There are reportedly twenty-five thousand people here today which, if true, doubles last year’s reported attendance. It doesn’t seem that crowded to me, but I think that it’s because there’s lots of room. Many busloads of children were here (presumably from local schools on field trips, and X-Prize reportedly bused in 5000), and Margaret noted that it gave the atmosphere a sort of Disneyworld quality.
I was just walking around, looking at the kids, and trying to cast my mind back decades. I’ve been doing this too long, and am pretty jaded, though I think that this is the most exciting thing going on in space right now, far eclipsing NASA’s plans. But I know that if there had been something like this as a kid, I’d have been wandering in wonder, looking at the displays, playing in the simulators, watching the flyovers and rocket launches. And dreaming.
One sad thing about it is that the location doesn’t lend itself to bringing in large numbers of people–it’s simply not near enough to any major population centers. Perhaps the X-Prize cup people should consider doing more than one a year, in different locations that are more accessible to crowds, or combining rocketry with conventional air shows, like the Edwards Open House. It could provide more revenue for the struggling rocket makers, and spread the wealth of inspiration to much more of the nation’s youth.