The Rutan team (aka Mojave Aerospace Ventures, Scaled Composites, TierOne, or SpaceShipOne ) claimed the $10 million Ansari X Prize victory today with a second flight outside the earth’s atmosphere.

But forget the money. You know you’ve really made it big when Google puts you on their search engine banner.

Not only did SS1 claim the prize, but also set several records in process. For one thing, I don’t believe a ship has ever made spaceflights so close together before. Even the X-15 — whose 41 year old 354,200 foot altitude record SpaceShipOne smashed this morning — never made flights less than five days apart. Certainly the space shuttle has never done it. The only other reusable spacefaring craft in the world is the Russian Buran, and it only made one trip into space.

Brian Binnie joins Mike Melvill as the second civilian to join the astronaut corps. I don’t know who’s been responsible for selecting the pilot for each mission (four are trained and qualified), but Binnie was a great choice.

Binnie had a well-publicized problem when he piloted the first powered test flight of SpaceShipOne. On landing, the left main gear collapsed, sending SpaceShipOne sailing off into the dirt next to the runway. The damage was mainly confined to Binnie’s pride and SS1 was easily patched up.

Even so, today’s flight was certainly vindication for him. Especially since Burt Rutan took a moment to clearly state during the post-flight press conference that the landing gear collapse on that test flight had not been Brian’s fault. That didn’t stop a reporter from asking Binnie “if his Navy flight training was a detriment to his ability to fly SpaceShipOne”, though. Sheesh.

These X Prize flights have had tremendous human interest appeal about them. I suppose any manned space flight does, but the sheer size of an organiztion like NASA reduces any individual person to a miniscule cog in a massive machine. The X Prize contestants, on the other hand, are small companies (Scaled employs about 130) competing against that machine for the advancement of space travel.

And they’re winning. Does anyone doubt that a national space agency would be unable to do even a preliminary design study for a similar craft for $20 million? That’s what it cost Paul Allen to fund the design, construction, and testing of SpaceShipOne, White Knight, and the rocket engine. Not to mention crew training, government permits, and all the other anciliary expenses.

But there’s another aspect to the human interest side of this story. I think Brian Binnie captured it when he talked about his preparation for today’s flight. He sought advice on landing SS1 from Mike Melvill, and since Mike’s personal airplane, a Long-EZ, has similar glide and landing characteristics (as well it should — it was designed by Burt Rutan), they duplicated the circular windows in SpaceShipOne by blocking out sections of the Long-EZ’s canopy and starting flying circuits at Mojave with Brian in the front seat and Mike in the back.

That’s the homebuilder philsosphy — it’s all about creative and elegant solutions, not throwing more money at the problem. The NASA approach would probably involve a formal accident investigation, a year’s delay while they redesigned the landing gear, and a billion dollars to pay for the enhancements.

For as long as I can remember, manned space flight has always been about the past. It feels good to be looking toward the future for a change.

I was out at Hemet-Ryan Airport today continuing toward my commercial glider rating.

Man, I love going out there. For one thing, it gives me an excuse to fly. Not that an excuse is required, but it’s nice to use the aviation system for personal transportation. I’ve made the trip out to Hemet by car before, and it’s no fun. Traffic. Heat. Boring scenery. More traffic. Since I sold 94M this summer, I’ve been in the air a bit less than I’d like. So it’s nice to pull 66W out of the hangar and go someplace.

Hemet does not strike many people as the ‘place to be’ if you’re looking for a fun time. But if you’re in the Los Angeles basin, it represents the nearest glider operation of any consequence. Though they’re one of the largest gliderports in North America, Sailplane Enterprises is small by FBO standards. Come to think of it, everything in the glider world is. And the whole sailplane universe seems to move at a rather sedate pace, just like the aircraft themselves.

When I started flying gliders, it was for the purpose of learning to master an aircraft’s kinetic energy. I postulated that this would be invaluable when the shit hit the fan in a powered airplane and I was left with… well, a glider.

