Well congratulation to SpaceShipOne and to Its owners for having achieved the goal. But to all thoses that have partial or nearly complete vehicles keep going.

We all know the direction that SpaceShipOne and the free enterprise industry has in store with the announcement of virgin getting into the space flight game.

Also there is the announcement of the http://www.xpcup.com/ to continue on the excitement of the xprize in the coming year.

In addition we have the Bigelow LEO prize still of which they are ironing out the prize amount and looking for more funds to go with his pridged amount of 25 million.

The significance for me, is I can relax slightly. Burt is a dreamer and a doer. I thought he was just a doer. But Discovery's "Black Sky" documentary had a minute piece showing Burt's passion.For Tier 2 (LEO), and Tier 3 (everything beyond LEO).

That and his success with SS1/WK has given me confidence that we will have a sustainable space infrastructure (majority of resources for space operations will come from space) by 2045. And as long as he is funded Burt will beable to develop the flight tech needed. NASA can go do what they please unless its to hender private enterprise.

It may not be Burt, but at this time he has 3 things most entrepueners(sp) do not have all of. The Passion, the Knowhow, and as of yesturday, the Credibility.

In the program on sunday, they also showed a 7 seater configuration. Could this be the Virgin Glactic version?

The money is now flowing a little easier, the laws are begining to catch up to allow private enterprise to enter space.

The other thing, Scaled Composites has been averaging a new plane every year. So while they help Virgin Galactic with there suborbital plane, they can still be working on Burt's Tier 2 projects, as long as its funded. Given this, and assuming both the American Space Prize is funded and the CEV starts flying humans on time around 2013. The CEV will only have a shelf life of, at best 8 years. Before a cheaper, safer version made by Burt or another of the little guys, compete with it.

Hopefully Burt can get his orbital aspirations funded. We can then prove once and for all it doesn't take billions for a true space program. If anyone can do it, he can.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who noticed Burt's plans for Tire 2 and 3 on the Discovery special. I also found it quite intriguing that the images shown were basically of a vessel that looked like SS1 sitting on top of a booster. It seems that the critics of ss1 who have called it nothing more than a stunt plane may be quite wrong.

This also goes on to confirm statements from Burt and Allen earlier this year that the tier one program was 'just the beginning' of their plans. You have to figure Paul Allen is making a huge amount of profit from SS1 on Branson's licensing deal alone. Seems like he might just roll those profits and the rebate from the Xprize back into future R&D.; I tend to think that Burt and Allen are five steps ahead of everything the web community is talking about. As has been previosuly mentioned Burt works on several projects at a time. Who knows how far along future projects may already be. I have a feeling NASA is about to get passed in human spaceflight capability in a major way. I wouldn't be surprised if in as little as five years project constellation becomes a moot point.

I wonder how NASA will react when they are playing catch up??

Hey, just wanted to correct an impression here:
You have to figure Paul Allen is making a huge amount of profit from SS1 on Branson's licensing deal alone.

It actually looks like MAV will not even recoup the cost of SS1's development on the Virgin deal alone, since he's estimated to have spent over 20 mil. to date. You figure $5 mil for his half of the x-prize and the $10-$14 million expected from the Branson licensing deal (assuming 5 vehicles is an accurate number). And at the very best case that puts him at $19 mil recouped, which does not even equal SS1's cost. Nevertheless, if a followon based on the technology is able to crack the supersonic commercial travel market (besides the space tourist market), the sky is the limit for proceeds. (Imagine an $80,000 trip from NY-London in under two hours, with weightlessness to boot. Think there's a market for that?)

Now I can relax a little

The X-prize winning flight is a great triumph for everyone involved with Space Ship One. But just imagine if the worst had happened instead during the last flight. Because of the historical timing, and with the attention of the world focused on the flight, a crash could have been as bad for private manned spaceflight as the Hindenburg disaster was for airships.

Space flight is risky. So, eventually a private manned spaceflight will result in a total loss of vehicle and crew. We must keep that in mind so that when it does finally happen we will be prepared to counter those people who would obstruct future flights and further progress.

I just hope that the inevitable black day is so far off that the momentum from successful flights will make the future of the industry unstoppable.