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Richard Branson seems to be winning the consumer space race:



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7205445.stm#graphic



There's something about the design of this that I find deeply disturbing. I remember as I child pottering for hours with Lego, pestering my dad to come up with exciting, but vaguely viable, vehicles, planes among them. And just when you thought you'd exhausted all the possibilities for the afternoon and it was time to go and watch Dukes of Hazard there would come the blinding moment of inspiration when you'd join two planes together at the wing. Suddenly you had a brilliant super plane. Utterly ridiculous of course - I mean who's steering for a start? - and tragically unstable, but fleetingly groundbreaking nonetheless.



Still, several hundred advanced bookings at 200K a pop and a tens of thousands more making enquiries. Maybe I was onto something after all...

I recommend you watch the documetary 'Black Sky', originally aired on the Discovery Channel & regularly repeated. This follows Burt Rutan & his team in their successful attempt at the X prize, from which has spawned the Virgin space project. You will hopefully them understand the team responsible really have moved the goalposts in spaceflight & they have the capability & track record to take space tourism to the next stage.

To focus in on the comment that the Virgin delivery vehicle looks a bit amateurish, this is a direct development of the delivery craft used in the X prize quest, that carries the space capsule up to high altitude, thus the capability of this configuration has been proven already.

QUOTE (AndyP06 @ 26 Nov 08 12:55)

I recommend you watch the documetary 'Black Sky', originally aired on the Discovery Channel & regularly repeated. This follows Burt Rutan & his team in their successful attempt at the X prize, from which has spawned the Virgin space project. You will hopefully them understand the team responsible really have moved the goalposts in spaceflight & they have the capability & track record to take space tourism to the next stage. To focus in on the comment that the Virgin delivery vehicle looks a bit amateurish, this is a direct development of the delivery craft used in the X prize quest, that carries the space capsule up to high altitude, thus the capability of this configuration has been proven already.

Frankly, I'm delighted it works. The spirit of Heath Robinson lives on.

Incidentally, I see Richard Branson will be taking questions at SolidWorks World next month. I may have to ask him for a lift..