[jr2]

Here.

[redsniper]

100 tickets were initially made available at a cost of $200000 each. After the first 100, the price will drop to $100000 and after the first year, it will drop to $20000.

That's still hella expensive, but feasible.

[Dark RevenantX]

A good way to get the rich off Earth.

[BloodEagle]

Five minutes? .... .... Seriously?

$20,000/(5)60 s =~ $67.00 per second.

Multiply that number by however many people are going to be on the flight.

Now kill yourself. 

[Goober5000]

Ooh.  Bonus points if you can name all the aircraft on the top left without looking them up.

Spoiler:

SpaceShipTwo
SpaceShipOne
Lunar Module
Boeing 747
Bell X-1 (first aircraft to exceed Mach 1)
Spirit of St. Louis
Wright Flyer
Otto Lilienthal's glider

And yes, I did all those from memory... though I had to think for a while before I remembered Lilienthal's name

[redsniper]

Five minutes? .... .... Seriously?

$20,000/(5)60 s =~ $67.00 per second.

Multiply that number by however many people are going to be on the flight.

Now kill yourself. 

Yeah, but you get what you pay for. That's five minutes IN FRAKING OUTER SPACE!!!

[Kosh]

Too bad it can't go beyond low earth orbit, parked there along with our space program.

[BloodEagle]

Too bad it can't go beyond low earth orbit, parked there along with our space program.

QFT. 

[redsniper]

Yeah really. Moon vacation would rock so much harder.

[Dysko]

Ooh.  Bonus points if you can name all the aircraft on the top left without looking them up.

Uhm...

Spoiler:

Space Ship Two
Space Ship One
Lunar Exploration Module (or whatever LEM meant...)
Boeing 747
Bell X-1
Cessna C172 (I think, not very sure)
Wright Flyer
Icarus' wings, from the Greek legend

EDIT: d'oh! Cessna C172 and Icarus' wings are wrong!

[WMCoolmon]

The ship in development has been christened VSS Enterprise. The name is an acknowledgement to the USS Enterprise from the Star Trek television series.

This really turned me off, actually. All of the previous "Enterprises" were military ships, save for the Shuttle, which was named Enterprise by request. It seems to cheapen the legacy somewhat for a private enterprise (pun not really intended) to christen a ship Enterprise, when it's not really going anywhere or doing anything new, other than providing entertainment for the wealthy and powerful.

That being said, I'm sure that there are a lot of people who would love the idea of going into space on a ship called Enterprise. And maybe that's partly why it disappoints me, because it feels so much like it was strongly influenced by publicity and economical reasons. Just another pop culture reference.

[Black Wolf]

Ooh.  Bonus points if you can name all the aircraft on the top left without looking them up.

Spoiler:

SpaceShipTwo
SpaceShipOne
Lunar Module
Boeing 747
Bell X-1 (first aircraft to exceed Mach 1)
Spirit of St. Louis
Wright Flyer
Otto Lilienthal's glider

And yes, I did all those from memory... though I had to think for a while before I remembered Lilienthal's name

Got them all except number three (fom the bottom). And I'm claiming the last one (I got the same as Dysko) unless you can prove us wrong 

As for the article, I agree on the name. So many more appropriate things they could have called it. That said, Space Ship 3 looks like it's going to kick arse. Orbital flight and docking with space stations. How long before private enterprise decides Mars tourism is the next loical step?

[Dysko]

The last aircraft doesn't have a tail in the picture. Goob's solution had a tail (just google a picture of it). Me and BW win

BTW, I REALLY hope passengers will have an anti-G suit for re-enter... AFAIK, the average person without military training and anti-G equipment can sustain a max of 3 G before he/she loses consciousness. A 6 G re-enter may be too much if those G were maintained for more than some seconds.

[FreeSpaceFreak]

I've heard that the current SpaceShips don't go into orbit, not even into LEO. You'd need much higher velocities, which makes the re-entry rather compicated. That's the reason the Space Shuttle needs heat tiles, and SS2 doesn't.
Hence, it'll be a giant leap to SS3. Where did you get that from? I never heard of those plans before.

[TrashMan]

The ship in development has been christened VSS Enterprise. The name is an acknowledgement to the USS Enterprise from the Star Trek television series.

This really turned me off, actually. All of the previous "Enterprises" were military ships, save for the Shuttle, which was named Enterprise by request. It seems to cheapen the legacy somewhat for a private enterprise (pun not really intended) to christen a ship Enterprise, when it's not really going anywhere or doing anything new, other than providing entertainment for the wealthy and powerful.

They did it to draw in Trekkies. The sad thing is - it will probably work

[Goober5000]

And I'm claiming the last one (I got the same as Dysko) unless you can prove us wrong 

That may be.  I just figured that all of them would be real-life machines that represented a technological breakthrough of some sort.  That choice isn't exactly real-life.

[IceFire]

I think this is great.  NASA has dropped the ball for quite a while over manned spaceflight and achieving space flight at lower costs.  They have the big heavy hitter options but nothing in between and it seems that the now successive SpaceShip series offers some of that work on getting in between at reasonable costs.  Slow steady progress...maybe in 20 years someone will have a very cost effective solution at getting into space.  I just figure the more minds working on it the better

[Dark RevenantX]

Breed a ****load of telekinetics and have them move the ship up with their minds while piloting.

[Col. Fishguts]

I think this is great.  NASA has dropped the ball for quite a while over manned spaceflight and achieving space flight at lower costs.  They have the big heavy hitter options but nothing in between and it seems that the now successive SpaceShip series offers some of that work on getting in between at reasonable costs.  Slow steady progress...maybe in 20 years someone will have a very cost effective solution at getting into space.  I just figure the more minds working on it the better

Exactly, the SpaceShip series could very well evolve into a working example of the original Sänger concept, which envisioned a fully reusable two-component launch system.

[Kosh]

It also would be helpful if we found a better propulsion system than simple rockets. Sure they can get you into orbit, but in doing so they require you to use massive amounts of fuel so you don't really have anything other than momentum to carry you to another planet.