True, Rutan's pilot was in danger of blacking out due to several G's at a couple of places in the flight.  Most customers would not tolerate such treatment, tho' maybe as a space tourist with a strong heart and no aneurisms it would be OK.  An experienced pilot has training in how to handle it.  

Hey, no G's in a balloon!  These guys are looking better all the time.  They believe they can achieve as high an altitude as possible with conventional balloons, and climb higher with a slow motor.  Orbital heights are possible, so they say, but they don't mention orbit ( which required a lot of acceleration as shown earlier) which is kind of cheating.

-- Lawrence Lile, P.E.
Electrical and Electronic Solutions
Project Solutions Companies
www.projsolco.com
573-443-7100 ext 221

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Hord [mailto:mike.hord@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 3:20 PM
> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
> Subject: Re: [OT] Yet another space program
> 
> > The promise of two hours to anywhere on the planet sounds great -
> > until you remember the SST that failed to capture even the transatlantic
> business.
> 
> Part of the problem with 2 hour around the world travel is that darn
> acceleration curve.  With modern air travel, almost anyone can
> survive the trip as long as they are capable of sitting without
> immediate access to medical care for a few hours.  If you add in
> a couple of higher G acceleration periods, you'll start to have to
> decrease the target market to healthier individuals.
> 
> It just occurred to me that only two humans (correct me if I'm wrong)
> are still alive who can tell us what high speed suborbital flight is like,
> and their flights were pretty short (horizontally) compared with the
> previous two "suborbital human cannonballs".  I suspect it probably
> isn't that different than an orbit-reentry cycle, though.  Of course, the
> two men who can verify that are also deceased.  :-(
> 
> Mike H.
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