It has been a busy afternoon and I am ready to go off to consume mass quantities. But I will give you a taste of the events.
I listened to the presentation by the Virgin Galactic crew in late afternoon. They are giving Burt Rutan whatever time he needs to develop a safe vehicle. Branson is going to take the first flight when Virgin takes over their SpaceShipTwo, and he is going to take his kids on the flight.
The pilots will all be from Virgin’s aviation companies and the first four, all highly experienced UK pilots, have already been selected.
There are 100 ‘founders’ fully paid up for the first flights of the vehicle. Victoria Principal is among them. The first honeymoon couple will be George Whitesides and Loretta Hidalgo of our own Society. George is our executive director. Another is Trevor Beatty. He may have worked for Tony Blair, but I took an instant liking to him from his enthusiasm for flying in space. He looked out at the huge crowd and said we knew more about it than he ever would… but… “I am going to Space!!!” he said in a voice tinged with awe.
He showed a video of high jumpers of years ago when they used to do the straddle to get over the bar. Then along came a new guy who went over backwards and changed everything. He said the same is happening in space but… “NASA… you are still straddling!”
Also, what can you say about a guy who took his childhood Buzz Lightyear along on his Mig25 flight to 90,000 feet so he could let it fly in the zero G?”
He said he wanted to be Buzz Aldrin when he was a kid. Then he grew up. And he still wants to be Buzz Aldrin. He noted with disdain that basketball players get called heroes and footballers genuises. He pointed to Buzz Aldrin in the front row and Burt Rutan elsewhere in the room as examples of a real hero and a real genuius.
Will Whitehorn finished up the session and I waited around until I got a chance to chat with him and impart important information I knew a good Scotsman like he needed: where the party is tonight! There is an old story there, involving a bunch of rocket scientists, killing the case and a certain Virgin Galactic CEO in a kilt…
