Congressman Frank Lucas (R-OK), whose district includes the Oklahoma Spaceport, mentioned it at a town meeting in Enid, Oklahoma on Tuesday, according to an article in the Enid News and Eagle. Lucas described the activities at the spaceport, including plans by “Rocket Plane” [sic] to perform suborbital spaceflights from there. But would Lucas want to take a ride on one of those flights himself? Apparently not. “I won’t be one of those standing in line for a ride,” he said.
Dumb Okie
[…] A related item to the post earlier this week about Congressman Frank Lucas talking up the Oklahoma Spaceport in his district: in an article in the Alva Review-Courier Lucas trotted out some statistics regarding spaceflight at a town meeting. “From my research I’ve determined that 40 percent of citizens who encounter weightlessness for the first time have the most sensational motion sickness,” he said. While that may apply to orbital spaceflight, I suspect the number isn’t nearly so high for people who fly on zero-g aircraft, either government or commercial, and may also not be applicable to suborbital spaceflight, where the zero-g experience will last on the order of five minutes. Any thoughts? […]