Galactic Suite Announces Maglev Space Flights

Okay, here's a thing...

A company that I had never heard of (and therefore haven't had on my list of space tourism companies) came out an announced today that they will be providing orbital space tourism in the year 2012. Furthermore, they say that 38 people have already signed up!

Galactic Suite was founded last year in Europe. I could not find a ton of information on them, suggesting that I'm not the only one who has never heard of them, but they seem to be interested in drawing from various new technologies and putting them together in ways that will allow for orbital space tourism.

They're based in Barcelona, Spain, and they plan on sending people to "a tropical island" (there are pictures of the island, but I could not find its name) for several weeks of astronaut training before launching them using a combination of magnetic lifting and conventional rockets. This spacecraft will dock with one of several orbital space "spas" (the first of which they intend to have in orbit in late 2012), which each have several modular compartments. These compartments will have various uses, but one side of each of them will be almost entirely transparent. The amenities in this space spa will include a room where tourists can "swim" amongst large bubbles of water.

The most unique concept in this proposed design is the maglev launch solution. Magnets will lift the spacecraft past the speed of sound, then the spacecraft will detach and fire its more conventional rockets. It's an interesting proposal. I'm skeptical as to whether this company can pull it off, but we'll see.

Their logo, however, looks like it was drawn in crayon by a third-grader.

Oh, and here's a picture of the bubble thing (credit Galactic Suite). Enjoy!

Progress: 4.03%  Flight Time: 0:06:05

Armadillo Enters Lunar Lander Challenge

Well, Armadillo Aerospace (one of my personal favorite space travel startups) has just announced their entry into the X-Prize foundation's Lunar Lander Challenge.

This comes as no surprise, as Armadillo Aerospace was the only entrant to fly in the 2006 and 2007 X-Prize Cups, similar to this challenge. The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge will take place in the New Mexico desert in late October. The challenge is designed to get people to construct vehicles with lunar-lander-like capabilities. There are two levels to the competition. Level 1 challenges entrants to construct a craft to take off, hover at 50 meters for 90 seconds, land on a spot 50 meters away, then do the entire thing in reverse, all within two and a half hours. Level 2 requires the craft to hover twice as long and land on a simulated lunar surface full of boulders and craters. Level 2 in particular is designed to simulate the capabilities needed for a real lunar mission.

The previous (and very similar) X-Prize Cups have had no winners. However, in the 2007 X-Prize Cup, Armadillo Aerospace only missed winning the Level 1 competition by 7 seconds.

I figure I should talk a little more about this company; I haven't spoken much about them in the past, but I've been following their progress, and they're pretty impressive.

Armadillo Aerospace was founded in the year 2000 by a group of volunteers dedicated to developing the technology to allow tourists to fly into space (which is, of course, why I talk about them here). They are still a very small group of (mostly) volunteers, operating out of Dallas, Texas. However, their group is very specialized, and they've done some very impressive things considering their size.

Their philosophy on rocket design is inspired from typical software design (not surprising, since one of their members, Jack Carmack, is a well known computer game designer). They design a simple rocket, build it and test it relatively quickly, then design the next one to weed out the bugs and add new features. This method seems to have been serving them well, as it has allowed them to test many, many designs and arrive at relatively advanced rockets without years of research and feasibility studies. They have even done work for NASA and the Air Force, whose methods they have poo-pooed for being way too slow (this is the common argument that most space tourism start-ups use about the government). Also, they have a philosophy of completely admitting it and talking about it when they screw up, which does happen quite often. I think this serves them well.

After the Lunar Lander challenge, Armadillo Aerospace plans on beginning design and construction of its first modular rocket prototype, a later generation of which they hope will take people into space. At about $200,000 a pop, of course.

Progress: 4.03%  Flight Time: 0:06:05

Starchaser to Launch Prototype Rocket

Starchaser Industries, in conjunction with Salford University in the UK, has announced its intention to launch the UK's largest ever rocket in September of 2009. The Nova 2 rocket is 58 feet long, and the launch is intended to test the design's safety systems. A small capsule will be launched from the rocket during ascent, and if all goes well, will safely parachute to the ground.

