posted
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....
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Registered: Oct 2000
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posted
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.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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