[Sounds of thunderous applause] I just watched Space Ship One win the X-Prize. Its an entirely privately financed vehicle that made it into space (defined by an altitude of 100 km) twice in two weeks. Today is also the anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, which was the start of the "space age." I even have an autograph from the pilot who flew Space Ship One today (ironically, it says "come back in August", which was the team had originally planned on making their attempt at the X-Prize). Hopefully this is just a step toward awesome things to come for manned space flight -- privately financed orbital vehicles, cheaper manned access to low earth orbit, regular suborbital trips for cargo and tourists, N*ASA getting out of the business of doing something it knows how to do and moving onto exploring and pushing back new frontiers.

I'm feeling really optimistic about the future of manned space flight right now. I'm feeling not so chipper about N*ASA's prospects, as the space shuttle's return to flight has just been delayed again - now, its no earlier than May 14.

Since I'm waxing philosophical about space exploration anyway, I should probably also comment on my obsessive watching of "From the Earth to the Moon." The entire mini-series was on (repeatedly) on TNT this weekend. Its amazing to me every time I am reminded of the scope and technological achievement of the Apollo program. The dramatized young engineers in the program could've been me (well, if women's lib had come a couple decades earlier) - and right now, I can't even imagine being given leave to make decisions and work on projects like that. Hell, its taking two years to get an existing, tested spacecraft that's flown 100 times back into shape to fly again -- all the while, engineers are sitting on the ground deciding if risks are worth taking. In TEN YEARS, we went from not even knowing if manned space travel was possible to landing on the moon. The moon! How much longer until we go back? How about pushing onto Mars?


ha ha ha, good on the google home page today for commemorating space ship one: