The CBS Early show will have something on this at 8:35 AM on Friday morning.
Posted on 04/25/2002 1:50:00 PM PDT by The_Victor
NEW YORK, New York – A Canadian spaceship rolled into Rockefeller Plaza Thursday as Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, came to Manhattan to promote space tourism with plans to follow his family legacy across the Atlantic Ocean.
The spaceship, the Canadian Arrow, and the younger Lindbergh’s Trans-Atlantic flight, set for May 1, are part of an effort to push private-based space tourism in the public eye and highlight the X Prize, an international competition to put three people in space and return them safely. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic.
"It’s human nature to explore around the next curve and over the next hill," Lindbergh told SPACE.com. "But I think there’s an overriding sense of apathy toward space today because it’s generally well-known that people, children in particular, can’t reach it."
But the X Prize hopes to buck that notion and open up space to people other than millionaires, such as Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth, who paid $20 million a piece to ride a Soyuz capsule up to the International Space Station. The visit to the Big Apple coincided with Shuttleworth's launch early Thursday morning from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The X Prize competition offers a $10 million grand prize for the first successful launch of a three-person crew to a height of 62.5 miles (100 km) that returns safely in a craft that can be re-launched two weeks later. Since the contest’s inception, 21 teams from five different countries have entered, with vehicles ranging from jet planes souped up with rocket engines to more familiar designs, like the six-story high Canadian Arrow rocket, a mockup of which was displayed at Rockefeller Plaza and later moved to Central Park.
Lindbergh is a trustee and vice-president of the X Prize Foundation, which is holding the X Prize competition, and director of the Lindbergh Foundation. In addition to building support for the competition, his flight will also benefit the Arthritis and Lindbergh foundations.
"I think the draws of space travel are its uniqueness, and of course the view," said Linda Smith, a private pilot and former flight attendant who came upon the Canadian Arrow during a walk through Central Park. "It gives you the true global sense of perspective, and I imagine my grandchildren will all be vacationing in space."
As for his grandsons stunt, I've beaten Lindburgs record across the Atlantic dozens of times. Nice little memorial stunt, but nothing more. I wonder, does he have a GPS in is sandwich bag?
Well, off to split atom for peace
Mrneutorn1962, aka Matty, the wonder cat
Lindbergh voluntarily flew on combat missions in WWII (in the Pacific theater) and as a civilian (FDR had refused to renew his commission) advised US pilots on how to get the most out of their fighters and bombers. Helping the war against Hitler's allies is a strange way to express one's pro-Hitler sentiments.
BTW do you advocate holding the grandson responsible for Lindbergh's pre-war views?
The CBS Early show will have something on this at 8:35 AM on Friday morning.
By Pamela Sampson
Associated Press
02 May 2002
LE BOURGET, France (AP) -- Erik Lindbergh arrived in France on Thursday after flying across the Atlantic Ocean to duplicate his grandfather's historic 1927 New York-to-Paris solo flight.
Lindbergh's Lancair Columbia 300 -- dubbed the New Spirit of St. Louis -- landed at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly before 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT). The flight lasted about 17 hours.
The re-creation was part of celebrations for the 75th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's famous May 20-21, 1927 voyage. That flight, the first nonstop solo run from New York to Paris, took 33 1/2 hours.
Erik Lindbergh had taken off from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, New York at 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT) on Wednesday.
Lindbergh already has duplicated the first two legs of his grandfather's journey: from San Diego to St. Louis, and St. Louis to Farmingdale.
His $289,000 aircraft, made of a glass and carbon composite, has an average cruise speed of 184 mph (296 kph), compared with the 108 mph (174 kph) of the original Spirit of St. Louis, built for $10,580.
The single-engine plane uses a Global Positioning System navigation device to chart its exact location. In comparison, Charles Lindbergh used dead reckoning -- basically, "holding a compass and guessing at the wind," as his grandson has described it.
The voyage was designed to raise awareness of rheumatoid arthritis, which disabled 37-year-old Lindbergh for 15 years before drug treatment helped restore his movement.
Organizers also hope the journey will promote the X Prize Foundation, a St. Louis-based nonprofit group that is offering $10 million to the first private group that can build and launch a manned spacecraft into space, then repeat the feat within two weeks.
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