[extropy-chat] SPACE: Private spacecraft blast offs June 21

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004, Rik van Riel wrote:

> As a reminder, SpaceShipOne is supposed to take off tomorrow
> morning at 6:30 PDT, or 13:30 UTC.  The mission's FAQ is here:

Ok, the news reports seem to have documented that it took
off with Mike Melvill as the pilot of SpaceShipOne but there
isn't any news as yet as to whether or not the ship has
returned successfully.

The reports do not seem to be reporting the expected times
well.  If takeoff was at 6:30 PDT and landing was expected
at 10:30 to 11:30 PDT this would make it a 4-5 hour flight.
In contrast I think the rocket engine was only supposed to
burn for 3 minutes.

Is the flight *really* 4-5 hours with perhaps less than ten
minutes "in" space?

Robert