That's right Richard Branson. Drink up! You're free to molest the final frontier all you want now.
Down deep inside the outter most layer of hell is a little place I like to call Mojave. It is here that Qajillionaire Richard Branson and no homo life partner/engineer Burt Rutan revealed the newest vehicle to propel you halfway in to outer space only to float down out of the womb again. White Knight Two is not the sequel to a Klansman training video but rather the beautiful bird that takes the SpaceShipTwo to a great enough height for it to propel itself up in to oblivion.
I do consider myself lucky though to have attended the monumental occasion of SpaceShipOne. That being the first time a private company broke the cherry of space. Sadly though it tainted my view of space travel all too quickly. The whole idea was for Richard Brnason to stand atop a pile of gilded children and point at people in the audience. "YOU COULD GO TO SPACE!"
Then I would be like "OH EM GEE! MEEEE!?"
He softly nodded then returned to his limo that runs on china men.
I was so excited. A whole new world had opened up in my eyes. I promised to myself that the first time I go on a plane will be when I'm visiting my second cousin on Jupiter. And he would live on Jupiter because by that time the martians will have so heavily inbreed with the human populace that we were left to protect our heritage and existence by moving to Mercury and Jupiter.
Little did I know that I was being lied to. Richard Branson didn't mean me. He meant the guy behind me, possibly the one that had boots made of some sort of extinct eagle. Simply put, Space Tourism is for the rich.
While I wandered around on that hot desert morning there were assorted speakers set up all around. They would play interviews from celebrities that were also there to watch the SpaceShipOne become history. Except these celebrities were stationed miles away from all us dirty common folk, probably in space. They had the usual run of the mill b-listers. William Shatner, George Takai, Dean Kamen, Gene Simmons.
Wait... Holy shit Gene Simmons from KISS! It was a pretty slick move though by whoever was organizing all the interview clips because after that they unleashed the entire KISS discography. I knew only 4 or 5 celebrities could stand sharing a room with Burt Rutans sideburns.
So the thing went up, the pilot threw M&M's and shit around the cockpit, and then it came down using the patented Burt Rutan lay her gently technique. It's really ingenious when you think about it and it's mainly why space travel on a smaller scale is possible now. By using a specific design the ship floats down in a spiral motion while giving gravity the finger. Since the ship floats down at such a slow speed there is never this fireball effect from the atmosphere and no need for a heat shield.
It was mildly anti climactic as the day winded down but eventually worth waking up at 3 in the god damn morning. SO you all better start saving up for that two hour ride to space, the 200,000 dollar price tag isn't going to pay itself. Even though i'm pretty sure Doritos or Mountain Dew will have a contest giveaway for a pair of tickets. Plus an Xbox 360...
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