I was out at the press conference today, but I couldn’t get into the wireless network. My wireless widget in XP wanted a five or a thirteen-character code for the WEP, and the X-Prize folks issued a ten-character one. It steadfastly refused to accept it, or light up the second confirmation window, until I complied, which I couldn’t. Such is technology. Tomorrow, I’ll hook up my Linksys USB wireless dongle, which may have software for the twenty-first century.

Anyway, Clark Lindsey (with whom I carpooled out there today, after which we went to the space history museum in Alamagordo and then to White Sands Monument) has a lot of posts on the news conference (warning, not a permalink–there were too many links–just scroll, or in the future, use the Wayback Machine), and Alan Boyle has a story specifically on the teachers-in-space announcement.

My thoughts, before bed?

The new Rocketplane design looks good, but it seems to me now that the real barrier is financial. Though they didn’t say at the press conference, the rumor is that they need a lot of money to complete it, and they don’t have it. The time constant for first flight test of a suborbital vehicle seems to remain two years. Leonard David has more details.

Rocket Racing League seems much more encouraging. They now have the minimum six teams required, and they have a vehicle which flew three times yesterday in Mojave. I suspect that it will be flown publicly before the end of the year. I think that sponsorships will appear more quickly now.

I had one question of Granger–how long will this be a race purely of pilot skill? When will we see a competition of hardware? His answer: at least three years. In my follow up, he said that eventually he would be going to a formula, but that we needed to get some experience and understand the nature of the sport better. I hope that this will happen sooner rather than later, because I think that the technology will advance much more rapidly from this activity when we have not just competing pilots, but competing designs.