Travelling companions

[cosmolinguist]

Today is the forty-seventh anniversary of the launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. This was the start of the "space age," between the US and the USSR.

After the US landed some astronauts on the Moon and made it look routine (despite Apollo 13, apparently), interest dwindled and the political rivalry found other arenas. The space race now is of an entirely different nature.

Today SpaceShipOne fulfilled the requirements to claim the Ansari X Prize, ten million dollars, and all that goes along with being the first to do something that wasn't possible before.

Of course, there's always something more to strive for. Many of the teams originally vying for the X Prize, thinking they would lose to SpaceShipOne, are already setting their sights on the next goal: designing a vehicle to orbit the Earh. Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne, also wants to do work on that.

Sputnik orbited the Earth 47 years ago, but it was only 183 pounds and the size of a basketball. Potential space tourists can be assured that today's designers are confident that they can do better.

(Crosslink: rakafkaven says you can count on etymology.)

Comments

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

I'd quibble with your usage of 'something that wasn't possible before' in reference to private non-orbital space flight.

While it was certainly something that hadn't been done before, I don't think that there has been (at least not since the 60's) any doubt that it could be done - nobody thought that there was anything magical about a gov't that made it possible to achieve spaceflight when a private individual couldn't.

Contrast that with things that actually were thought (or believed) to be properly impossible before they were done: heavier than air flight; the speed of sound; walking on something that isn't the earth; making drinkable wine in England; etc...

Nobody doubted that it would be possible for a private individual to reach space, it just hadn't been done yet, and was thought to be incredibly complex and expensive.

[cosmolinguist]

No, there is nothing magical about a government. But, chance or design, only governments have gotten around to putting people into space so far. And while this is not really a new endeavor along the lines of breaking the sound barrier or flying across the Atlantic, it is important because it revisits something potentially useful and interesting that has been neglected. And overcoming the complexity and expense (to the extent that they have been overcome at this point) is some kind of achievement, if not the most thrilling.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't get me wrong. It's certainly something very special, there's no doubt about that.

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I heard about that last night. It launched a discussion of many things space related, Burt Rutan related, and Air and Space Museum related. Now that I think back on it, I'm pretty sure you would have enjoyed the conversation despite being the youngest person in the room by nearly half. I was the youngest in the room, and the only one under forty. These guys have memories of the moon landing. It's kind of cool. :)

P.S. And rakafkaven's post was so awesome, I friended him on the spot.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm pretty sure you would have enjoyed the conversation despite being the youngest person in the room by nearly half.

It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has been true of me.

These guys have memories of the moon landing. It's kind of cool.

I know the feeling. I try not to marvel too much, because it can be seen as rather impolite to point out how old your companions are, but I don't mean to call them old; I'm just jealous of their experience. :-)

And rakafkaven is awesome; I adored that post but he has others I'm also fond of.

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

In my case, it's not so much me calling them old, as it is them trying to tell me I'm young. As someone once wrote on a message board, "Don't dis my geek cred just because I'm younger than a trilobyte." :)