Some words from Tom Chatterton, your webmaster: I spent a lot of time in bringing you these displays...because I thought they were important enough to be worth your attention.
The landing in Dayton is a lot more significant than it first appears. Its existence is effecting the entire aerospace industry.

In a larger version of this Virgin Airlines inspired craft - future folks will cross our oceans or our continents in MINUTES, not hours. New York and LA will only be 30 minutes apart or less - not the 1/2 day trip it is now. An Ohio (or East Coast) resident could be in Florida in as little as 15 minutes! (It will take longer for the stewardess to show you your seat and explain your seatbelts - which means they will have to change their way of doing things.) Perhaps the seats will have automatic padded clamps just like the roller coasters rides do, in order to be more efficient. This will tend to increase tourism and trade, boosting our service linked economy, as the technology comes online within 5 to 15 years. (This will help bring about enough funds for a Manned Mars Mission as the economy improves.) As it stands NOW - our airline industry is a key link in coast to coast and worldwide trade. By speeding those long distance delivery lines up - it can only get better...or different. Folks going to Disney World may want to include BOTH coasts - seeing the newer features - like the California Adventure in Anaheim, CA - as if they were still in Orlando - after all - they can get there in under an hour. Or see the LA and Tokyo versions of the park on the same day. Funny...but it might be more PRACTICAL and economical in the future to go from one coast to another...leaving shorter distances more expensive...unless remedies are found.

In fact - liquid hydrogen and oxygen engines may start to seem CHEAPER than oil based fuels - as the oil market gets tighter...making SpacePlane trips very economical compared to REGULAR airlines - because these common gases are so plentiful....and the technology to create liquid gases is getting cheaper all the time. Even peroxide based engines may be cheaper to maintain than aircraft fuel engines. BTW: Because craft like SpaceShipOne are so light and tiny in comparison to their ancestors...they won't NEED a big bulky external tank to get where they are going.
Faster - Cheaper - Cooler Ride...who could argue with that???

Who knows? They might have to create conversion kits so airlines can use a liquid hydrogen engine with LOX (liquid oxygen)...in order to keep a lot of their present fleet, but lower operating costs, or perhaps boost them to a higher operating ceiling, where higher speeds can be achieved. The LOX could be stored in the super insulated wings (we have the technology), with the liquid hydrogen in the belly. As long as they stay out of low orbit, they can probably design a ceramic skin on leading edges to absorb the heat, and they'll land like they always do. They do not have to go as HIGH or as fast as SpaceShipOne in order to be effective for domestic flights. Anything over 20 miles (100,000 feet) will have them speeding along above most of the atmosphere, for ranges of less than 1,000 miles. During the trip the wings are only used for landings. I doubt an airliner boosting down a ramped runway is going to need any sort of lift for long...if fact, they may even have to THROTTLE back the boosters so the airline does not overshoot its target city! (Anything under 200 miles may not be practical.) Tail attached parachutes may become quite popular.

Such a profound advance in transportation will effect worldwide economics as it matures, in both people management and cargo. It can even effect how the military inserts troop deployments in future battlefields. It can effect hotels and how they add value packages to encourage you to stay over. Look for this X Prize winning design to have competition soon. Its another giant technological LEAP for mankind. The craft you see here ACHIEVED sub-orbital velocities to an altitude of 100 miles plus, and is REUSABLE.  It only requires a few modifications to become a true orbital vehicle. Look in on the 360 degree view...you'll even see it has a high tech heat shield in front...so its perfectly capable of high speed reentry from orbit. With a little more power it could reach the International Space Station. (A quick trip to MARS comes to mind.)

Although the SpaceShipOne design cannot DO all the things the Space Shuttle can YET...and the crew that created the composite craft did not have the budget NASA has to make EVA suits for space walks, or own major launching facilities...they STILL pulled it off! Many of their accomplishments are similar to the humble beginnings of flight with the Wright Brothers. This is just an INFANT craft...showing capability. It is on its way to the DC Museum, because it WON the X Prize. That means it successfully went 100 miles plus into space TWICE in a span of a couple of weeks (its a reusable sub-orbital spacecraft), and its the first COMMERCIAL spacecraft with those capabilities. Many millions of Americans and foreigners will get to SEE this, but it may be some time before the mothercraft is shown on display as well, to get the full effect. The fascination here is - this is the FUTURE of space travel as we know it. Notice...the SKIN of this craft is much thinner than the older space technology...because of its strength and better ability to insolate. This translates into MORE payload being able to go into space on less fuel. The FIRST manned mission to Mars could possibly be a composite craft, because of the high power to weight ratio. So, we want to have as close a look as we can of this advanced craft. Later, we may even throw in a video or two.  A lot of your FUTURE commercially manned space craft will look similar to this, as engineers figure out - its better to go light! The tin can look from the missile technology of the 60's is now considered by many to be bulky and old tech, or relegated to shipment of parts.  Therefore...we are proud to show you...SPACESHIPONE in Dayton.

With this extremely light composite materials spacecraft - it will NO LONGER be practical or economical to build heavier metallic craft. If you find this all hard to believe, just go to a sports store and pickup the new COMPOSITE tennis rackets. They are not only STRONGER than their aluminum cousins (already a light metal), they are even LIGHTER! A full size racket weighs less than a 1/4th of an aluminum one. Its POSSIBLE an ENTIRE Earth to Mars craft will WEIGH no more than the present Shuttle Orbiter! If SpaceShipOne and its cousins weigh less than 1/5th the Shuttle, they should be capable of enormous velocities on the same engine technology, especially with 3 decades since the Shuttle engines were invented. Presently, it only takes the Space Shuttle 20 minutes to reach orbit...I am WONDERING how FAR and fast a much lighter craft would travel on the SAME engines in 20 minutes. (Alpha Centuri anyone?)