Fame's final frontier

steve smyth — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:04:03 GMT

An 89 year old guy gets a ticket for a speculated* few years hence...if that ain't Space Tourism as perpetrated by TIN MEN, what is?
*the same speculation has been being touted since jump street...sleazy promo...

Fame's final frontier

John F. St. Louis, Mo. — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:43:29 GMT

I am still amazed that NASA or anyone else for that matter didn't offer a rider to General Chuck Yeager. He was one of the people that really opened up space to the world.

Fame's final frontier

Lee Valentine — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:09:49 GMT

Frustration is easy to understand.

NASA has promised spaceflight for the common man for 40 years.

A careful sleuth should have noticed that XCOR has done the majority of piloted rocket powered flights in the world since its founding.

XCOR's Air Force Research Lab contract calls for a Lynx first flight in June, 2010. XCOR has a well-deserved reputation for under promising and over delivering. So, I expect that the quoted figures for Lynx's maximum altitude and speed are understated.

You may have noticed the record set on October 1, 2008 for the maximum number of rocket powered flights for a piloted rocket powered vehicle set by XCOR with the Lynx prototype.

The Lynx XR5 K18 engine, the long lead time, and most critical component, of the spaceship is in advanced test. You can find that out easily with a Google search.

If you had been sitting on the flight line in Mojave in the past six months, or had you been in Oshkosh in July, you would have a lot more confidence in XCOR's promises.

Fame's final frontier

Carlos Medina, New York, New York — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:14:21 GMT

We arrived to this our Second Millenium with pain and tears we manage to keep our human population
alive. We have learned to defeat challenges and political individuals who misdirected history with wrong ideas. Our humanity has human people that advance our future bringing ideas into Positive Science work. I agree that teacher Hawkins deserves the honor to travel in this spaceship. Other candidate that already travels although postumously is
W. Rodenbery the author of Star Trek. A conmemorative first space memorial time capsule could include the memories of Peace human heroes like M. Gandi, JFK, Rvd.L. King, Einstein, of heroes that have died in space and Carl Sagan's memorial for Psychohistory because of his warning to the United Nations about our excessive expense with atomic weapons.

Fame's final frontier

OneVoice, Frederick MD — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:27:11 GMT

Great advertising stunt. Great Idea too. Lets hope they follow through...

Fame's final frontier

John, Sartell, MN, USA — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:59:29 GMT

W. Roddenbery(?), Do you mean Gene Roddenbery?
What a shame we could not take some of the pioneers of aviation and rocketry and science fiction to the edge of space. Folks with names like Doolittle, Rickenbacker, Lindberg, Tioski, Goddard, von Braun, Ley, Clarke and Heinlein. Or we could name our rocket planes for them.