When SpaceShipOne officially broke into space Monday, television
news announcers giddily told us they were already in line to become
some of the first private space tourists. But the man who designed
that historic spacecraft says, don't pack just yet. For the vast
majority of us, space will still be a long time coming.
But SpaceShipOne Pilot Says Flight Was A Bit "Intimidating" At
Times
So... how was it?
Mike Melvill, SpaceShipOne's 62-year old pilot on a historic
journey to the edge of space Monday, described his suborbital
flight as "almost religious experience. You really do get the
feeling that you've touched the face of God when you do something
like this."
May Offer Cash To Companies That Orbit Earth, Land On Moon
Far from seeking to limit or compete with private space ventures
like Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne, NASA appears on the verge of
offering its own version of the X-Prize.
This will certainly be a day I will not soon forget! ANN
Publisher Jim Campbell and I left the hotel in Palmdale at 0300 for
the Mojave Airport. A line of cars already stretched from the
airport entrance to Hwy 14, about 2 miles at that point. Media
vehicles formed endless rows, satellite trucks gathered as if it
were a telecommunications convention and still and video cameras
were amassed in the hundreds.
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