This is all in an effort to develop - you guessed it - a manned rocket that Starchaser intends to use for tourism launches. The flights are expected to be 20 minutes long, and will include 3 to 4 minutes of weightlessness.

I have only mentioned Starchaser briefly in passing, so now would be a good time to talk a bit more about them.

Starchaser began in 1992 as a group of volunteers headed up by Steve Bennett with an objective of developing an inexpensive method of delivering small payloads into orbit. In 1996, they launched the Starchaser 2, a 21-foot rocket that was then the largest civilian rocket ever to be launched in Europe. They soon set up a base of operations at Staford university and began executing other launches. In 1998, they were incorporated, and have since began manufacturing and selling rocket parts. To date, they have made 16 launch attempts, 16 of which were successful.

Their interest in space tourism is a more recent development. The Nova was launched in 2001, the first private reusable rocket capable of carrying people into space. With the Nova 2 getting ready to launch, Starchaser has also developed a huge educational wing of operations, visiting over 200 schools and educating 150,000 students every year.

I, for one, wish them luck.

Progress: 3.73%  Flight Time: 0:05:35

National Space Society Announces Space Ambassadors Program

Want a free trip to space?

Well, here's an opportunity for you. The National Space Society has announced, in cooperation with Virgin Galactic, the Space Ambassadors Program.

The Space Ambassadors Program is an advocacy program that operates by training volunteers to deliver presentations about the importance of human spaceflight and eventual colonization of space. One such volunteer will be selected to receive a free trip on Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, and volunteers can be anyone in any stage of life; they need only sign up at the website, http://www.spaceambassadors.com/

Incedentally, the National Space Society is a space advocacy organization that I had not heard of until I learned of this program. I believe they would count as the thirty-fifth company I've mentioned who is interested in getting you to space, so I'd like to take some time to talk about them as well.

The National Space Society was created in 1987 through the merger of the National Space Institute and the L5 Society. They encourage anyone to join them in their efforts, largely related to advocation of human spaceflight. They publish the Ad-Astra magazine, which reports significant developments in space-related science and technology, and they try to exert influence on the creation of U.S. legislation.

They have some very well-known members. Among their "board of governers" are people like Buzz Aldrin, Tom Hanks, and Hugh Downs. Their stated mission is "to promote social, economic, technological, and political change in order to expand civilization beyond Earth, to settle space and to use the resulting resources to build a hopeful and prosperous future for humanity."

Progress: 3.73%  Flight Time: 0:05:35

Win a Trip to Space!

After all this talk of religion and politics, its past time for me to get back to some space tourism news. It looks like there will soon be a new way to get to space, and on the cheap!

A company called Space Miles (IOM) (which is, by my count, the thirty-third company interested in one way or another in getting you to space) has announced that plans are nearly complete to hold a series of lotteries with the grand prize being two tickets for a suborbital trip to space!

Frankly, it was only a matter of time before this happened. Something so prohibitively expensive, and yet holds such an interest for a wide variety of people, was just begging for someone to set up some sort of lottery. I would be shocked if this ended up being the only one.

It's called The Space Shuffle Lottery. Initially, the odds of winning will be 15,000:1. They haven't released the price for an entry, but if you read their website carefully, you can calculate the ticket price at around $25 based on the information they do provide. Pretty cheap to launch your butt out of the atmosphere!

I don't have a lot of information on Space Miles (IOM) as a company, but what I do know is they were started with a very different idea in mind (and from what I can tell, they still plan on implementing it). They plan to offer a credit card, the Space Miles card, with which you can earn space miles redeemable toward a trip to space.

Personally, I won't be playing in the lottery. I'd rather invest my money and save it toward a ticket I buy myself. It's a great concept though! And depending on the terms of the space miles card, I may just have to look into getting one of those if they do come out.

Once Virgin Galactic starts flight testing later this year, I fully expect other companies with similar offers to come out of the woodworks, so I'll definitely keep this site updated with what I hear.

