Re: On the Nature of Exploration

From: Rand Simberg (newsgroups_at_transterrestrial.com)
Date: 07/19/04 

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 18:42:06 GMT

Greg Kuperberg wrote:

>>It has flown several times, and I suspect that they would dispute the
>>notion that "it almost crashed."
>
>
> What I meant was, SS1 has only done one exo-atmospheric flight.
> And I don't see any way to summarize the following other than
> with the words "almost crashed":
>
> The South African-born Melvill told the New York Times, in an
> interview published Wednesday, that SpaceShipOne lurched to the
> left and suffered a key control system failure that left him feeling
> "deathly afraid" and fearing he was going to be a "squashed bug".
>
> At one point during the ascension, he even considered aborting the flight.
>
> "I had a sort of resigned feeling in my mind that there was no way
> to get back with a situation like that," he told the Times.

Fear that it might crash is not equivalent to "almost crashing."

> A 1 in 10 chance of a crash is unacceptable even for commercial unmanned
> launches.

Again, you're making the number up.

   SS1 is not "affordable spaceflight", it's a stunt in the
> tradition of Evel Knievel.

If flies into space, and it's affordable, despite your attempts to
mischaracterize it.

> I don't mean to make it sounds like a small thing: Rutan has accomplished
> more with this project than I thought that he would, and he knows more
> about planes and rockets than I ever will. Still, SS1 is to space travel
> as wading is to swimming.

Yes, and one must learn to wade before learning to swim.