Posted on 07/20/2005 7:41:38 PM PDT by KevinDavis
EL SEGUNDO, CALIF. – Not far from bustling Los Angeles International Airport and the glistening office towers of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and other aerospace giants sits a cluster of squat buildings that may hold a key to the future of manned spaceflight.
Inside the main facility, whimsical trash cans sport nose cones and rocket fins. A Segway electric scooter shares an expansive shop floor with segments of rocket bodies. In one corner, inside a "clean room," engineers piece together a rocket motor. Welcome to Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Think dotcom trailblazing with Buck Rogers technology. This upstart and others like it represent the potential of privatized spaceflight. "By the middle of this century, if it's not overwhelmingly private, we've really failed," says Elon Musk, who heads the company.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
I'm 41 now, I hope I can afford a ticket to space before I die. After seeing Pan Am's space plane in 2001 A Space Odyssey, a ticket to space has never been far from my mind.
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Just the usual disclaimer. Tourism is not space development. Only when private property rights to space resources are granted can space development begin.
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