Progress: 3.73%  Flight Time: 0:05:35

XCOR Aerospace Announces a New Spacecraft

Second among the juicy tidbits of space tourism news this week was the significant announcement by XCOR Aerospace of the Lynx spacecraft.

XCOR is a rocket engine development company based in the Mojave Airport. It was founded in September of 1999 by former members of the Rotary Rocket rocket engine development team, and they have long had aspirations of creating a commercial spacecraft. Their accomplishments have included their 5M15 Methane Rocket Engine, which was one the Time Inventions of the Year in 2007. One of the concepts behind the methane rocket engine relies on the fact that methane is abundant in space. In theory, a spacecraft powered by these engines could refuel en-route while on long distance voyages. Rocket engines like these may be used in some fashion for Nasa's next generation Crew Exploration Vehicle.

But back to today's news. The announcement of the Lynx is a great step toward the developement of a tourist spacecraft.

Wait, didn't I say it is a spacecraft?

Well, XCOR is calling it a "spaceship", but technically, it isn't a spacecraft. XCOR is very careful to say that it will take passengers to the edge of space, but in truth, it will only carry passengers a little higher than 60km, where the US gives astronaut wings to anyone reaching 80km, and Europe's standard is 100km. So, you may ask, if it won't take you to space, what will it do?

The Lynx is a small spacecraft with only a rocket engine; it will launch that rocket from the ground. It will use this engine to take one pilot and one passenger up past 60km a few times per day. It won't be space, but the sky will turn black and passengers will get a few minutes of weightlessness, and that will likely be good enough for some.

Once the Lynx is constructed, it will undergo more than 50 test flights before tourist flights begin, and that is expected to happen in 2010. Also of interest is the price; flights are expected to cost around $100,000, which could attract those not interested in spending twice as much just to say that they've technically been in space.

Personally, however, I'm holding out for true space flight. I want my astronaut wings, damn it!

Just sayin'.

Oh yeah, and here's some pictures (credit XCOR):

Progress: 3.89%  Flight Time: 0:05:50

Rocketplane Acquires a New Test Pilot

Wow, what a week for space tourism!

And what a week to not have time to write about it!

Seriously, folks, I feel kind of pinned down here! This week has been a treasure-trove of news about space tourism, but at the same time, I have a new roommate moving in, I'm in the beginning stages of starting a new business, and several other changes have been occurring with my life (more on all those later), and I have had no time to write about any of this! But I intend to turn that around, one piece of news at a time. I'll start with a bit of news I learned about Sunday; Rocketplane Global has made some organizational changes, including having Paul Metz join the company as Vice President and Chief Test Pilot.

Rocketplane Global was founded in 2001 in Oklahoma City, OK, and they opened their first office in May 2004. Since then, they have grown to over 60 people, mainly designing the planned Rocketplane XP spacecraft. If you think that's not enough people, I would remind you that SpaceShipOne was designed and built by around 120 people, so it's definitely possible.

Rocketplane's immediate plans are the design of the XP, but their long-term plans involve the development of a fleet of various vehicles for suborbital and orbital tourism, and also ultrafast point-to-point travel. The XP itself is expected to be a single craft design, with jet engines that allow it to take off and climb into the atmosphere, and a rocket engine to allow it to climb into space.

Rocketplane is also in development of Spaceport Oklahoma, located near the town of Clinton. Spaceport Oklahoma, located on the Clinton-Sherman air force base, includes the third longest runway in North America and serves as an alternate landing site for the space shuttle.

Paul Metz, before becoming Rocketplane's test pilot, was a test pilot for Lockheed Martin, and earlier in his career, he was a US Air Force fighter pilot.

Beyond these items, information about the company's progress in developing of their space program is sparse, but it appears to be active and advancing, so I'll keep an ear out for more!

Progress: 3.89%  Flight Time: 0:05:50

EADS Releases Space Plane Project Details

The Chief Technical Officer of EADS, Robert Laine, was recently interviewed by the BBC concerning EADS Astrium's space tourism plans, and he actually went into quite a bit of detail about how the project is going to work.

