Wednesday, October 06, 2004

To Infinity, and Beyond!!!

SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize on Monday with its second suborbital space flight in 5 days (a pretty nifty feat, if you ask me). Ushering in the era of commercial space travel, Richard Branson (of Virgin and Rebel Billionaire fame) has formed a new company, Virgin Galactic, which will be licensing the SpaceShipOne technology and hopes "to make it possible for almost anyone to visit the final frontier at an affordable price... sending passengers into space by the end of the decade."

That would certainly be cool, but somehow I doubt Branson's definition of "an affordable price" is anywhere close to mine. Of course, one of the promises of commercial space travel is that as more competition develops and more flights are taken, the costs will fall. Maybe someday....

So, how about it? Would you ride a rocket into space if the price were right?

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