Countless delays...

Sorry for the delay in getting this post together; I was unavoidably delayed due to technical difficulties. In other words: My dial-up connection wouldn't get me where I needed to go.
Problem solved and here is the post.
It is a strange coincidence that this particular post would be delayed. My story itself is one of countless delays and billions and billions of dollars wasted. It is the story of the Space Shuttle.
When I was a boy living in Cocoa Beach, Florida, we made many, many, many trips out to Canaveral National Seashore to watch the first Space Shuttle launches. They were all delayed. Each one usually just seconds away from lift-off. When you're 12 years old there's nothing quite like the disappointment that comes after waiting all day in the broiling hot sun only to be sent away at the last possible moment with no answers and no word when might come back again.
The shuttle has been like a Dream turned Nightmare.
Don't get me wrong. I support any and all efforts to get us into space. Whatever we get is better than nothing at all.
And I suppose I didn't realize just how useless the shuttles are until this past Summer.
That's when burt Rutan pulled the curtain back and revealed the Wizard for what he truly was: a charlatan.
Check out the simplicity of Spaceship One in this online feature by National Geographic:
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0504/feature3/index.html

Compared to the shuttle,( http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/shuttlehistory.html)
with it's thousands and thousands of parts, expensive heat-shielding, not to mention its incredible fuel consumption and myriad safety flaws, Spaceship One is a dream come true.
It is made of composite material; a one-piece fuselage with mechanically operated (that means with cables and pedals as opposed to a button, a computer and some electric motors) landing gear and wings. The ship is more of a plane than a rocket. Granted it doesn't carry seven passengers (yet) http://www.virgingalactic.com/ but once Richard Branson gets done with it, who knows what it will do.
The key is not the ship itself, but what it does and how easily it does it.
First, it uses White Knight, a new type of plane designed to lift it about 45,000 feet up and give it a boost. That saves a bunch of fuel it would have used to lift itself off the ground and get some speed.
Second, it comes down like a shuttle-cock. Nice and slow, so there is no need for those expensive heat shielding tiles.
Do know how much that saves? Millions and millions of dollars.
And I'm not even going to get into the environmental savings because it uses nitrogen and rubber instead of caustic, deadly rocket fuel.
I believe in the next few decades, plans for home-built versions of Spaceship One will become available. And pilots will operate White Knights like taxi cabs from your local municipal airport. You'll have a choice of engines, or be able to design and create your own, depending on how high you want to go. Going to the Moon? Then buy an E-engine. Just hitting an orbiting hotel for the weekend? Pick-up a C-engine on your way home.
In fact, the ships themselves will be modified the way hot rods are today. Your grandchild will install the latest sound system and telecommunications system she can get her hands on.
And more importantly, Space will be open to all of us.