Have SpaceShipOne; Will Travel

"I am convinced that human flight is both possible and practical."
-- Wilbur Wright, 1899 ¹

Why is the burgeoning commercial space flight industry getting so much flack? No really, why? Does this abundance of nay-sayers always get flushed out of the brush every time someone tries something innovative? Maybe they do, and I just don't know it because I'm not innovative. I think we need to give both SpaceShipOne and its competitor, Virgin Galactic, a break. Seriously, I've sympathy for all the people involved in attempting manned, commercial space flights. Hey, all you critics! At least, they're trying! What have you done for the space industry lately? Ooo, ooo, ooo, yeah.

Now, that's not to say that all the astrophysicists, aeronautical engineers, and anyone else working for NASA, or working in any other way related to the aerospace industry, aren't doing important work. I know they are. But, just because I think pictures from the Saturn space probe or subatomic nuclear particles collected near the sun are exciting, doesn't mean Mr. Joe Average watches the morning news to see if those aforementioned particles could be saved from wreckage. When was the last time anyone saw this many people excited about space flight? The 60's? Why you gotta rain on everybody else's parade Mr. Big Scientist Man?

Blah, blah, blah...
Meow, meow, meow... I know. Commercial space flight is impractical. All the Big Scientist Men are all whining about the same thing: You can't just focus on getting men into sub-orbital space. NASA's been doing that feat with fancy-schmancy jets for years to train astronauts. You've got to focus on getting into orbit, at the least; leave alone the moon. And, once they're up; you've got to get 'em back down. Every time. And, every time costs millions and ka-jillions of dollars that not one person, even an exorbitantly rich person, can afford. The estimate for a sub-orbital space jaunt, where you just make it into 0-g and hang there for a second, alone is $200,000. So, um, yeah, we get the point.

However, don't all these criticisms sound hauntingly familiar? Have we dumbed-down so much that we've forgotten our recent history? These negatives are the exact same as the ones the nay-sayers trotted out when Orville and Wilbur Wright were trying to get a practical airplane off the ground. Everyone and their grandmother thought they were crackpots, saying that flying from place was not only impractical, but also not affordable. The Orvilles were not the first to fly and their first flight was only a few minutes. (Just like SpaceShipOne, the Orvilles were not the first, the fastest, or the most affordable.) But, it was their innovation that lead to our airline industry. Imagine if they had bothered to listen to the critics.

Out with the Old; In with the New

"Before the Wright Brothers, no one in aviation did anything fundamentally right. Since the Wright Brothers, no one has done anything fundamentally different."
-- Darrel Collins, US Park Service, Kitty Hawk National Historical ²

The above quote is not only true in its praise of the Wright brothers, but also in its unintended implication that it's about time somebody tried something new and daring concerning the flight industry. Airline travel has become so blase that both major super-sonic jets, the military's SR-71 Blackbird and the commercial industry's Concorde, have been de-commissioned. Simply being the fastest jet in the world or breaking the sound barrier is old news. Honestly, I'm surprised the X-Men haven't yet upgraded their Blackbird. I mean, if the military no longer has use for it, how can the X-Men?

Don't all the critics realize, impractical idealism is where it all starts. Let the dreamers dream; we'd still be on the ground driving horse-drawn buggies without them.

Endnotes:
¹ and ² Both quotes and any other general information taken from www.first-to-fly.com The Wright Bothers Aeroplane Company website.