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A $200,000 ride to space, how nice
Out there in our aerospace center of the Mojave Desert, Burt Rutan and his crew is building SpaceShipTwo, a plane that can carry six over-the-top rich people into orbit. For only $200,000 a trip. That's a little out of my Travelocity budget, but about 200 prospective passengers from 30 countries have made reservations and put up the cash. During the ride they can experience weightlessness for about 4 minutes. From their vantage point 62 miles above the earth, they'll get a view of our emerald planet that they can treasure for a lifetime. I hope they share pictures. Because I won't get to go. I'm saving a few thousand dollars to get a fishing boat. It will take me places I don't normally get to go. We just do what we can with what we have. Posted by Steve E. Swenson
1 comments from 1 users
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posted by
adampayne
on Jan 24, 2008 at 12:55 PM
The real breakthrough here is not the extravagant cost by a privileged few to fly in this wonder, but that the pressure from the bottom up will force innovation on a currently static and monolithic aerospace industry. What Branson, Ruftan and the other crazy people in Mojave and elsewhere working on this project have achieved is nothing short of miraculous is this day and age. They have moved the giant inert stone of malaise and complacency to a new unchartered point in the sky. Bravo to all the hard working people involved in this truly amazing story of progress at last. This leap did not happen at Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, but at a very small business where brains and ideas mattered most, not the glad handing of ingrained political power brokers to maintain mediocrity by lobby.
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