Space is the Place
While not officially a sci-fi/space über-dork (ok, maybe I am a dork for using that term), I have always been enamored with “things space.” Having missed the golden age of spaceflight, I grew up in the shadow of the Space Shuttle (not literally) and an era with promises of cities in the sky, video windows and the ubiquitous jetpack.
Having realized those days may not come any time soon or even in my lifetime, I have nonetheless enjoyed following the developments over the years. There have always been those “characters” that seem to still be pushing for that dream. People like Paul Moller, whose languishing M200X flying car, which seems to be in permanent limbo, have grabbed my attention, only to unfulfill the dream. This is in large part due to restrictions on the technology, however, and not because they don’t have vision. On the bright side, recent news has been downright rosy for commercial space travel, as evidenced by the forward-thinking duo of Virgin Galactic mega-man Richard Branson and aeronautic/space maverick Burt Rutan, of Scaled Composites.
The pair unveiled the shiny new SpaceShip Two, which is in line with the design of Rutan’s sensibility, stemming back to his global circumnavigating Voyager aircraft. They’ve paired this with a sublimely designed “spaceport” to be located in New Mexico. With initial reservations priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, experts predict those prices to drop rapidly once the technology becomes more commonplace. Maybe someday, even you and I will be able to go up for a quick spin, but let’s hope they have hermetically-sealed “space sick” bags, just in case.