But since then, I’ve come to love the challenge this segment of the aviation world provides. These birds are completely unpowered. No engine. Yet they routinely make cross country flights hundreds of miles long and have reached altitudes of nearly 50,000 feet, well above the ceiling for most jets. Someone (Steve Fossett, I think) is supposedly working on a glider capable of reaching 100,000 feet. That’s three times the cruising altitude of a typical jetliner, and high enough that the pilot will have to wear a space suit lest their blood literally boil in the stratosphere’s vacuum.

The ship I’m flying, a rather dowdy Schweizer SGS 2-33A, achieves a glide ratio of 23:1 even with wing struts, camera mounts, tiedown rings, four wheels, a huge skid plate, protruding rivets, a tow handle, two steps, and other assorted stuff hanging out in the breeze. I guess anything’s possible when you put a 51 foot long wing on a 250 pound fuselage!

Despite the lack of sleek glass on the Schweizer, it can still provide an e-ticket ride when the instructor releases the tow rope at 200 feet AGL. Believe it or not, that’s high enough to make a 180+ degree turn and glide back to the airport. But remember, there are no go-arounds. If you botch the landing… well, let’s just hope you sprang for the rental insurance.

On today’s flight I was towed to 2,200′ AGL and then proceeded to gain more than 8,000 feet on my own. Not every day is like that, of course. But when it’s good, it’s really good. You’re up there with no engine noise, no radios to worry about, no GPS or avionics panel beeping at you. Just the soothing sound of a 45 mph breeze outside the canopy and a million-dollar view of the world below. On a flight last year, I was searching for thermals at 9,000 feet and my cellphone rang. So I answered it. Try that in a powered airplane.

Even if you’re not a pilot, do yourself a favor and take a ride in a sailplane. It’s magical.

Glenn Reynolds has a good article on the legislative shenanigans in Congress on commercial development of space flight.

Glenn pointed out correctly in an email to me that the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation has been behaving itself thus far. But even so, I cannot help but feel that if history is any indication, the FAA will soon be dropping in on this party like a lead sled.

Federal Aviation Administration chief Marion C. Blakey this week visited Xcor Aerospace, a rocket developer just down the Mojave Airport flight line from SpaceShipOne’s home. She talked of partnership with the new industry and said it was important for the United States to be the world leader.

She made clear, however, that broad safety issues are the agency’s topic No. 1.

I deal with FAA regulations every single day. The last thing you want to hear from the FAA is that they are going to put safety above all else, because the way to achieve maximum safety is to not fly at all. There are elements within the FAA that do not accept the fact that safety does not equate the absence of risk. Or perhaps it’s simply a disagreement over what level of risk is acceptable.

Whatever the cause, if you were to talk in private with those of us in general aviation (a group that includes Burt Rutan, Steve Fossett, Richard Branson, all four SS1 test pilots, and just about everyone at every X Prize competitor), the consensus would be that getting the FAA involved is going to slow commercial development of space flight. Just how much depends on how involved the FAA gets. The rate of development will be inversely proportional to the government’s involvement.

I’m not saying the FAA is comprised of bad people. Quite the contrary, I think quite highly of their dedication to public service. But it’s a government agency, one that falls prey to space developers, members of Congress, the media, lobbyists, and even member of the public who put pressure on government agencies for specific regulation.

And those who bring this pressure to bear on the FAA do not care that there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to safety, a point at which the financial and regulatory burden increase exponentially like a space ship approaching the speed of light.

You know, the FAA’s mission statement used to be to “promote air safety and air commerce”. A decade or so ago the part about promoting air commerce was removed. They used to have a charter which dictated promoting commercial development and air safety, two things that are at odds with each other in many ways and created some semblance of balance. Now the mantra is safety, safety, safety. And I don’t understand why. This nation didn’t get achieve great things by going with a “safety first” attitude.

It would be nice to decide from the outset that space development is important enough that, like the early manned space program, we’d accept higher risk. And that like the development of the internet, the government would stay out of it.

I feel for Rutan. He couldn’t care less about commercial development of space. Or commercial development of anything. People have been trying to push him into it for years, and he has always resisted. He has loved aviation since he started building RC airplanes (from scratch of course) when he was a kid in Dinuba and I think he’s been trying to find that sort of freedom ever since.

