Space Race Heats Up

spacedaily.com ^ | 07/20/04 | Irene Klotz

[KevinDavis]

Mike Melvill's exo-atmospheric excursion aboard a privately developed rocket already may have accomplished the primary goal of a new-age space race by showing that governments are not the only entities that can transport people off the planet.

[KevinDavis]

I was born the year after the first moon landing. It is great to witness a new space race.

[KevinDavis]

[Aeronaut]

[SamAdams76]

In the 1950s, only the government could afford to build a computer. In the 1970s, hobbyists could build one in their garage. By the 1990s, teenage kids were building them in their bedroom.

And so it will be the same with space. At some point, hobbyists will be shooting out into space. Then before you know it, kids will be hanging out on one of the moons of Jupiter, sucking down an illicit six-pack of beer - and they will find a way to be home before the streetlights come on.

[RightWhale]

Everybody who saw the race to the moon knew that it was very dangerous. Safety is a concern but there are limits. We can't expect either NASA or the private sector to have a perfect safety record. It's exciting when the launch is successful and they return to earth in one piece. When they aren't successful I don't know what it is--they know the risk.

[KevinDavis]

It is called the Human spirit.. I think it is in our nature to take risks...

[Hunble]

Personally, if people are not dying in their efforts to push beyond, then they are not trying hard enough.

I have no respect for anyone that is not willing to risk everything, to achieve their goal. Sometimes the goal is extremely dangerous!

Thank God, we have had people like them in our history.

[RightWhale]

As they say in Dune, on Arrakis you will die. Of course, if you stay home you will also die.

[KangarooJacqui]

I was born the year after the first moon landing. It is great to witness a new space race.

I was born the year of the LAST moon landing... daughter of a NASA technician (or he was at the time, anyway.) I recall a childhood of looking towards the skies, recalling Skylab, the first launch of Space Shuttle Columbia (may she and her crew rest in peace)...

I look forward to an adulthood of seeing the human race go onward, ever upward and outward...

[Pirate at Forty]

I enjoyed hearing Burt Rutan And Mike Melville give a presentation at Osh Kosh Saturday morning. Rutan said essentially the same thing, A paraphrase "NASA thinks that they must engineer the risk from space travel. Thirty years ago I asked when could the general public expect to fly in space, they replied ' In about thirty years' Lately I asked them again. Again they relied 'In about thirty years' I don't think I want to wait that long."

It's a great presentation that will be included in a Discovery Channel special in a couple of months. The dangers are real, but the adventure and excitement is even more real. Both Rutan and Melville are explorers and adventurers. We need more of their type.....

[Hollywoodghost]

Lots of people (like one of the Wright Brothers) lost their lives at the dawn of flight. Did we stop trying to make airplanes? A lot of people were killed in early Railroad accidents but did we stop making trains? Same true with steamships and steamboats. I bet lots of lives were lost long ago when humans first went to sea in rafts and crude boats. Life that includes human progress, just isn't safe. People need to know the risks and take them. Chuck Yeager said something like that when the first shuttle blew up. We shouldn't stop shooting off shuttles--but they should be manned by volunteers who know the risks they take--not teachers in space and other PC nonsence.

[KevinDavis]

I think you said it best. A lot of people seems to forget about the we as a race has taken chances and died from it. We can't play it safe forever!

[KevinDavis]

People like Rutan and Melville made this nation great.

[Tench_Coxe]

"And so it will be the same with space. At some point, hobbyists will be shooting out into space. Then before you know it, kids will be hanging out on one of the moons of Jupiter, sucking down an illicit six-pack of beer - and they will find a way to be home before the streetlights come on."

And then you'll get a whole bunch of incidents where the last words from the black box are, " Hold muh beer and watch this!"