Watched the documentary last night on BBC 1.
It said "exactly 64 miles"!!!
Now realising that 62 miles = 100kms then one can see it was rounded for metric readers in your part of the world!
EXCELLENT!!!!
Here was something that appeared in the local paper this morning:
The competition, which began in 1996, has attracted more then two dozend teams from around the world. It requires contestants to fly three people to an altitude of 62 miles [should have read 100 km] and then to repeat the flight with the same craft within two weeks. The boundary of space is not well defined; NASA gives astronaut status to anyone who has flown higher then 50 miles, but some European authorities mark the border at 62 miles. The X prize founders chose 62 miles.
It appears NASA fixed the boundary of space at a rounded 50 miles or 80 km, but the world does not see anything significant about 50 miles and chose a value that is more tolerable to metric minds: 100 km. I wonder if the American readers of the article would have grasped the significance of 50 miles vs 62 miles if the 62 miles had been properly stated as 100 km.
Euric
> I was watching coverage on CNN and the ship designer, Burt Rutan, always talked about the 100 km altitude they were shooting for.
>
> jdd
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nat Hager III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Jun 21, 2004 2:27 PM
> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [USMA:30179] SpaceShipOne
>
> This "62 miles" business certainly gets tiring....
>
> http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040621/D83BG9CO2.html
>
> Nat
>
>
