A copy of letters to my friends today

Guys,

I was reading "Halfway to Anywhere". What I learn so far have moved me to
write this letter to my friends and famly today and I decided to copy it in
this post to you. You can forward it to other people if you want.
==================================
On 2001, we have witnessed a crime in the sky in September 11.

Now I want to direct your attention to another, more meaningful and postive
September 11 event, in 1993.

On that day, a milestone was made on the sands of a unused runway at White
Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. 11:12 am Mountain Time, a 39.66-foot rocket
stand on the platform. It fired and rose to 300 feet. It stopped and
hovered. There was no visual rocket flame, except for an orange flare once
in a while. It floated sideway 350 feet southwest, did it by swiveing its
gymballed rocket engines. The rocket was not louder than Boeing 737. It
hovered again. It lowered its landing gear. It descended to a soft landing
3.5 feet to the right of its launching point. It lasted 66 seconds. That was
the second test. Almost everything was done by on-board PC.

It costed only $60 million. The building team were only 100 people who build
the rocket in 21 months using old and off the shelf technology. 1960 Pratt &
Whitney RL-10 rocket engines. McDonnell Douglas MD-11 airliner's autopilot
and avionics. Honeywell Global Positioning System receiver and radar
alitimeter, off the shelf. Software that made the rocket smart. Some
hatch-closing springs and hinges came from Home Depot, Kmart, Trui-value,
Wal-Mart, and others. The rest (titanium pressure spheres, etc.) came from
aerospace junkyards on the West Coast. Flight Operations Control Center made
up of commerical PCs and run by only 3 people inside 18 wheeler trailer.

That rocket is the first true reuseable rocket without any throw-away parts.
It's also a single stage to orbit rocket, meaning there are no throwaway cans
such as you see on Space Shuttle. It's called McDonnell Dougalas Delta
Clipper DC-X. For the first time, a true spaceship can be build with private
money and be used again in the same day for commerical flights without a
single tax dollar. With it, you can FedEx a packet from Japan to New York in
just 43 mintues. It can be used to transport people to low earth orbit and
for a lot less than $20 million a ticket.

It's only one of many other models for true reusable spaceship. Others
included actual rockets such as Roton which have blades like helicoptor that
allow it to take off and land as a helicopter by using small rockets at the
tip of the blades in either direction. The rocket will fire only once it
reach upper air where the air get thin.

So why haven't we heard about it? Actually it was carried, briefly, by CNN
on that day and only then and now. After that, nobody noticed, even when the
flights was continued until 1995. The reason why nobody really noticed
(except for people at the White Sands) is that for a long long time we have
this mindset that demands that we see the travel to space as billions of
dollar's worth expensive project requiring government money. In this world
only the states can afford this tickets. This work fine for the governments
who want total monopoly over the space access and for the companies who like
getting fat and happy feeding off your tax dollars without regards for
anything that seems like productivity.

Do you want your taxes be wasted like this? Do you want to get from New York
to Japan in 40 mintues? Do you want that important product to be expressed
to your office in time for that make or brake meeting that can mean millions
in income for your business? Do you want to spend just $5,000 for a round
trip to a hotel in low earth orbit?

Then change your mindset, because on September 11, 1993, the new frontier is
fast becoming more affordable every day. And demand that your government
stop wasting your money and let the market improve your life with commerical
space transportation.

Carl Mullin