e-FTW
New electron smell
I saw a pretty cool ship go above the Karman line (well the US version of the Karman line) and I was happy. A few lucky/wealthy/connected folks went to space in it, and that had to be amazing and potentially life-changing. Like many of you, I am a SpaceX-fanboy but I do recognize that engineering achievements I can probably never fully understand were overcome to make this a reality. And that is where credit is definitely due: the engineers are the rockstars of today, and Virgin clearly has some bad-ass ones.
I do think that it was quite awkward for Chris Hadfield to talk about how one's astronaut wings represent the culmination of a lifetime of effort. Am sure that is how he has referred to them for all of his rather incredible life. But now, the era we just entered will have more and more folks with less than a lifetime of effort achieve this. I'm ok with that. It's happened before, see: flying in airplanes.
I do think that it was quite awkward for Chris Hadfield to talk about how one's astronaut wings represent the culmination of a lifetime of effort. Am sure that is how he has referred to them for all of his rather incredible life. But now, the era we just entered will have more and more folks with less than a lifetime of effort achieve this. I'm ok with that. It's happened before, see: flying in airplanes.