We Have Liftoff...

[IFollowRoads]

White Knight and Spaceship One completed their design goals. There was no reason to lauch Spaceship One again. Rutan is now working on the larger, commercial version based on what was learned winning the X-Prize.

And there was a logical reason to launch it in the first place??

I'm not sure regular logic applies in this case. A man with a great idea met a couple men that had a crap pot of money, and they launched a little spacecraft out there for no other reason than to be able to say they did it.

They didn't advance science for beans, it was a Mercury Program, "Freedom 7" style mission. Shoot the bastage straight up and bring it straight down. The only new thing proven was the feather recovery system.

Why need a "reason" to launch Spaceship 1 again?? I'd just like to see them fly again because they CAN, because its fun to watch people like Mike Melville and Brian Binnie earn a pair of these:

But hey, if you need a reason... Spaceship 1 had two passenger seats behind the pilot, and thats reason enough in my book to fly her again. There has to be someone somewhere who can pay for a mission and ride in one of those two extra seats. Greg Olsen paid $20M for the Russians to take him to the ISS on a Soyuz, there has to be alot of other rich people out there who'd take a Spaceship 1 ride. BASE jumping and swimming with sharks gets old after awhile