Leonard David has a good overview of the Space Access conference a week and a half ago. It includes a couple wrap-up quotes from yours truly.

A sub-scale prototype of Walker's ultimate dream machine is under fabrication. In this way, a track record of safety can be achieved, he said, while upping the height reached in bit by bit ballistics.

"I feel really good about the fact that I'm funding this project. There is no sponsor or investors. I don't have anybody pulling my chain telling me what to do or where to go," Walker said. "I figure if I survive this thing?I can just about do anything I want. If I don't survive it, I don't have to pay taxes anymore. So it's a win-win situation," he concluded.

Check it out.

Composites and CAD: The Garage Industry Revolution.

When thinking about SpaceShip1, what I’m really hip on is the fact that it only took 150 people, working for two years, on a couple million, out of a warehouse to build something as exotic as that. Even as recent as the 1990, if you mentioned composites – the most you thought about was fishing rods and the F/A-18 Hornet, which was 11% composites by weight. The promise was there, but nothing seemed to be getting done for the longest time. The ATF fighter fly-off that spawned the F-22 and the far better YF-23 introduced bolt on composites that were even stronger and that ‘could be curved.’ Today, I would say the era of composites is upon us – and it is what is making such ventures (and more) so possible. Everyone from racecar teams to custom mountain bike manufactures can build ultra-light ultra-strong bodies in a comparatively small shop: a garage if you will. Once comparatively small European industries seem to be ahead of the curve too. The Airbus 380 Super Jumbo jet will have the first ever use of composites in the critical wing box (a critical next step it the use of composites). The Eurocopter NH-90 has a 100% carbon body, and the Eurofighter Typhoon is 40% composites by weight!

The other ingredient on the small ‘garage side is of the industry’ that of Computer Aided Drafting (CAD). Again, even as late as 1990 little was done completely on a CAD system outside of a fighter jet or two. Slowly but surely this took hold as well. The Boeing 777 was designed completely on a CAD system. Now even huge electric mining shovels and small subs are designed completely on these systems. I’m sure the combination of CAD and rapid prototyping doesn’t hurt either.