The commercial space race heats up

by Grant Martin on


Remember Virgin Galactic? It’s Richard Branson’s pet project to create the first ever commercial service to fly passengers into a lower orbit, tool around in zero gravity for a little while and float back to the surface. They teamed up with Scaled Composites, the group who built the spacecraft that won the Ansari X prize, to create SpaceShipTwo, which by 2009 should soon be able to carry six passengers and two pilots out into space. One ticket to 68 miles above sea level? $200,000.

It looks like they’ve also got some competition. Xcor, a California based aerospace company, revealed plans for a new sub-orbital aircraft earlier today dubbed the Lynx. It’s significantly smaller than SpaceShipTwo and only able to accommodate one passenger plus one pilot, but it’s a form factor that Xcor thinks will be better suitable to the market. Perhaps the fact that it takes off solo from an airstrip (opposed to the dual aircraft design of SpaceShipTwo) and only goes about half the altitude of its competitor will make it a less expensive flight.

It should be two years before the Lynx is off the ground, and Xcor has still to find a commercial partner to market and operate the flights. But with a little bit of extra competition in the market, maybe the galactic experience will soon be affordable to your average millionaire instead of your average billionaire.

Virgin Galactic has arrived!

by Grant Martin on

Wow. Virgin Galactic revealed the design of its sub-orbital commercial aircraft yesterday and it’s pretty sweet. Together with Scaled Composites’ Burt Rutan, construction is now sixty percent complete with a tentative launch date some time in 2010.

The current design, taken partially from the Space Ship 1 that won the Ansari X Prize in 2004, is based on a carrier aircraft that takes the sub-orbital vehicle to an approach altitude, where it’s released for the remainder of the journey. If you’re curious how that fits in the pictured design, the two hulls on the outside of that aircraft are the launch vehicle — once the appropriate altitude is reached the center section of the aircraft drops out and the two vehicles diverge.

While I’m not as excited about the innovation as Sir Richard Branson (who compares it to the cell phone revolution) is, I’m still genuinely interested in the market and buzz that its creating. At $200,000 a seat I don’t think that any of us are going to be flying any time soon, but 85,000 people have already registered interest in the pricey trip to space. Perhaps said market is stronger than I predicted.

You can read more at the BBC here.

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Space Tourism Details Start to Fill In

by Iva Skoch on

Not to steal too much thunder from Erik (who’s been blogging about this for some time), but it looks like the details of space tourism are getting clearer.

Virgin Galactic has already collected $200,000 from its first 100 customers, called “founders,” for their 150-minute flights on SpaceShipOne. More spots are still open for the next elite group of 400, called “pioneers” ($150,000 down payment). Booking is now also occurring for a third group, called “voyagers” ($20,000 down payment). They hope to put up 500 adventurous folks in the first year of operation: 2009.

Competitor Space Adventures is already off and running, haven taken the first three space tourists to the Space Station … for a $20 million “base price” apiece.

Finally, Benson Space Company will take you up on their Dream Chaser — once they complete it — for between $200,000 and $300,000, hopefully sometime in 2009. Get your $25,000 deposit ready.

First Pakistani Woman to Tour Space

by Adrienne Wilson on

Namira Salim is not an astronaut. She does music, art, sculpture and is a peace activist, but among all this she will become the first Pakistani woman to tour outer space. In 2008 she will set out with Virgin Galactic (sister company to Virgin Atlantic) as one of the good will ambassadors for the company. The lucky woman was chosen as a member of Virgin Galactic Founders Club out of some 40,000 registrants. I’m not sure who the other lucky space travelers will be as the story as featured on South Asia Biz only mentions Ms. Salim.

Now this isn’t to take any attention off of Namira Salim, but I do art, like music and consider myself a highly peaceful person and I’d like to go to space. You know, I’m just saying this in the event that Sir Richard Branson is reading right now. It never hurts to have alternates and I wonder if they have a blogger in their far-out crew? You know, I’m just going to open this whole thing up for anyone with some extra cash to burn and not just Mr. Branson – be the first to help send a real travel blogger into space. That would be me, Adrienne Wilson of course. Pretty please.

Space Tourism Training

by Adrienne Wilson on

If you thought
the 840-something vaccinations needed to go certain places in Asia and Africa was outrageous enough to keep you from
ever stepping foot on either continent or far too draining to endure before reaching the final destination imagine the
training involved before going into orbit. Seems many of you are rather excited and hopeful about touring the galaxy
one day when, say Richard
Branson’s Virgin Galactic drops prices to those similar to Southwest flights. That’s awesome! Rock on and good luck
to you.

My question now is are you cut out for it? You couldn’t have thought they were just going to seat you
in a shuttle and fling you out into the cosmos? Did you? I’m sure we mentioned this CNET news piece somewhere in the past,
but as a refresher I thought to mention again, just in case. For those seriously considering travel to space now is the
to start training and for that you may wish to travel to Singapore first.

A while
back Space Adventures announced its plans to build a space station on the small island nation with a Singapore-based
consortium. The space port will offer suborbital flights, operate astronaut training facilities and will also be an
educational visiting center for the public. Prospective space tourists can get a glimpse and understanding of the
forces experienced during the rocket launch. Medical and physical ability will be tested
and includes a simulated water landing. This is just the tip of the comet people, to see more of what’s require
check out this great photo gallery found on
CNET.