EADS is a large European aerospace company that resulted from the 2000 merging of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG of Germany, Aerospatiale Matra of France, and CASA of Spain. They are responsible for creating everything from Airbus aircraft to military helicopters. The EADS Astrium division was created to encompass the space portion of EADS' Aerospace goals, and today, they have 12,000 employees in five European countries.

EADS Astrium is split into three principal roles. Astrium Services sells services that require complex or multiple-satelite setups, such as communications or navigation. Astrium Satellites designs and manufactures satellites, and Astrium Space Transportation supports manned space activities, and researches and develops space vehicles. Astrium Space Transportation has been responsible for such systems as the Columbus module, currently part of the International Space Station, and the European Space Agency's automated transfer vehicle, now in a parking orbit near the International Space Station, waiting for the space shuttle to leave so that it can dock.

Astrium Space Transportation is now in development of a space plane, intended to be used for tourism purposes. In his interview with the BBC, Robert Laine provided several new details concerning the program.

The expected cost of a trip on one of these space planes is €200,000. Astrium's studies of the potential space tourism market suggest that as many as 15,000 people would be willing to shell out this kind of cash every year for a ride on one of its planes. To facilitate that, Astrium plans to manufacture 10 space planes per year once they are in full production. Also, it was revealed that Astrium has no intention to provide the tourist flights itself; it will just sell the planes to others who will.

The plane will operate by using conventional jet engines to fly 12 km into the atmosphere, where it will ignite its rocket. The plane's liquid oxygen-methane rocket engine has been successfully tested for thirty-one seconds at a stretch, and the form of the plane itself has successfully passed initial wind tunnel tests. The plane will be able to carry five people into space (four tourists and one pilot), and the trip will take about an hour and a half.

And here are some pictures! The The first is credited to EADS, and the second to Marc Newson, the designer of the interior. Enjoy!

Progress: 3.89%  Flight Time: 0:05:50

Masten Space Tests New Igniter Design

Masten Space has created a few interesting bits of news in the past months, including the complete destruction of their first prototype XA 0.1 engine in December. You can find a great picture of the destruction on their website. This piece of news is relatively minor, but it gives me an excuse to do a profile on the company.

Masten Space is based in Mojave, California, and is currently in the design and construction phases of the first of their many planned spacecraft, the XA 1.0. The various design phases are named 0.1, 0.2, etc., much like designations of early software releases. Their plans are as follows:

XA 1.0, 1.5, 2.0
Suborbital reusable vertical takeoff and landing spacecraft of increasing capacities. Launching items on one of these rockets is expected to cost about $300/kg, and it is anticipated that a single one of these rockets will be able to be launched several times per day. The XA 2.0 would be capable of carrying approximately five people, and is therefore the first of their craft that can service the space tourism market.

B 1.0, 2.0
These will be booster units based on XA 2.0 technology, capable of acting as a first stage for a larger payload, and then land once more so that it can be reused.

O 1.0, 2.0
These will be orbital spacecraft. Specifically, they will be the second stage of a B/O combination craft. These will also be able to re-enter the atmosphere and land so that they can be reused.

XL 1.0, 2.0
At this point in Masten Space's plans, vertical takeoff and landing technology will be mature enough so that it can me used on other worlds. XL stands for eXtraterrestrial Landers, and these will be used in places like the Moon and Mars.

xT
The xT vehicles will be pure extraorbital transfer vehicles based on the O 1.0 and 2.0 technologies.

Payload slots on their first successful spacecraft are already available for purchase, starting at $99 for a 350g payload, all the way up to $1250 for a 5 kg payload.

After the destruction of XA 0.1 last month, Masten has decided to scrap plans for further 0.1 development and to start building XA 0.2! Masten gives out a lot of details of current development process on their website, so I encourage you to read it! As for their current news, they have completed the design of a new igniter with a liquid oxygen tank for the XA 0.2. I have no idea what that means, so if you're interested, you can read up on it in their news section. Also, they're hiring two new interns! So if you're qualified to become a rocket-scientist-in-training, you might want to check them out.

