Professor Elam

Tuesday Oct 12 2010

While most of the talking heads on tv were discussing the latest political insults thrown in the campaign, Richard Branson at Virgin Galactic was accomplishing something truly remarkable. Now recall the Wright Brothers flew for the first time in 1903. Virgin Galactic has begun selling tickets for sub orbital space flight. 

There is a remarkable graphic time line showing Virgin's progress. Recall just a few years ago that a 50ish pilot wearing a ball cap and a pair of jeans reached suborbital space and safely came back to ground. 

After the apparent walk on the moon (did we really get there?) in 1969, the expectation was that space was truly the next frontier. And then NASA grew like most government agencies and like most, nothing happened. Space exploration was reduced to that Mayflower Moving Van of a Shuttle doing whatever it was they did out there, the space station which was brilliantly showcased in the movie 2001 (at least a great idea showing the astronaut jogging around a spinning circular craft to generate its own gravity), well, what did happen at the space station, beats me. 

Meanwhile Las Cruces New Mexico has become the new Spaceport. 

Now that Barack has done one thing I do agree with privatize space, Branson is offering space trips.  Branson says he already has over 300 deposits for space flights. 

The idea of heavier than air flight has captured imaginations for centuries. In the last century it became a reality. Now, as Buzz Lightyear would say, To Infinity and Beyond.