quote:Those purses kick-started today's $300 billion-dollar commercial air transport industry.
Rutan enjoys one very significant advantage: he won't have to start from absolute scratch.
Career change, anyone? If Rutan pulls this off, aerospace industry = booming business.
Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
Sign me up....
....but could you imagine the airport security going on there???
Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
oops, got too excited there... Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
Cool - I really think commerical interest is going to have take over from govermental programs from here on. Unless China sparks a new space race....
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Just so long as they don't call it the Secret Advanced Rocket System, they can go ahead. 8)
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Seriously, forks, have you taken a look at Rutan's design? The guy is raving mad. As usual.
Glassfiber spaceship? Manual, unboosted aerodynamic controls? Life support consisting of manually opening ventilation portholes and a bottle of pressurized air, shared with the pneumatic system that folds the damn thing in half in midflight to create extra drag? No ejection seats, parachuting to be done by unscrewing the nose cone and bailing out against the airstream?
And there's no hope in hell that Rutan could ever get FAA approval for the contraption. Meaning he can't charge a cent on his passengers, officially anyway.
With guys like this in charge, we could have been to Mars in the 1930s already, Captain Proton or Flash Gordon style. With mortality rates for astronauts approaching 97%, but with flights costing $1000 per passenger, tops.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)