To infinity... and beyond!

I do not see how it is physically possible to inbound the ball, turn and get off a shot with only .4 seconds left on the clock. That's all I shall say on the subject.

Regarding the suborbital flight of SpaceShipOne, however, I'll say a lot more. This is cool. Yesterday, the rocket-powered craft designed and built by Scaled Composites flew to an altitude of 40 miles, which is really, really close to the edge of space. The sky turns from blue to black. There's negligible atmosphere. And then it glided safely back to Earth, piloted by Mike Melvill. You can find more extended stories (along with great pictures) here: SpaceDaily, Space.com and CNN.

I'm on the verge of falling in love with SpaceShipOne for a number of reasons, despite the painfully dorky and uninspired name. Firstly, it looks like it belongs in space. Second, it's looking like a shoe-in to win the $10 million X-Prize, awarded to the first reusuable space craft to carry three people safely up to an altitude of 62 miles and back twice within a three week period. Now, I know $10 million won't begin to cover the development costs of this ship, but it's a nice bit of underwriting any way you look at it. Third, actual development work on this thing began in 1999, and here we are, five years later, with an actual working ship skirting the edges of space. Scaled Composites are the same guys who designed the brilliant X-38 which was perfect in every way, yet got killed because the space station costs are devouring NASA from the inside out.

I've always been a huge fan of the X-15, which routinely reached altitudes of 50-plus miles, and was a genuinely reusable space plane. I'm still ticked that the X-20 program was cancelled all those years ago. SpaceShipOne looks to rectify four decades of neglect, and possibly open up the frontier of space to bums like me for suborbital flights. To say I'd be greatly interested would be an understatement. For more detailed information on the prospects of space tourism, other competitors for the X-Prize, and a comparison with the X-15, why not mosey on over to this site.

Now Playing: Wyndnwyre Out of Time