Swift" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David Given wrote:

[...]
SpaceShipOne only got 1/3rd the way there and that wasn't SSTO, it was
two staged, carried on White Knight.

No. No, it didn't. SS1 reached Mach 3. Orbit is about the equivalent of
Mach
25. That's 1/8 of the way.

Actually it much worse than 1/8 of the way. In terms of energy that
eight to one velocity increase takes 128 times more energy. As you can
see SpaceShipOne was far from getting to orbit.

The intention was never to get it into orbit. The question to ask yourself,
is if NASA were given the task to create a reusable vehicle to carry three
people to 50 miles altitude and back, what would *that* have cost? Ask the
same question only substitute any large aerospace contractor for NASA.

Jeff
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