Noticed a sudden influx of emails related to the Hermes over the past few hours and started looking into it. Turns out someone posted a link about the Hermes on Slashdot and it made the front page. From the post:
“The Arizona Republic has an update on Morris Jarvis, a Project Manager at Intel who also happens to head Space Transport and Recovery (STAR) Systems, a commercial space-travel company, out of his east Mesa, Arizona home. Jarvis has built the Hermes, a prototype, proof-of-concept model of a space shuttle, that is 27 feet long with a 21-foot wingspan. He believes that if he were to receive $10 million today, he could have the first test launch in a year. Jarvis ‘envisions two tour options for his completed Hermes. In the first, a high-altitude balloon will raise the Hermes to 100,000-plus feet, where customers can see the curvature of the Earth. The second is a rocket-powered option that will put customers in a suborbital trajectory where they can experience weightlessness.’
According to the Silicon Valley Watcher, Morris likes to describe himself as the ‘Red Neck Rocket Scientist.’ (He was interviewed in this May 24, 2011 IntelFreePress Video posted at YouTube.)”
Comments are about what you would expect on Slashdot, evenly divided among well-wishers, critics and trolls. But hey, I’ll take it.
UPDATE: Heh, look at what the Slashdot users did to our Google Analytics chart:
