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Yeah, it's true, but you can reach "space" in a balloon. The accepted definition is that you are an Astronaut if you have gone 60 miles (100km) straight up.
That's what these "spaceships" from the "spaceports" are doing. Popping you up out of the atmosphere for 3 minutes of free-fall in a sub-orbital hop. You can do it in a MiG-25 Foxbat as well.
Going to space isn't such a big deal. Making orbit is. A sub-orbital hop is lucky to break the sound barrier, while you have to go 25 times the speed of sound to make it to orbit. SpaceX is one of the few private companies who make rockets which can achieve orbit. Otherwise it's all government funded stuff like the Space Shuttle, Delta-IV, and Atlas-V. SpaceX doesn't sell rides btw. Not yet at least.
So, if you can't tell, I'm pretty skeptical about spaceports. Once we've got civilian rockets which can make orbit with paying passengers and ferry them to private space stations, then I'll sign on, but that's probably at least a decade away, and more like 2. But this stuff is in the works. Stay tuned.
It won't be practical until they can actually TAKE you somewhere. Not many people take a plane to take off and land from the same location. If you can launch from one spaceport and land at another then you are tlaking something special. These spaceships land just like airplanes so almost any airport with a 10k foot runway can accomodate them. They just need to have a greater fuel load to reach higher speeds and travel farther.
I'm also excited about the Virgin Galactic spaceship because it is being designed and developed by the same aircraft designer who designed my airplane (Long-EZ). When people ask about my plane, because of its unusual configuration, I enjoy telling them its by the same guy who's developing the spaceships now.
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wth? really? this is not true..