Progress: 3.74%  Flight Time: 0:05:36

Bigelow Aerospace

There are a few companies out there that are taking on the goal of creating space habitats for tourism purposes, but none of them are as promising as Bigelow Aerospace.

Bigelow Aerospace was founded in 1999 by Robert Bigelow. The company purchased rights from NASA to technologies that had been researched for NASA's canceled Translab program. The particular technologies they were interested in were designs for inflatable space station modules. Bigelow Aerospace took these designs and ran with them, quickly beginning design and production of prototype modules based on the technology.

Inflatable technology has several advantages. The modules are launched in a compressed state, allowing for a launch vehicle's typically volume-limited design. After the vehicle reaches orbit and the module has separated, it is inflated with breathable air, creating a much larger orbital habitat. The use of a flexible outer shell also makes the module much lighter then conventional metal habitation modules.

Concern has been raised about the prospect of meteorite impacts potentially puncturing the modules' walls and causing them to deflate. However, those concerns have been at least somewhat discouraged by the fact that the modules' walls are made of several layers of vectran, a material twice as tough as kevlar. If you shot the walls, you would have to dodge the ricochet. Also, a meteor impacting a flexible surface that was tough enough would theoretically bounce off where it might damage a rigid surface, due to the fact that the energy would largely be transferred back to the meteor.

On July 12, 2006, Bigelow Aerospace successfully launched the Genisis I, a 3000 lb, 15 foot prototype module. After achieving orbit, it successfully inflated and deployed its solar panels, and it orbits the Earth to this day. Bigelow hopes to keep it operating for at least another three years. Just a year later, on June 28, 2007, Bigelow launched Genisis II, their second prototype. Genisis II is similar to Genisis I, except that it contains twice as many cameras and a more complex array of sensors and other devices. Also, Genisis II contains an array of random items sent in by interested members of the public for Bigelow's "Fly Your Stuff" program.

Initially, Bigelow had plans to launch a larger prototype craft called the Galaxy, but the success of Genisis was so great, and launch costs are increasing so much, that they canceled the Galaxy program and are skipping to their full-size, human-habitable Sundancer prototype, to launch between 2010 and 2012. The speculation is that the Sundancer will be launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, but this hasn't been confirmed. If the launch and deployment of the Sundancer is successful, crew may be transported to it to further test its capabilities. Following that will be the launch of the first BA 330 (the first full-scale, production module) from 2012-2014.

And after that, a space hotel becomes a significant possibility. And remains an awesome possibility.

Progress: 3.24%  Flight Time: 0:04:51

SpaceX Completes Merlin 1C Testing

SpaceX, a possible contender to transport astronauts to the International Space Station after the retirement of the space shuttle, has announced that they have completed qualification testing on their Merlin rocket engine. To explain to you what this means, I'll go a little bit into SpaceX's history and future plans. They were one of the next companies on my list anyway.

Despite the fact that SpaceX's services seem likely to be purchased by government organizations rather than space tourism interests, the technologies it is developing (at the very least) could be quite useful to the space tourism industry. It was founded in 2001 by Elon Musk, whose more interesting accomplishments have included the co-founding of PayPal, and he is currently the chairman of Tesla Motors. The goal of SpaceX seems to be to make satellite launch, and eventually the launch of manned spacecraft, much less expensive than it has been. One of the ways that they are doing this is to operate with much fewer personnel than most other space programs; they had 400 employees as of November, and they've already made two test launches.

SpaceX launches its rockets from the Martial Islands with an on-site crew of a mere 25 people. Their first rocket, called the Falcon 1, is a two-stage rocket with a single engine on each stage. The first stage has a Merlin engine, and the second a Kestrel, both of which are low-cost engines designed by SpaceX. The rocket is designed to take smaller satellites into low Earth orbit. They first tested this rocket in March 25, 2006 after four months of weather- and technology-related delays. The flight lasted 29 seconds, consisted of the first stage engine lighting itself on fire, and was topped off by a spectacular dive into the ocean. They traced the cause of the failure to a corroded nut on the fuel tank.

