MSNBC: SpaceShipOne whirls into space for a prize
SpaceShipOne landed safely Wednesday after a tilt-a-whirl start to its bid to win a $10 million prize for private spaceflight.
Judges with the Ansari X Prize confirmed at a news conference later in the day that the ship had gone beyond the 100-kilometer (62.5-mile) mark required for the flight to qualify as the first of two needed to win the $10 million purse. The official numbers, which come from radar at nearby Edwards Air Force Base, put SpaceShipOne at 337,500 feet, or 102.9 kilometers (63.9 miles).
The flight must be successfully repeated within two weeks under the X Prize rules. The second flight ? “X2″ ? is tentatively scheduled for Monday.
Science fiction author Robert Heinlein wrote several short stories — “The Man Who Sold The Moon” and “Requiem” — about private space flight, as well as the movie “Destination: Moon.”
There are many who blames the government’s virtual monopoly on manned space flight for our failure to return to the moon and for the lack of action toward getting human beings on Mars. President Bush proposed setting up a permanent human presence on the Moon, but nothing has been done so far.
Discovery of water on Mars and the Moon make human habitation technically possible. It is certain that until human beings can set up habitation on either place, there is no way we can take advantage of the resources there.
And there there are those who believe that we need to get back to the Moon and to get to Mars period simply because they are there. The effort
itself is its own reward.
Heinlein believed that. So do I.
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