June 21, 2004
a small step... in the right direction
We should have been doing things such as this a long time ago. Without the government running the show.
Mankind's destiny is in the stars. We have too much imagination and too much curiosity to squat right here on our puny asses on our puny planet forever. We are explorers, always wondering what lies beyond the next mountain or across the next sea. We should go there.
Let's roll.
3,300 feet per second...now that's moving...
Speaking as someone who has made his living off NASA contracts for the last 15 years, this is something that is long overdue. Burt Rutan put it best when he said they did this whole thing for about as much money as NASA would spend on a paper study. Personally, I think these private space pioneers are probably going to beat NASA back to the Moon and on to Mars.
Great story....and it happened not 60 miles from where I sit. Lots of fantantistic (in every sense of the word) things have occurred out there in the Mojave Desert since WW II. The Right Stuff & all that. When I had the good fortune to see the Voyage airplane hanging in the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum a few years back, I felt a real connection because it took off & landed in Kern County.
One can only hope that the Rutans of the world continue to push that envelope.
