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I remember first reading about the X Prize several years ago when I was looking at colleges. I was torn between electrical and aerospace engineering. Fortunately for me, I think I made the right choice. But I have always been fascinated by space flight and by the possibility of "cheap" public transport into space. Yes, NASA was big and cool even when my grandmother was still working full-time at Goddard, but government-sponsored space flight seemed to me to be about global bragging rights and scientific exploration. I respect science for science's sake of course. I don't care if a discovery or experiment isn't immediately translated into a high profit new technology. Sometimes science is just freaking awesome all by itself. But after watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and all those years of Star Trek, I wanted more than anything else to have the possibility of space travel for the masses become a reality. Since we all thought we'd have hover cars by the year 2000 and here we are with the same old cars we've had for a hundred years, I was ecstatic over the coverage that some private enterprise space programs were getting. Now that Burt Rutan and his team have won the X Prize, who knows what's next? I'm not saying that sometime next week I expect to be able to take a ride around the earth like some glorified carnival ferris wheel (dirty carnies... *shudder*). But the point of the X Prize as I understood it was to prove the feasibility of repeatable private manned space flight. It has been done. It is now only a matter of time before space rides become as accessible as airplane rides (unless the TSA gets involved - they should really call themselves the BCF instead). I salute everyone who made an entry into the competition and congrats to Mojave Aerospace!

About me

  • I'm Rev. Adam
  • From Oakton, Virginia, United States
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