Sunday, October 03, 2004

Canada tries for $10M "X" prize.
After months of delay due in large part to problems with securing insurance, Toronto's da Vinci Project X Prize team won approval Friday from the Canadian government for a manned suborbital space launch. "Transport Canada has reviewed and approved the mission-control documents and is satisfied that all the documentation, procedures and insurance are in order," the agency said in a statement.

Way to go Canada! Now, if you can get two manned rockets up into space (~69 miles up) before SpaceShipOne completes its second one on Monday, you'll win the $10,000,000.00 prize.

Two things have plagues this project back from its inception more than a year ago: Launch insurance (apparently, national healthcare said no) and, more recently, finding enough hot air (now that Chretien is out of office) to fill the balloon it plans to use to hoist its spacecraft up to a launch altitude.

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