I'll have a side of lobster
Virgin Galactic unveiled a mockup of the interior of their upcoming sub-orbital craft, the SpaceShipTwo being designed as we speak by visioary aerospace genius but terrible nomenclator Burt Rutan. This is sweet. Eight people on a ballistic shot, several minutes of weightlessness for $200k. Test flights are scheduled to begin in the spring of 2008, with commercial flights beginning in 2009. What's that, ten years for a small company to go from drawing board to successful prototype to commercial full rate production? NASA should be hiring these people. And, Brickmuppet should be buying me dinner soon.
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Nope. This doesn't count.
Nope. This doesn't count. They are not achieving orbit.
Besides, NASA recently redifined where space began so they didn't actually reach space anyway.
Space now begins at 250 kliks above sea level. This takes into account a more realistic assesment of the residual drag of the mesospehere.
OK, that last bit is not true
OK, that last bit is not true it was an internet rumor that circulated right after SS1s flight.
But what's disturbing is that it might well have gotten you.
It is entirely believable that they would use a bureaucratic trick like that to retroactively deprive someone of astronaut wings.