Horizon Tonight

What a waste. 45 minutes to get to the point that 2 years ago Scaled
Composites won the X Prize. And?

Martin

Nice free advert for Branson though.......

Gaz

300K For a ticket on a ehem "space" ship that has yet to be built!
virgin man needs as much free advertising as he can get

More like 300k for a two hour flight and 4 minutes of weightlessness.

The parabola picture looked great though.. took me back to high school
maths!


wrote in message
ups.com...
300K For a ticket on a ehem "space" ship that has yet to be built!
virgin man needs as much free advertising as he can get

Martin wrote:
What a waste. 45 minutes to get to the point that 2 years ago Scaled
Composites won the X Prize. And?

Martin


Well I thought it was absolutely amazing, mind you , I have never been
in space before...

"Interstellar OverDrive" wrote in message
...
Martin wrote:
What a waste. 45 minutes to get to the point that 2 years ago Scaled
Composites won the X Prize. And?

Martin


Well I thought it was absolutely amazing, mind you , I have never been in
space before...

Yes it was, but it was old old news. The good old BBC even forgot to mention
Steve Bennett the Brit who runs Starchaser. They also failed to mention the
next real step which is a privately funded orbital flight, which is one of
Starchasers goals. That would give massive opportunities for cheaper
launches for satellites and a real prospect for space tourism.

Horizon was always about looking at the future, not the past.

Martin

On 2006-01-15, Martin wrote:

Yes it was, but it was old old news. The good old BBC even forgot to mention
Steve Bennett the Brit who runs Starchaser. They also failed to mention the
next real step which is a privately funded orbital flight, which is one of
Starchasers goals.

Now this is much harder. You can't do this with a rocket that burns
old tyres! The amount of energy needed is much higher and the problems
of getting rid of it on reentry are much more difficult, esp if you want
a re-usable vehicle. At a guess I'd say it will be many years (decades?)
before _orbital_ flights are within the cost of joe millionaire.

Pete

--
.................................................. .........................
.. never trust a man who, when left alone ...... Pete Lynch .
.. in a room with a tea cosy ...... Marlow, England .
.. doesn't try it on (Billy Connolly) .....................................

"Peter Lynch" wrote in message
...
On 2006-01-15, Martin wrote:

Yes it was, but it was old old news. The good old BBC even forgot to
mention
Steve Bennett the Brit who runs Starchaser. They also failed to mention
the
next real step which is a privately funded orbital flight, which is one
of
Starchasers goals.

Now this is much harder. You can't do this with a rocket that burns
old tyres! The amount of energy needed is much higher and the problems
of getting rid of it on reentry are much more difficult, esp if you want
a re-usable vehicle. At a guess I'd say it will be many years (decades?)
before _orbital_ flights are within the cost of joe millionaire.

Pete

--
.................................................. ........................
. never trust a man who, when left alone ...... Pete Lynch .
. in a room with a tea cosy ...... Marlow, England .
. doesn't try it on (Billy Connolly) .....................................


Which is why the X Prize was a little bit of a fraud. The only way you can
have hotels in space and the like is with an orbital vehicle which is why
the Starchaser team are working hard at that problem. As you rightly mention
that is a whole new ball game and the only real practical solution would be
a Shuttle type vehicle, which of course even NASA is moving away from. Be
interesting to see what the Chinese do.

Martin

Which is why the X Prize was a little bit of a fraud. The only way
you can
have hotels in space and the like is with an orbital vehicle which is why
the Starchaser team are working hard at that problem. As you rightly mention
that is a whole new ball game and the only real practical solution would be
a Shuttle type vehicle, which of course even NASA is moving away from. Be
interesting to see what the Chinese do.

I think it's a bit unfair to say it was a bit of a fraud. The X prize
was a model to foster innovation, not to have hotels in space. I think
the X prize succeeded very well in kick starting the private space race.

"Interstellar OverDrive" wrote in message
...
Which is why the X Prize was a little bit of a fraud. The only way you
can
have hotels in space and the like is with an orbital vehicle which is why
the Starchaser team are working hard at that problem. As you rightly
mention that is a whole new ball game and the only real practical
solution would be a Shuttle type vehicle, which of course even NASA is
moving away from. Be interesting to see what the Chinese do.

I think it's a bit unfair to say it was a bit of a fraud. The X prize was
a model to foster innovation, not to have hotels in space. I think the X
prize succeeded very well in kick starting the private space race.

The reason I said fraud was that we see the likes of Branson and others
promising hotels in space, but sub orbital vehicles are going to do little
than offer a few minutes of gravity free fun (perhaps the 60 mile high
club?) and until someone finds a cheap reusable orbital vehicle (and no
Government has managed that yet) all the rest is a pipe dream.

Martin