An interesting aside on this. It took the Mercury program a bit over 9 months to go from the first sub-orbital flight to the first orbital flight.
The big private enterprise sub-orbital flight happened almost 5 years ago (5 years this coming November IIRC). It cost 100 million to develop, and won a prize of 10 million. I can find nothing in development for private orbital flight. (By private I mean without government money, not government contractors). I have no idea when it will happen, but I will bet a case of beer against one beer that it will be more than 10 years from the first sub-orbital flight. Yes, we have announcement of Virgin planning sub-orbital flights in a big-time manner, which will probably be close enough to break even to be worth it in PR. And, the owner is a multi-billionaire who could afford it. But, I think it very worth noting that we are not talking about a step that took the government less than a year not being on the privatae horizen after 5 years. There is something fundamental going on here, IMHO. Dan M. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com What can On Demand Business Solutions do for you? http://link.mail2web.com/Business/SharePoint _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