The military was too regulated, so he left that in the 60’s and went to civilian aviation. That was over-regulated, so he went into experimental/homebuilt aviation in the late 70’s. Then that became too regulated, so he went into space in the late 90’s. Now the FAA is following him there.

I suppose a few comments on the third and final presidential debate would be in order, since I did force myself to sit down and watch the whole thi-Zzzzzz..wmmmfmw….zzzzz….

Okayokay, I’m awake. I wasn’t sleeping, just resting my eyes.

After ninety minutes of talking points, one begins to think the Zucker brothers were watching a presidential debate when they wrote Airplane!. “I haven’t felt this bad since we saw that Ronald Reagan film…”

Why punish myself? I already voted via absentee ballot. More importantly, why punish you? I have no beef with you. You’re nice. And besides, we all go way back and uh, I owe you for the thing with the guy in the place.

Instead of noodling over which of the two suits had the fish for dinner, I elected to play around with CafePress a bit. I’m the last person on the internet without an online store of some kind. Even Bubb Rubb has one for Pete’s sake.

Of course, “dat’s only in da mornin”.

Anyway, have a look at what I came up with. I think the mousepad is especially cool.

As if the legion of aspiring rap ‘artists’ who come upon the House of Rapp and conclude that I must be able to help them with their careers isn’t enough, here’s new evidence that rap causes brain rot: (via VodkaPundit)

If Osama bin Laden ever buys a rap album, he’ll probably start with a CD by KRS-One.

The hip-hop anarchist has declared his solidarity with al-Qaida by asserting that he and other African-Americans “cheered when 9-11 happened,” reports the New York Daily News.

The rapper, real name Kris Parker, defiled the memory of those who died in the terrorist attacks as he spouted off at a recent New Yorker Festival panel discussion.

“I say that proudly,” the Boogie Down Productions founder went on, insisting that, before the attack, security guards kept Blacks out of the World Trade Center “because of the way we talk and dress.

“So when the planes hit the building, we were like, ‘Mmmm - justice.’ ”

The atrocity of 9-11 “doesn’t affect us the hip-hop community,” he said. “9-11 happened to them, not us,” he added, explaining that by “them” he meant “the rich … those who are oppressing us. RCA or BMG, Universal, the radio stations.”

Parker also sneered at efforts by other rappers to get young people to vote.

“Voting in a corrupt society adds more corruption,” he added. “America has to commit suicide if the world is to be a better place.”

In related news, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is “a little put off” by the comments. But hey, they love his music, so no harm no foul. Right?

What’s this? A bit of good news on the California education scene? I hardly know what to do with myself.

By pumping money into a few select departments and aggressively recruiting top researchers, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine have hauled in more Nobels in recent years than UC Berkeley and UCLA, the system’s traditional centers of scholarship.

University leaders said the international prizes have become a badge of prestige for students and validation for professors toiling in relative academic obscurity.

“UC is not just Berkeley,” said Bill Parker, vice chancellor for research at the fast-growing Irvine campus, located in the middle of Orange County’s suburban sprawl. “The campuses formed 30, 40 years ago are now emerging as some of the best in the country.”

Since 1994, UC Irvine researchers have collected three Nobels, including one last week. Santa Barbara has picked up five in the past six years, including two in recent weeks.

Now all they have to do is slow the skyrocketing tuition costs and build a half dozen more campuses to keep up with the demand for quality higher education. I’m not sure UC Irvine can expand any faster than it has been. Every time I drive to the campus, there’s a new building going up. It’s been a perpetual construction zone for years.

I don’t expect my alma mater to collect any Nobel Prizes in the near future, but UCI is only a quarter of a mile away, so maybe some of the prestige will rub off. Ya think?

I just returned from the gym. One of my favorite parts of working out at 24 Hour Fitness is that they have a dry heat sauna, and the temperature is always set just right. It’s even better when there’s no one else in there and you can soak up the heat in solitude.

Well today I was in there by myself. It was so relaxing I almost fell asleep!

And that was when I looked down and saw a large cockroach scurring over my foot.

