.....oh, and Branson too.

Save yourself $195k and take up Skydiving, (lot more fun too).

I was shocked. I guess it proves there are Reg hacks that CAN read (and not just those inedible books about balls and dogs named spot either!)

Perhaps not all hope it dead for the Reg, it just has to stop printing adverts as news, and explain to orlowski what 'fact-checking' means (or force him to allow comments, we'll soon get him up to speed on facts)

....Tescos start putting discount offers on the back of supermarket dockets.

SAVE NOW

FLY LATER!

5p off any suborbital flight!

Offer does not extend to inflight entertainment

Even though it is just a more-or-less useless novelty for the rich right now, it is still hard to believe that a venture in commercial spaceflight has come this far, period.

I can't say with confidence that if I could tell someone about this, on this day back in 2k, I wouldn't be laughed at.

And, quite frankly, I hope this doesn't fade away like the supersonic jetliner. It would be a great loss if further developments in spaceflight were delayed because the initial venture sank.

Not sure that telling someone about this right now wouldn't get you laughed at either.

Mind you, it sounds more like a giant Vomit Comet terminal thatn a serious spaceport.

Why do they need such an enormous "spaceport" to launch half a dozen people every few days? Wouldn't a Portakabin (TM) be just as good?

"The agreement coincides with the beginning of test flights for Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnight Two carrier craft in MOJAVE, California."

Are we sure it's really their aircraft?

Maybe it's an old one of Nasa's, they've written "Virgin" on the side of, in an effort to make people think it's safer, and they'll get ordinary people/actors (with no knowledge of spaceflight) to sit in it for 5minutes and see if they think it'll work like it should. They could use it in the commercials...and call it.. "The Mojave Experiment"

Mine's the one with 'The Rough Guide to California' in the pocket

And congrats to the Regmeister who transformed a quotation from Enders Game into an image caption.

If I had the money, I would!

They can:

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/10/billionaires08_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html

Ok, did a search and it seems he is Steely's h'alf brother.

(no, I didnt really know who he/it was until the Almighty Wiki came to my aid)

This is from Rock hound in the movie Armageddon

"You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it? "

The Virgin project is built with high bidders and the newest equipment not twenty five years old technology.

It is about time we as a people start going in to space with out the government. This is just another science fiction book coming true.

We need a smart idea icon.

You may be onto something...

How long till we have Virgin Galactic space shuttles (leased to NASA due to NASA's inability to build them themselves) and a new wing added to the International Space Hotel, er I mean Station...

Just need someone to find a giant black vending machine buried on the moon and most of 2001 a Space Odyssey will have come true :)

Yawn, it's the same old suborbital rollercoaster which is a far cry from true spaceflight, i.e. to low earth orbit. Unfortunately, the prospects of a commercial craft putting people in orbit is about as remote as Virgin running their poxy trains on time.

I'm right there with you - A-MAZE-ING (in the words of Craig Revel Horwood). Within the last two weeks we've also seen NASA sign commercial cargo-lift contracts with two companies. As I posted in that thread, it really feels like finally the *twentieth* century is getting off the ground :-)

I don't care if I never go, but I want to live to see what James Blish describes at the beginning of "Cities in Flight" - commercial passenger and cargo launches to space being as routine and normal as jumbo jet takeoffs are at Heathrow today.

>> The Virgin project is built with high bidders

Think about the economics, man. At that rate, the train will never leave the station.

>> It is about time we as a people start going in to space with out the government.

It's suborbital, so it ain't going nowhere fast. In order for private industry to do anything useful in space, serious lifting capabilities will have to be developed and a reason to go there (other than entertaining tourists) will have to be found. Ain't going to happen on our watch I reckon. And if, I'm sure there will be gov' subsidies to kickstart this.

>> This is just another science fiction book coming true.

I hope you forgot the sarcasm tags.

One one hand we have Branson carping on about bio-fuels for airlines that will miraculously save the planet if we all fly everywhere.

On t'other hand we have the huge environmental costs of building a new place, installing transportation links and then chucking huge amounts of energy so a few people can (briefly) look down on the rest of us.

Sod the grinning little elf and his fuedal system.

Presumably the line from the film you used was nicked from the original quote by Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard:

"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract."

Paris - because the highest bidder rides her, and not the other way around.

I'm up for it so long as they still serve chilled Chrunchie Bars like they did on the Gatwick-Antigua flights.

...if it actually involved true spaceflight. The best definition of "space" would start at the lowest orbital altitude.

If you can't just float around it, then the space station doesn't count, since we have to boost it. If you're pushing through it, then regular planes can orbit. Or you can go by the karman line. Mandatory truthiness link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suborbital_flight