Bert Ruttan and his pilot...

his pilot Mike Melville. hth

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Bert indicated that Branson from Virgin Airlines is going to buy five of the space vehicles and start selling tickets. hth

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

Priced at something like $200k.

Hmmm. I just checked my credit line.

HMMMM!

Tom

I'll wait till I'm ready to check out and then put it on a card. Assuming I can walk at that point... Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

sell the coins or the guns? hmmmm, maybe my isister?

Don' sell your seester, just yet. The Feds are looking at this idea of private flights into space and seem to be taking a dim view of it. The news said today that the first flights won't take place ~at least~ for three years, if not longer.....

-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger

You know why that is... they have to make sure they put a tax on it and get something out of it.

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

kill castro, build space town and tell the feds to pound sand. maybe rebuild a few casinos for fun too.

This the same guy as Burt Rutan?

Monopolies are like that.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Hell, out here that's just a middling second mortgage. I wonder if the food will rival Concorde.

Mark Schynert

More likely that there are an increadible amount of "things" floating around up there in near-earth orbit, and Rutan hasn't demonstrated enough control over his craft to insure that he won't smash into something.

Just imagine trying to file a flight plan into space..."no - you can't go that route". Why? "You can't". What's the problem? "No problem - you can't go". etc...

Repeat for each country that owns a satillite on orbit.

Rufus, you're probably correct, but I am also paranoid enough to believe that once private inyerests get involved in spaceflight on a reasonably regular basis, the taxpayer will start asking why we need NASA. At that point, another huge government bureaurocracy crashes and burns. Bureaucrats don't like that happening.....

-- John The history of things that didn't happen has never been written. . - - - Henry Kissinger

Doh! Yeah, didn't realize my spelling was that far off...if Bert is short for Bertrand what is Burt short for? Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

in article snipped-for-privacy@mb-m01.aol.com, The Old Timer at snipped-for-privacy@aol.comspamless wrote on 10/8/04 11:32 AM:

Yeah, but it's got to be regulated. And this one NEEDS regulating. Bureaucrats rejoice!

MB

"once private interests get involved in spaceflight on a reasonably regular basis"

That's really the crash and burn. Do you really think this will ever be a going concern? Hell, Earth couldn't even support supersonic air travel on a regular basis (and subsonic air travel ain't doing much better) when it had a practical utility. Do you actually think there is a "regular" market for $200K joyrides?

People have been pretty consistently asking why we need NASA since about

1961. Killing people - three times - didn't even put a real dent in their bureaucracy. You think Rutan's vanity will?

KL

I'm not too worried about NASA ever dissapearing - they provide a lift capacity that is too useful to the DoD. How many "unspecified DoD payload" STS missions can you recall? Their role may change, but I doubt they'll dissapear. What's going to stand in the way of "space tourism" is more likely to be international agencies fear of savy space tourists coming back to earth and asking not only "what was THAT up there?", but also knowing where it was.

Not to mention that it's still a VERY long way from Spaceship One to the ISS, Skylab, Apollo, Gemini, Mercury, or anything like them drawn upon a private funding base.

NASA is also an important diplomatic tool these days - the ISS alone brings a level of international cooperation and trade that even the Bureacrats can ill affort to lose. Even in the worst of terrestial events, the channel of communication on projects such as the ISS must be held open - so at least someone has to be at the table to talk. If a moon base project should ever actually takes shape, NASA will no doubt HAVE to become our gov's international (inter-galactic?..) diplomacy arm in support.

...Bert is also short for "Robert" in my backyard.

"Burtrum"?..

Rufus asked:

Wasn't that Gene Autry's sidekick, Pat Bertrum (sp)?

Rick