[TomSmedley]

Samuel Pierpont Langley, bureaucrat, spent $80,000 of taxpayer money (in 1904 dollars) to create a plane that splashed. Failure due, Langley said, to "insufficient funds."

The bishop's boys, Wilbur and Orville, spent somewhat less that $1,000 of their own money.

The privatization of space transport could, I believe, lead to a new golden age.

[oxcart]

There is just something about those "Ohio" boys and "toys".

[eeman]

If your interested in the Wright Brothers and the development of military aviation, you might enjoy this book: Air Power

I happened to glance at the book while browsing at Barnes & Noble and I couldn't put it down.

Off topic, but is Langley field in Virginia named after Samuel Pierpont Langley?

[RightWhale]

The privatization of space transport could, I believe, lead to a new golden age.

It's been private since Goddard.