 White Knight Two flyover of Spaceport America Terminal carrying SpaceShipTwo Image Credit: Barbara David |
| The two mile runway at Spaceport America in New Mexico was dedicated Friday, 22 October 2010. One of the highlights of the celebration was the flyover and landing of Virgin Galactic‘s White Knight Two carrying the rocket plane Space Ship Two, named Enterprise by Virgin Galactic.
Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, for whom the runway (spaceway) was officially named during the ceremony, commented that:
Sir Richard Branson and approximately 30 of more than 380 Virgin Galactic future astronauts attended the event. Two of the future passengers in attendance were Sonja Rohde from Germany and Perveen Crawford of Hong Kong. Both have already paid the full $200,000 price for their flight into space. “It’s like Christmas, you want to go, you can’t wait. It was always a childhood dream to go to space,” Rohde said. Crawford noted that “It’s a bargain compared to the Russians,” referring to the roughly $35 million past space tourists have paid to ride aboard the Soyuz to the International Space Station. |
 White Knight Two carrying Space Ship Two on Approach to Spaceport America Image Credit: Virgin Galactic |
Lunacy: A Book Review Essay
This long essay defends the NSS Vision against those who, like the author of the book being reviewed, think “we shouldn’t colonize Mars or the Moon, or even vacation there.” Ben Bramble, an Australian philosopher who teaches at Australian National University, has penned a YAASS (Yet Another Anti-Space-Settlement) book. These books are multiplying like flies, so space settlement advocates must be gaining ground to generate such an abundant response.
