SpaceShip One

Today's update on SpaceShip One from Alan Radecki on the yahoo group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mojaveairport/
-Brenor

Hi all,

The folks at MHV are continuing to get the various
sites ready for the influx of people, who seem to
already be arriving. Several RVs drove slowly down the
flightline.

The White Knight, which was doing a number of touch
and goes day before yesterday, was out doing
maintenance runs today.

Yesterday's update generated a couple of questions:
1-Can a person sleep in their car on the airport
overnight Sunday night? No. The general parking area
won't open till 3am. Only self-contained RVs will be
allowed on the airport overnight. There is a large
open lot across Hwy 58 from where big-rig trucks
usually overnight, and that might be an option. I do
understand, however, that a number of people plan on
lining up on the shoulder of 58 around midnight. Don't
know if they'll get chased away or not. There's a CHP
(California Highway Patrol, for you out-of-staters)
station adjacent to the airport, so they may be out in
force.
2-Is there any European live broadcasts planned? I've
no clue. AFAIK, there are a bunch of satellite trucks
scheduled to start arriving on Saturday, no idea who
they might be from. I have not heard of anyone
planning a live webcast, but you might want to check
at space.com to see if they're doing anything...I know
some of their folks will be here.

One caution to those planning on being here but aren't
used to life in the desert: BRING LOTS OF WATER! Even
at 7am, it's getting quite warm now, and you will get
dehydrated much faster than you'll realize. There will
be vendors selling water, but count on it being
pricey. Our rule of thumb out he if you're not
peeing every couple of hours, you're not drinking
enough.

Other news:
-I haven't received confirmation yet, but my
understanding was that the FAA was supposed to issue
the airport the first ever civilian spaceport license
today. There's going to be about a 2 hour gap between
the flight and the offical press conference, and they
are tentatively planning to do a formal presentation
of the license during that time, and it should be
within view of the public viewing area.
-The public viewing area is set up southeast of the
new Taxiway Bravo (map is available at
mojaveairport.com ), at the approach end of Rwy 30, so
everyone will get an excellent view of the landing.
-When Burt came in for lunch at the Voyager Cafe
yesterday, he was all grins...looks like he's really
having a lot of fun with this.

Five days and counting!

Feel free to send questions....

Alan

Today's update on SpaceShip One from Alan Radecki on the yahoo group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mojaveairport/
-Brenor

Hi all,

Not sure what the hitch is, but the designation of MHV as the first
commercial inland spaceport didn't happen by the FAA as expected
yesterday...stay tuned.

Regarding broadcasts and webcasts of the launch...CNN is reportedly
going to do a live broadcast, don't know if that'll reach Europe.
Local radio station KLOA FM 104.9 has the exclusive radio rights to
direct feed, and it now sounds as if they'll be live webcasting the
audio at http://www.kloafm.com/

There is now a map of the public parking area up on the the airport
site at http://www.mojaveairport.com/special-ops.htm

If you haven't seen it yet, Scaled has a FAQ on their site at
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/june21faq.htm

There really is no other news to report this morning...it's a
gorgeous, if somewhat warm day...

Alan