SpaceShipOne blog, part 6: snapshots


Ground crew member Alan Radecki has posted his photos from the SS1 launch on his blog, here. Boing Boing pal Todd Lappin says, "I love this one (at left). It seems to capture so much of the backyard spirit of the adventure."

Reader eecue also photoblogged the scene at Mojave airport, and that's here. Plenty of news coverage and blog ruminations out there about today's launch — the first-ever private manned space flight — but this snip from a CNN story struck me as memorable:

[Scaled Composites co-founder Burt] Rutan mingled, talked and directed traffic with those who spent the night on the windy Mojave Desert floor across from the airstrip Sunday night. He saved one sign as a memento of the occasion: "SpaceShipOne; GovernmentZero".

Link, and link to previous BoingBoing post.

SpaceShipOne blog, part 5

The Space Woodstock Wireless edition. SpaceShipOne ground crew member Alan Radecki says:

Well, folks, there's now a big RV city sitting out there…and they're still lined up and coming in at 10pm. Lots of folks are wandering the flightline street, ooing and ahing. XCOR has their hangar open and are doing firings of their little rocket engines to show off for the folks. Someone on the [mojave airport mailing] list mentioned "Space Woodstock"…it certainly seems like it! There's a ton of press out here, too…it'll be neat to see how things play out.

BoingBoing reader Mike, who is en route to the Mojave launch site, writes:

We're currently southbound on I-5, 222 miles from Mojave, and intelligence from the front says that parking has been opened already and there's about 300 people there already. We have a wifi base in here connected to a GRPS cellular uplink and all sorts of insanity, so we are a moving open wifi spot, and we will be one of the many who will have a port open there.

And BoingBoing reader Peeter says, "The webcast links you pointed to earlier seem to be overloaded, but this one from MSNBC still works — at least here in Europe."

History may change today — if the launch is successful, it will be the first time a privately-built spacecraft carries a human into space. Link to news that Mike Melvill has been chosen as the craft's pilot, Link to Space.com's page dedicated to the launch (look for lots of updates there around 9:30 am ET) and Link to previous BoingBoing post.

Update, 7:48 am PT: the liftoff was successful. BoingBoing reader Flora says, "

Here is another live stream from that bastion of good stuff, the BBC. You can also get the free trial RealOne pass and listen/watch the CNN coverage here.