So do you remember that Far Side comic where a worker at the airport finds a nut on the runway, and a plane falls apart in mid-air? Yeah, that happened here.

They tried again a year later, on March 21, 2007, this time with a simulated payload and shiny new stainless steel nuts. They had a couple of aborts during the two days before launch; one was at T-1:02, and one was just a half of a second before the engines would have fired. This is actually fairly impressive; they have set up a system in which they are able to abort mere seconds before launch and quickly return to a configuration where they can try again if the cause of the abort is minor (which it was; the fuel was a tad too cold). When they launched, just an hour after the second abort, the rocket performed very well. It made it to space, but was aborted just before it could reach orbit due to control issues caused by the sloshing back and fourth of the fuel.

SpaceX has since found and eliminated the cause of the sloshing (it was started by unexpected movement caused by first stage separation), and they plan on launching a third Falcon 1 this spring. The third launch is actually a paid satellite launch for the US Navy, which is where this Merlin qualification becomes important. The completed qualification testing has done a couple things; it verified the final design for the Merlin 1C so that SpaceX can begin mass production of the engines. It has cleared the way for the next stage of testing for use in the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. And finally, it comprised the last requirement necessary for paid satellite launch operations. This springs launch is likely to be played live on the web as the previous two were, so I'll post the details of when and where it will be when I get them.

SpaceX has some ambitious future plans. By the end of this year, they plan on delivering the first Falcon 9 rocket to Cape Canaveral. Falcon 9 will facilitate the launch of much more massive payloads into orbit. Its first stage will contain 9 Merlin rockets, and the second stage will contain a single Merlin rocket. Beyond that, SpaceX is designing the Merlin 9 Heavy, which will be a Merlin 9 modified to launch with two boosters, each containing 9 more Merlin rockets, for a total of 27. That is a lot of launching power!

Even more exciting are their designs for a manned spacecraft called The Dragon. The Dragon will be a mercury-like capsule that will be able to hold 7 astronauts, or can be reconfigured for cargo transport. SpaceX intends to use this capsule to sell services to NASA to transport crew and supplies to the International Space Station when the space shuttle is retired.

And that's about it! My initial assumptions about this company seem to be flawed; they plan to sell their services to anyone, not just governments, which could potentially open their efforts up directly to space tourism. Some very exciting possibilities are in the works for this company. And they have already made a mockup of their Dragon capsule. I'll leave you with a picture of its very cool logo:


Credit: SpaceX

Progress: 3.24%  Flight Time: 0:04:51

Space Adventures LTD

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a few days; I had this weird cold that hasn't been bad enough to keep me from working, but has been just annoying enough to keep me from doing much else. We still seem to be short on any interesting space tourism news, so I'll profile the next company on my list, Space Adventures Ltd.

Space Adventures is currently the only space tourism company actively getting tourists into space. It was founded in 1998 with the express goal of facilitating commercial human space travel. They accomplished that goal in 2001 when, in cooperation with the Russian Space Agency, Roskosmos, they sent Dennis Tito, the first space tourist, to the International Space Station.

These initial space flights cost $20,000,000, and consisted of six months of cosmonaut training, followed by launch on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft (usually along with a NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut), topped off with a six-day stay on board the International Space Station. To date, there have been five of these space tourists, and two more are expected this year.

The price for one of these space flights has now risen to $30-40,000,000. However, they have recently added a spacewalk option to their list of services. For about an extra $15,000,000 and an extra month of training, tourists will be able to go on a 1.5 hour spacewalk and spend an extra two days aboard the station.

Those are not the only services they currently offer. Space Adventures also offers zero-gravity parabolic plane flights for about $5500, or $8000 if you want to go with an astronaut. Also, they will take you through cosmonaut training for anywhere between $8000-$60,000 depending on how in-depth you want the training to be.

Space Adventures also has some huge future plans. They are currently in the process of designing and creating a sub-orbital spacecraft of their own called the Explorer. They plan on offering sub-orbital flights on the Explorer from spaceports currently in the works in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. The flights are planned to cost a mere $102,000, the current lowest announced price for spaceflight by any company.

