Thursday, October 07, 2004
The X-Prize is over!
So, if you haven't heard about the Ansari X Prize, perhaps you need to go to that website. Basically, it was a 10 million dollar prize given to the first commercial spacecraft that could go into space (100 km in the atmosphere being the definition), land, and repeat the trip within two weeks.
Three days ago, the group from Scaled Composites won the prize, having completed the first trip a week earlier. Their ship, SpaceShipOne, launches from another plane after taking off from a normal runway. (It also looks incredibly cool.) In any case, is this really a reason to get excited? Well, in one sense, yes, because it will be remembered in the history books. But for a few other reasons, I'm just not as excited as I thought I would be. For one, 100 km is sort of a weird cut-off. It's not as if you've escaped the earth's gravity well. You haven't really escaped the atmosphere. But those are nitpicks. I'm mainly not excited because it still seems a way off before actual commercial space flight is viable for the masses. And what's the point of going up in space if you're just going to come back to the same spot? I'd rather go skydiving.
For a few other reasons, I think the newly announced X Prize Cup is more interesting. Taking the idea a little bit further, the X Prize Cup is just a bunch of small competitions, like who can send the most people up at a time, who can make the most flights at a time, etc.
But still, what's the point of space travel if you're just going to come back to earth? Isn't the whole thrill of sci-fi space travel that you could go to crazy places like other planets, other solar systems? Call me up when I can go to the moon. Otherwise, it's basically the same as going up really high into an airplane. But I guess, small steps will get us there, and I have to give credit to them, because it's got to start with something, and they've got the ball rolling.
Three days ago, the group from Scaled Composites won the prize, having completed the first trip a week earlier. Their ship, SpaceShipOne, launches from another plane after taking off from a normal runway. (It also looks incredibly cool.) In any case, is this really a reason to get excited? Well, in one sense, yes, because it will be remembered in the history books. But for a few other reasons, I'm just not as excited as I thought I would be. For one, 100 km is sort of a weird cut-off. It's not as if you've escaped the earth's gravity well. You haven't really escaped the atmosphere. But those are nitpicks. I'm mainly not excited because it still seems a way off before actual commercial space flight is viable for the masses. And what's the point of going up in space if you're just going to come back to the same spot? I'd rather go skydiving.
For a few other reasons, I think the newly announced X Prize Cup is more interesting. Taking the idea a little bit further, the X Prize Cup is just a bunch of small competitions, like who can send the most people up at a time, who can make the most flights at a time, etc.
But still, what's the point of space travel if you're just going to come back to earth? Isn't the whole thrill of sci-fi space travel that you could go to crazy places like other planets, other solar systems? Call me up when I can go to the moon. Otherwise, it's basically the same as going up really high into an airplane. But I guess, small steps will get us there, and I have to give credit to them, because it's got to start with something, and they've got the ball rolling.
# posted by Stuart @ 11:18 PM 
