This Day in History
Glenn Reynolds has an excellent observation on the significance of the X Prize being won on this particular date:
The launch -- coming, as Boyle notes, on the anniversary of the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik -- represented in many ways the final triumph of capitalism over communism.
It's not widely remembered today, but when Sputnik was launched Americans took it as a serious blow to their self-esteem. Those backward Russians, beating us into space? Did this mean that communism was (literally) ascendant, and capitalism in decline? Many feared (or hoped) so.
Of course, we won the space race a long time ago. It was July 20, 1969 to be precise — the day a manned US spacecraft landed on the moon. But even that glorious accomplishment was the triumph of one government over another. Today, free enterprise has won. Free markets have one. The individual has triumphed over government.
Space now belongs to all of us. Not our governments. Us.
Glenn concludes:
I heard someone on one of the cable channels (it might even have been MSNBC!) predicting that more people will travel into space in the next decade than in all of human history to date. That's probably right -- and if it is, it will be because the forces of capitalism have done what they always do, making things cheaper, better, and more widely available.
Is it possible that the long-awaited Space Age really is about to begin?
