Seems to me Richard Branson's flight aboard SpaceShipTwo was a whole lot like an X-15 flight. Carrier plane carries rocket plane to high altitude, drops rocket plane, rocket plane shoots up to outer space, falls back down and glides to a landing. I wanted to do a more complete comparison, but I've run out of time, so I'm just dropping this little note here.
The X-15 only carried one person, the pilot, wearing a spacesuit, while Branson's spaceplane carried several people wearing street clothes.
3 comments:
Being an airline passenger doesn't make you a pilot.
Being a space tourist doesn't make you an astronaut.
Number of space tourists just went up by, what? A factor of six? Going to be thousands before the decade is out.
I'm sure it will become a must do for the Jones, like their BMW, and country club membership. However I think a lot of people will be disappointed to have nothing but bragging rights for their expense and effort.
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