Yeah, I got a good workout all right. As I hauled ass out the door (nearly stepping on another one).

Thanks, 24 Hour Fitness. You’re the best.

Every pilot learns to perform short-field landings. Indeed, we take pride in demonstrating the skill with which we extract maximum performance from our aircraft.

But a ‘narrow field’ landing? Who ever heard of that? And in a Boeing 747? There’s something you don’t see every day.

Yet that was the task facing the flight crew of this South African Airways 747-200 when they delivered it to the SAA Museum at Rand Airport in South Africa.

The runway at Rand is only 50 feet wide, and the 747 has an outer-to-outer main gear tire width of 41.33 ft. That gave the pilot just four feet of room on either side! Combine this with a Vref landing speed of 115 knots, a comparatively short runway distance of 4898 feet, and you have the making of an e-ticket ride.

It’s sadly ironic that more than a few single-engine GA pilots would consider this field mildly challenging even in an airplane with a five foot wheel base.

Tony Snow reported last night that his contacts within the Kerry campaign indicated that they are conceeding Florida and will transfer resources to other battleground states.

This is surprising. Both candidates have practically lived in Florida over the past few months, and the overall polling data still shows a tight race. Kerry’s internal polling must reflect the CNN/USA Today/Time numbers which give Bush an eight point lead. I can’t think of any other reason for them to back out at this late date.

Indeed, Florida is not being spoken of much at all right now, as if the state somehow end up in Bush’s column without any fanfare. When CNN lists ‘battleground states’, they’re now omitting Florida. Fox is doing the same, though it still shows up in their graphical breakdown of the hotly contested states.

If Florida’s 27 electoral votes go to Bush, the President will be left with a 261-228 advantage, only nine electoral votes shy of the 270 needed for reelection. Senator Kerry will absolutely have to win Ohio plus three out of the four remaining toss-up states (Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Wisconson) to pull off an electoral college victory. And even then, the one remaining state that Bush claims has to be either New Hampshire or New Mexico. If Bush wins Wisconson or Minnesota in addition to Florida, it’s all over.

Disclaimer: this assumes there are no other surprises on election day. And that there are no ‘faithless electors’ in the EC. And that any legal challenges are successfully navigated by the winner. Void where prohibited. Yadda yadda yadda.

This poker craze is really getting out of control.

Oh, it starts innocently enough. A casual viewing of a few World Poker Tour episodes. Maybe a game or two with some friends. Perhaps you even win a couple of bucks.

The next thing you know, you’re in a garage somewhere in Orange helping stretch felt over the frame of a custom poker table and furtively stressing out over how best to customize it. You’re screaming at the TV because Dennis Rodman folded a pair before he’s even seen the flop, and everyone knows when you’re the big blind it won’t cost you anything to stay in.

And most of all, you’re shopping online for the best deal on your own set of poker chips. Do I go with composite or clay? Should I get 11.5s or spring for the 13.5 gram heavies?

I crossed that boundary the other day when I acquired this set from pokernstuff.com. You can’t beat the $69 price, and even the UPS ground shipping arrived next day since they’re based in Southern California. I went with the 11.5 gram clay composite set of 500 chips (200 white, 150 red, 100 green, 50 black). It’s a fairly complete set. Two decks of cards, dice, a dealer token, and an aluminum case are included in the price.

I’ve seen these sets popping up all over the place. At the Irvine Spectrum they have them at a poker-themed kiosk for more than $150. The best deals are, predictably, online. There’s quite a lot of information out there about the various types of chips. I went with composite because although the clay chips have a better sound and stack higher, the clay chips are twice the cost and don’t last nearly as long. Clay eventually breaks down, and they’re also more susceptible to breakage. Composite chips, on the other hand, are virtually indestructible.

I took a page from the best-selling Martinez Poker Secrets book and fabricated a poker hand heirarchy list for the newbies and got it laminated. Actually, I still have to refer to it myself, though less than I used to. Sometimes when you have that perfect hand, though, you have to sneak a look at the page just to confirm that yes, four of a kind really is pretty high up on the list and you should draw the other suckers… er, I mean ‘players’ into the pot like moths to a raging fire. It’s also helpful when two players end up with flushes and no one can remember how the tie is broken.

