The mainstream press, that is.

MSNBC has an article about how regulations are more of a barrier than technology for opening up space. They talked to the right people (other than the fact that they didn't talk to me, of course), and if we can get more articles like this, we may see more progress in getting the FAA and the government in general in synch with the reality needed to open up the frontier. Burt Rutan, prickly a character as he is, is doing a great service to the private space industry, by forcing issues.

Wait a minute...You mean, government IS the problem? Not the believers of Individualism? Not the believers of Capitalism? This can't be comrades! Where's Lenin when you need him!

All satire aside, this is a good move in the right direction, but I believe that NASA might have a different opinion on the matter. And saddly, NASA has about 40 years of brainwashing the American public behind it.

Questions, what kind of range would Burt Rutan?s Spaceship One have, could he pull a Lindbergh? By that I mean could he launch from New York and land in Paris? In one of the articles I red; he evidently talked about inspiring others similar to the period in aviation between 1909-1912. Winning the X-prize is a great start but in today?s media news gets old fast, he may need to do a little barnstorming to keep the publics attention. :)

Shawn:
I don't think that there's enough fuel capacity on the SpaceShipOne for a major transoceanic flight, at least from what they show in the articles. Their posted flight profiles certainly don't lead one to believe that this particular version could do it. Plus, dead sticking it across the ocean would make anyone just a wee bit nervous in a first edition machine, no matter who made it. In principle, given the fuel, a suborbital trajectory with only one burn that sends you to anywhere on the planet is doable, the problem is always going to be that second, unpowered leg. I would think that those kinds of trips need two things: a throttled engine and larger capacity, not much more would be needed, but at least something in the 5-15 minute burn range to give you another good arc to somewhere to ditch.

I especially liked the statement, attributed to Rutan, that the U.S. keeps tossing away perfectly good boosters and replacing them with "new" designs. One would -- cough, cough -- think the mission is to keep new money flowing to NASA's contractors, rather than actually doing something in space.

Actually, I wonder how well NASA's brainwashing is really holding? It's been a while since I saw a NASA true-believer in the flesh. Maybe that's because I consort with all you heretics.

OK, so he does New York to Paris in SpaceShipTwo. It's not like he's building a vehicle that is all things to everyone, that's NASA's job. :)

Actually, if Rutan sticks to his usual m.o., he'll be selling assembly required copies to other people to fly around the world while he's working on an orbital vehicle.
But that's the best part of the whole thing. Given that there appear to be at least 4 or 5 companies that have a serious shot at building real sub orbital and short orbital machines, none of which have more than a token governmental involvement, it's gonna be like being in the early 1900's all over again. Any bet's on who's the first to propose a head to head race, Edwards a.f.b. to Sydney, Australia, and back, say?

Sub-orbital racing? Yeah, baby! Let's get some prize money going.