Along with their suborbital flights, Space Adventures is currently planning a circumlunar flight, tentatively called Deep Space Explorations Alpha. The announced date of this flight is 2009, although that date was announced a couple of years ago, and there has been little specific news on these plans since. This flight is planned to take two tourists on a journey around the far side of the moon and back to Earth. The two available seats are on sale for $100,000,000 each. So far, there haven't been any announced takers.

So that's about it! As of now, Space Adventures is definitely the most successful space tourism company out there. I look forward to seeing what the future holds, and whether their plans pan out.

Progress: 3.24%  Flight Time: 0:04:51

Virgin Galactic

Well, I was hoping to bring you all some sort of interesting space tourism news this week, but it seems to be a slow week for that sort of thing, so I'll start profiling some of the space tourism companies (as promised) instead.

I'll start with Virgin Galactic. They're the second on my original list, but they're my personal favorite, so I'm beginning with them.

It all started with a company named Scaled Composites, led by a man named Burt Rutan. Scaled Composites was founded in 1982, and focused primarily on designing and building unique aircraft from non-metal composite materials, and on designing the fabrication processes needed to do so.

Then came the arrival of the Ansari X-Prize. In May of 1996, a competition was announced to give $10,000,000 to the first private company to launch a single craft carrying three people into space twice within a week, without replacing more than 10% of the vehicle's mass in between. Burt Rutan and the fine people at Scaled thought they just might have the resources and expertise necessary to pull it off.

Well, they did. A group of about 120 people developed a successful space program in eight years' time, on a budget of twenty million dollars, with the first manned spacecraft capable of re-entering Earth's atmosphere without a heat shield! Those aren't the only feats they pulled off; SpaceShipOne was only the second mechanically-controlled aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier, it became the fastest mechanically-controlled aircraft ever at speeds exceeding Mach 3, and it did so while flying straight up! Also, it broke the record altitude for a rocket plane by a few thousand feet, beating out the U.S. military's X-15. Scaled Composites' budget required them to get very creative during the development and testing of SpaceShipOne. For example, they didn't have money for wind tunnel tests, so they put pieces of the craft on the back of a pickup and drove really fast down a runway instead! And during the whole process of building and testing SpaceShipOne, they came close to disaster no less than three times! Again, if you haven't seen it, I recommend the Discovery Channel documentary on this process (on the right); it's highly entertaining. And here's a cool picture.


And another.


Anyway, I'm rambling. SpaceShipOne successfully won the Ansari X-Prize on October 4, 2004. Shortly thereafter, Virgin Galactic was founded by Sir Richard Branson, a (somewhat amusingly named) member of his Virgin group of companies. He then announced plans to team up with Burt Rutan to found The Spaceship Company, the company that is responsible for the design and construction of SpaceShipTwo, and its "mothership", WhiteKnightTwo. Virgin Galactic then contracted The Spaceship Company to deliver five SpaceShipTwos and two WhiteKnightTwos for their initial operations. Just a couple of weeks ago, designs and pictures of the first SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo (named Enterprise and Eve, respectively) were released to the general public. Here are a couple of those pictures!



So there you have it! Flight tests are expected to begin this summer, with actual tourist flights beginning in 2009. For a the mere $200,000 price tag, you too can touch the sky! Or... something sappy like that.

Wait, you don't think it ends there, do you? Not at all! Burt Rutan has a three-tiered solution to the space tourism problem. SpaceShipOne and Two are part of his Tier One vision, consisting of sub-orbital tourism. There are still two tiers left! Tier Two will be orbital tourism. There are already rough plans in the works for the Tier Two craft, which will likely be loosely based on SpaceShipTwo. Tier Three? Well, that's where you get to leave the Earth's orbit altogether and visit the Moon, or perhaps L2, the gravitational "balance point" on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun (more on Lagrange points here). There are exciting times ahead, so stay tuned!

Images credit Scaled Composites, LLC (first two), Virgin Galactic (third), and Reuters (fourth)

Progress: 3.24% Flight Time: 0:04:51