The aforementioned poker table should really be something to behold when it’s done. I mentioned the Green Monster to Paul, and he decided to take that concept to the next step with a padded bumper, more expensive felt, and other such upgrades. He wanted to add some airbrushed design to the center of the table, but couldn’t think of an appropriate logo.

Paul had the idea of naming each of the eight player positions with something humorous. Since we’re both huge fans of Seinfeld, we started coming up with character names from the show. Jerry, Elaine, George, Kramer, Puddy, Newman, Uncle Leo, and the final position: Dolores.

That’s when I came up with the coup de gras. My greatest idea ever. I suggested he call it “Seinfelt” and put that in the center of the table with the same font used in the show’s logo. It was gold, Jerry. Gold! Paul contacted someone via the internet and managed to get an EPS file with the logo, which I modified to replace the “d” with a “t”:

Suffice it to say, this table is going to go down in history as the greatest homage to Seinfeld since TNT started playing four episodes back to back. We have other Seinfeld-esque ideas for the table, too. For example, instead of calling it a poker game, it should be referred to as “The Contest”. Paul also found out that when you order the first three seasons of Seinfeld on DVD, you get a free pack of Seinfeld playing cards! How cool is that?

To top this, we’re pretty much going to need to have Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, Larry David, or Jerry Seinfeld himself sitting at the table.

Hey, that’s not a bad idea! Hmmm. Excuse me, I gotta go make some calls…

I stumbled upon something interesting on the web the other day, the Lifetime Savings Account.

The LSA is a Bush administration proposal for a new kind of retirement account that might best be described as a Roth IRA on steroids. The discovery of the LSA proposal was exciting to me, because as a sole-proprietor with “variable” income, my only regular avenue for tax-advantaged retirement saving has been the Roth IRA. The problem with Roths is that the contribution limits are extremely low, maxing out at $3,000 per year. Obviously, unlike the 401k, there is no employer matching my contributions, not to mention no discounted stock purchasing, no options, no perks of any kind to sweeten the pot.

I established a Roth IRA because it has one big advantage over other retirement accounts. Your Roth IRA contributions are made “after tax”, so they don’t give you any tax break today like you’d get with a traditional IRA or 401k. But when you retire in 40 years or so, the money can be withdrawn from a Roth IRA tax-free.

At least, that’s the way it stands today. One never knows when a future cash-strapped Congress will turn on those of us who have built our retirements around the tax-free withdrawals promised by that very same body and start taxing the withdrawals.

I also like the Roth IRA because the long term trend over the past century has been toward higher taxes, larger government, and wider deficits. This suggests that taxes in the future will be higher than they are today, and any strategy that minimizes them at that point will be well worth the minor pain one endures today by losing the tax break on retirement account contributions.

The Lifetime Savings Account is an improvement on the Roth IRA because it increases the annual contribution limit to $5,000 while still allowing contributions to an expanded Roth IRA at $5,000 per year. That allows up to $10,000 of after-tax income to be placed in a future tax-advantaged retirement account. LSAs — as proposed, at least — would also remove many of the restrictions on withdrawals and contributions. This translates into greater freedom for Americans to use their own money as they choose. Freedom is a good thing.

LSAs were proposed by the Bush administration in January, 2003 and reached Congress in 2004 (S2263 in the Senate and HR4078 in the House). Both bills were referred to their respective finance committees where, as far as I can tell, they simply sat on the desk for the remainder of the 108th Congress.

With Keogh, 401k, SEP-IRA, and other retirement accounts typically having far higher contribution limits, I applaud the Bush administration for filling this hole and expanding the options for self-employed Americans. Now all the Congress needs to do is pass the legislation. It’s a shame the bills were stuck in a drawer this year. Hopefully the 109th Congress will display a little more moxie.

A decent rebuttal to some common arguements against LSAs can be found here.

I’ve already sent in my absentee ballot, but if I hadn’t, this is the kind of thing that would tilt the table in favor of the President.