For over a year now, the website that features
the British X-Prize contestant, Steve Bennett,
left a false impression that he was going to launch
himself into space [100km:62 miles up] this September...
It turns out, his website, www.starchaser.uk, has
been deceiving us.
According to the "Drudge Report", Steve Bennett
may launch his Nova rocket this September,
but it will only be an "unmanned launch" to 13,000 feet [Cessna's fly higher], as will be the second launch
targeted for November...
The first "manned" launch of Steve Bennett's Nova
rocket can take place no sooner than 2002, and that only to 13,000 feet.

Depressing, discourageing.

All these amateur attempts, one after another, end up
suffering delay....after...delay....after....delay....after delay....And then they suffer either bankrupcy, or simply run out of cash.
It's been over twenty years since Robert Traux started
this amateur manned spaceflight business...Nobody has been launched.
Do we have to wait another twenty years?
I'm getting this depressing nagging feeling, that the sponsor(s) of the X-Prize may in the next five to ten years take their money and leave...
And all these amateurs involved will have wasted years of their lives on half-built or prototype rocket hardware that may never leave the ground....or blow up with fatal results
that may bring government intervention and kill the whole concept.

Jacob