Man, is it cold up here. I can barely type, and even the laptop is running slow.
I was going to live blog the press conference, but my computer wouldn’t even boot until I found some power for it. We watched the plane(s) roll out, emerging from the darkness into floodlights, with searchlights dancing on dissipating (perhaps only temporarily) clouds above the cold desert sky. The wind was blowing at gale force, and cutting right through, with the temps probably in the lower thirties.
More later, after I warm my fingers up. But it may be much later…
[Update a few minutes later, at 7:40 PM]
The party was supposed to go until 9, but they’re evacuating the tent before the wind blows it down.
[Late evening update]
For those of you on the edge of your seats wondering if the tent collapsed on me, I got out before the wind blew it down, and we retired to the Mariah Hotel bar (but tonight, they could have called the wind Mariah, as the old song goes). I just got in from the drive back down to LA. More on the morrow.
Watching the X-prize broadcasts, which was supposed to be a reuseable single stage to 100KM right?
I thought all the other images were demo’s, but it strikes me that it’s actually 2 stages, no matter how minimal the first stage assisted the climb, it doesn’t change that it does assist in the climb, so it’s two stage, in this normal guys opinion.
Seems like Scaled played a legalease advantage in claiming it.
Still cool as all hell, but I can’t help but think that it was a bit of a cheat.
Main reason I notice it, is because I think I would be more startled by the drop before ignition than sitting on a much bigger candle.
Douglas-
The $10 million Ansari X PRIZE had nothing about single-stage in the rules.
“To win the prize, famed aerospace designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen led the first private team to build and launch a spacecraft capable of carrying three people to 100 kilometers above the earth’s surface, twice within two weeks.”
http://space.xprize.org/ansari-x-prize
Both the NBC nightly news and BBC carried stories on the roll-out. Pretty good coverage for a space event.
Seems like Scaled played a legalease advantage in claiming it.
The rules allowed for that well before SpaceShipOne became public knowledge.
Thanks Sorry, maybe it’s just all the coverage of rutan giving lectures about SSTO that made me cross it up.
It just had to be privately funded and reuseable, got it. Thanks.