{"id":630,"date":"2004-07-15T18:27:50","date_gmt":"2004-07-15T22:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/2004\/07\/15\/tricksters-time-in-suborbit\/"},"modified":"2004-07-15T18:27:50","modified_gmt":"2004-07-15T22:27:50","slug":"tricksters-time-in-suborbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/2004\/07\/15\/tricksters-time-in-suborbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Trickster&#8217;s time, in suborbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a480'><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Flying slightly under the radar recently was a groundshaking achievement in the aviation community &#8212; the first private flight<br \/>\nto pass the 100km crystal ceiling separating &#8220;space&#8221; from our atmosphere.  Scaled Composites launched their baby, SpaceShipOne, from 15km up, at which point it climbed to 100km before returning and gliding back to the newly-appointed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mojaveairport.com\/\">Mojave Spaceport<\/a>.  A try from  the same port at claiming the $10M <a>X-Prize<\/a> is expected in late September.<br \/>\nHere&#8217;s a fairly long <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scaled.com\/projects\/tierone\/video\/americabyair-SS1_v02.wmv\">video of the flight<\/a> from a mounted camera.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Patti Grace Smith, the Federal Aviation Administration&#8217;s associate administrator for commercial space transportation, awarded [Mike] Melvill the <b>first <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scaled.com\/projects\/tierone\/photos\/15P\/15P-P%20Mike%20with%20Astrouaut%20wings.jpg\">astronaut wings<\/a> ever granted by the FAA<\/b> and the Department of Transportation. &#8212; Alan Boyle reporting on the aftermath of SpaceShipOne&#8217;s first flight to 100km\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Tricksters come in every shape and size, and at every altitude.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the ones which act like normal, risk-averse people that worry<br \/>\nme; are they so unrealistic they will be shocked and amazed at the<br \/>\nfirst disaster?  Only if it happens to them?  Is it a marketing ploy well before its time?  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tgv-rockets.com\/\">TGV<\/a> comes to mind:  <i>Michelle-B can be ready to fly again in a few hours. The small ground crew inspects and services the vehicle for rapid turnaround&#8230; [she] allows any person or organization to participate in space activities with minimal cost and maximum utility. Our simple mini van will do for aerospace what the PC did for computing.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Oh, and then what?  It&#8217;s fun to evoke change, to be the punctuation in the equilibrium.  It&#8217;s also fun to pretend we have, even collectively, free will.  Suggestions welcome.  <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#8220;This is going to be disruptive innovation, and disruptors live on <b>small margins<\/b>. If this was going to make a phenomenal return, Boeing would be doing this.&#8221; &#8212; TGV&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.suborbitalinstitute.org\/\">Pat Bahn<\/a>, on revolutionizing spaceflight with commodity suborbital RLVs\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flying slightly under the radar recently was a groundshaking achievement in the aviation community &#8212; the first private flight to pass the 100km crystal ceiling separating &#8220;space&#8221; from our atmosphere. Scaled Composites launched their baby, SpaceShipOne, from 15km up, at which point it climbed to 100km before returning and gliding back to the newly-appointed Mojave [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fly-by-wire"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}