ABEL
An Angel In Devil's Shoes
(CNN) -- Kitty Hawk. Cape Canaveral. Mojave Desert.
That last site may join the list of famed locations in aviation history when a small craft lifts off from its remote California desert airstrip Monday.
SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites, will be carried by a turbojet called White Knight to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters).
If all goes according to plan, it will ignite its rocket engines that propel the craft to Mach 3, three times the speed of sound, and into space. The spacecraft will spend three minutes beyond Earth's atmosphere, becoming the first private craft to carry a human into space and touch down on the same runway it left about an hour and a half earlier. This mission will mark its 15th test flight
LAUNCH DETAILS
What: SpaceShipOne
Where: Mojave Desert, California
When: Monday, at 6:30 a.m. PT/ 9:30 a.m ET
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/18/ssone.flight.history/index.html
and another link from space.com:
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/SS1_guide_040618.html
so the question is, if this thing works and civilians are allowed to travel into space, and you could afford it, would you?
i know i'd be very tempted.