Alan Boyle Handicaps the race?

I'm not entirely sure what you meant by "Alan Boyle Handicaps the race?" but is this true?



The article then says that Da Vinci is the next closest. Given they still haven't announced their launch date, there doesn't seem to be too much hope of any competition against scaled.

Although it wouldn't surprise me at all considering that they alluded to problems dealing with the bureaucratic red tape in their '100 years of powered flight' video, that would truly be a lousy turn of events since I think they could be making manned flights this summer otherwise.

I wonder?

Is Alan Boyle trying to become the first American journalist
to fly into space?

Afterall...Burt Rutan needs passengers, according to X-Prize rules,
to win the ten-million smackaroos.

And what about CNN?
I haven't heard a peep out of Miles O'Brien [CNN's resident pilot and
space reporter] for months now! Where is he?...Is he off training
to be a 'passenger' aboard one of those rocket-plane spaceflights?

Jacob

The rules require only one live occupant. Sacks of sand, crash test dummies, etc in the other two seats are all that's required to show the capacity to carry three people.

Actually, you have to prove nessecity in order to have more than one pilot. Its really hard to have more than one person on a competitive flight.

Ah, Franklin?

Let me ask you some questions:

If you were a TV News producer, would you pay 12 million to send up
one of your reporters into space aboard a Soyuz, knowing your reporter
would have to learn Russian, and spend a year in training in Russia?

Or...would you...IF you were a TV News producer pay NOTHING
to send one of your reporters into space as a passenger aboard a space-plane built and flown in the USA?
[Don't need a year of training or learn Russian]

That question is impossible for me to answer because too often I've spent time around people in what would turn out to be the last hour of their last day. All I know is BEFORE Columbia happened I was telling people I'd turn down a ride on the shuttle because those things are just too much of a suicide machine. The night before they launched John Glenn's shuttle flight I had a private dinner with then Associate Administrator Fred Gregory to discuss the issue of escape systems on the shuttle. After I left the dinner I got about a mile from the restaurant and realized "Oh my god, if that flight goes south tomorrow my life as I knew it is over. Word will get out somehow that NASA's head of safety had a private dinner about escape systems and people will want to know why."

Huh?

What does that have to do with space journalism, Franklin?????

Your question was whether would I (if I were a news producer) let a reporter of mine go up in an X-Prize vehicle.

In other words, you were asking whether I might be willing to have something to do with someone getting killed in a vehicle that has not had a level of funding and engineering appropriate to the task.

Joe Kittinger, for example, is an acquaintance of mine and over the years he's had many requests to consult on a variety of aircraft and balloon related projects. He's probably even been approached by people who want to compete for X-Prize. Usually he doesn't even consider discussing it with them because rarely have people had the funding and technical background to carry off whatever record setting project it is they're proposing with a reasonable chance of success.

Understood!

Now we're on the same wavelength.

HOWEVER!!...Journalists have covered MORE DANGEROUS stories
than being a passenger in a rocket-plane!

Think of the War-Correspondents who covered the Vietnam War
or WWII, and d**n well knew the dangers...They were willing
to take the risks, or even lose their lives to cover that DANGEROUS
journalistic assignment.

Isn't the idea of a private, 'amateur' manned spaceflight NEWSWORTHY?
even HISTORIC?
D**n rights it is!!... The public has a right to know what spaceflight is like
firsthand!!

So far nobody has figured out a way to cover wars other than with people on the ground.

It's hard for me to see how much more coverage it would add to have a reporter on an X-Prize vehicle, particularly with the quality of miniature onboard cameras now available.

Because it's a human. Same reason we have a small but persistent push for human spaceflight. Because it's two completely separate things for somebody to see the pictures and for them to actually be there.

If a journalist wants to experience spaceflight
firsthand, more power to him or her.

Space should never be restricted to fighter-jocks, test-pilots or scientists.
Already rich TOURISTS have flown in to space, knowing the risks, why not
journalists?

As far as miniature onboard cameras?
No thanks!
I'd prefer somebody telling me about their space experience FIRSTHAND,
including the experience of zero-g, seeing the awesome colors of earth from space with their own eyeballs [cameras don't do it justice], and the
experience of BEING THERE...And that someone should have training
as a PROFESSIONAL WRITER.
NOTHING REPLACES THE HUMAN SENSES!

Jacob

Or a poet