I don't normally watch Sixty Minutes, but apparently they're going to have a segment tonight (starting in about twenty minutes, Eastern Time) on Burt Rutan and similar efforts.

[Update at 8:55 PM EST]

Clark Lindsey thinks it's a repeat from last year. Having seen it tonight, that seems right to me (particularly considering that it's a holiday, and they're probably just doing redos). But this year or last year, it's a good sign.

I should note that anyone who is familiar with the story won't get anything new out of it, but it's nice to see it being played to the Geritol set. I doubt if it will result in much, but if even one new investor is brought into the game because of it, it's worthwhile.

I'd also compare and contrast it with the segment they did on Aubrey de Grey, in which they found it necessary to "balance" his prognostications about thousand-year lifetimes with cautionary words from Jay Olshansky. Apparently, Sixty Minutes found the Rutan story sufficiently uncontroversial that they didn't have a need to "balance" it with quotes from some NASA official or John Pike. That's a great sign for the acceptance of this new meme.

It was a re-run.

And Rutan still sounds like a nut. Sorry, but a dinky 62 mile "flight" does not space travel make (or anything close.)

The Dinky flights will be on Rocketplane.

Nut or not, it's the 62 mile high 'flights' that are going to jumpstart the industry and lead to eventual orbital flight. Rutan as been quoted as saying he wants to reach the moon in his lifetime. I, for one, believe he will make it happen.

If it sounds like a nut, walks like a ......... You get the idea,
Joe's right. Then again, maybe Rutan's just taking all the people
who couldn't get better than a C in Physics for Dockworkers
for a ride.

Look, in the interest of full disclosure, I work for "NaaSaa", as
Rutan puts it. I do not work shuttle or ISS. Nevertheless, I am
glad the commercial world is stepping up. What pi$$es me
off to no end is hearing these guys shoot their mouths off and
denegrate groups that have accomplished far more far earlier
and claiming it's an "innovation". Give it a rest. Take a lesson
from Space X: avoid the banquet tour, tell the truth when you
do speak, but try not to speak until you accomplish something
real.

Rand made a post last week that included a quote (Im para-
phrasing) something along the lines of: "except for the prizes,
most of what NASA is working on is irrelevant..." What could
be more irrelevant than flying a bag of mail 10 miles in a
rocket powered (fill in the blank: Long EZ, Vari EZ...who cares).
Yes, I know that was XCOR, not Scaled Composites.

Rand also speaks of decreasing the "giggle factor" It's just
that kind of stuff like that is the only reason I follow the alt.space blogs: They're funny.

If SpaceX comes through, they'll be less funny. If successful,
they'll be to alt.space what Wisconsin was to the Big 10.

...maybe Rutan's just taking all the people
who couldn't get better than a C in Physics for Dockworkers for a ride.

I was an honors student in physics (with a degree in astronautical engineering). Perhaps you can explain for the benighted among us what laws of physics anything Burt said violated?

What could be more irrelevant than flying a bag of mail 10 miles in a rocket powered (fill in the blank: Long EZ, Vari EZ...who cares).

An Apollo 2.0 that's just as expensive and unsustainable as Apollo 1.0 was?

If SpaceX comes through, they'll be less funny. If successful, they'll be to alt.space what Wisconsin was to the Big 10.

Was this analogy supposed to make any sense?

Well, I just visited solo the JFK Space Center yesterday, and saw and heard some unsettling things. Apparently, NASA only has one type of manned vehicle, and they've only launched once since the Columbia disaster. The next flight is scheduled for this March, a little more than three years later.

They appear to have at least 7 or 8 ISS components or cargo cannisters (space shuttle sized) sitting on the ground. No idea how complete these are. Apparently, these can only be launched by shuttle either due to their size or the fact that they were engineered for the relatively low acceleration of a shuttle launch.

Something was mentioned about "all the eggs in one basket" and it wasn't me. That same person noted that space shuttle flights will stop in five years. He seemed to think that a new vehicle would be in use some time after that and that NASA would reach the Moon in 2018.

It takes 300,000 man hours (that's around 150 man years at 40 hours per work week) to inspect and refurbish the Shuttle between each flight.

Finally, Tom Cruise promised me that I could be an astronaut some day. He didn't sign anything though. A real astronaut in the same IMAX movie told (via short wave radio) a junior high school student, that education was the key to becoming an astronaut. The student appeared to roll his eyes.

greg wrote:

"What could be more irrelevant than flying a bag of mail 10 miles in a rocket powered (fill in the blank: Long EZ, Vari EZ...who cares)."

greg apparently missed the part where we explained that setting the world record by flying the EZ to Cal City was our payment to Dick for being our first project pilot. Keeping your promises is always relevant to honorable people.