Coming From (60 years) Behind

I've mentioned both the odds-on favourite in the X-Prize race, and the plucky outsider in a previous post.

Now comes news from the back of the field. Canada's second entry, the Canadian Arrow, has just completed a drop test from 2400 metres into Lake Ontario.

The Canadian Arrow is based upon the venerable but proven A-4 design by Wehner Von Braun's jolly crew at Peenemunde, first launched over 60 years ago. But in these days of Robots and Computer-aided manufacture rather than slave labour, it should be a whole lot more reliable.

Up until 1943, the Germans actually were building something even more ambitious than the Arrow - the A-9 piloted(!) transatlantic bombardment missile.