SpaceShipOne News Coverage just a little rough on the edges

Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer wrote:
Overall, pretty decent live event coverage. Nice aerial shots, in
particular. Background coverage was sparce. I would have like to see more
on the R & D history of the project.

But the announcers on CNN did err at least two times:

1. They prounounced Sputnik with a short, instead of the proper long "U".


Spoot-Nick? Tre Gem-eNee. (Gem-en-I sound sooo much better.)

2. They said SpaceShipOne won the prize when it succeeded in getting to
"outer" space. I do believe only the Voyager has made it to outer space,
which is really intersteller space, not the near space, which begins just
outside the Earth's atmosphere. SSO just kissed near space at best, since
there is still enough atmosphere at 100km to make orbital flight
problematic.


Well my friend, there is a whole bunch of basics we have no idea of in
the general public's consciousness. Simple stuff, not Brainiac material.


While I'm at it, there is no "hell" in helicopter. Only once in recent
times have I heard a newscaster pronounce helicopter with a long "e" .
Yes, I am aware contemporary dictionaries disagree with this, but I believe
the word was coined with a long e, since the root of helicopter was derived
from the mathematical helix and was quickly *******ized into the form now
in common use. I am not an entomologist so don't come down on me if
anything in this post is off the beam.


Hmmm, sounds like 'Heal-a Monster', not exactly what people would choose
to say (I mean strictly phonetically, just on the flow of the words.)

There is something to be said for the (cop out if it must be called
that) that "I am speaking English, and that's how we pronounce it here...".

btw- getting back to the subject at hand; I had no idea they had
successfully completed the second run within the two week period until I
happened across it buried deep in a news page. Buried Deep I tell you.

So, then my posting of Google's gif file (logo) update makes
retrospective sense now, only I hadn't picked up on the significance at
the time. sheesh



TBerk