Company/Web Site

Space Tourism Plan

Current Status 

Chance of Success & Availability

There is absolutely nothing positive to say about Acceleration Engineering so we are not even going to try. The one and only employee says his goal is "to demonstrate that manned rockets can be made on the scale and complexity of homebuilt aircraft". The rocket is being built (?) in his spare time in his garage.

Link to a copy of the Acceleration "idea" here.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call.

This had to be one of those "sign up as a competitor for the Ansari X-Prize to get my name in the news/history books" wild hair ideas.

Advent Launch Services, made up primarily of ex-space employees, has a very unique launch and landing concept for their spaceship. The Advent spacecraft launches vertically from water and lands horizontally like a seaplane. Everything about their design is based on simple, reliable and cost effective Engineering.

Recently NASA requested the Advent Launch Services 18,000 pound thrust, methane fueled rocket engine for a verification test of their rocket engine test facility. In order to completely verify the test facility, NASA will have to do a complete check out of the Advent engine which will be a huge benefit to Advent Launch Services.

Download a copy of the Advent concept here.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call. 

Having NASA involved in your engine analysis can only shorten development time and be a tremendous long term benefit. This is one of only a few companies in Tier II that we plan on watching closely for further developments.

The size of the company and the lack of major financing may be the only thing holding this company back. 

Bristol Spaceplanes Limited started as company in the early 1990s to provide technical assistance and consulting services to companies interested in commercial opportunities in space. Later it prepared plans to develop their own "Ascender" sub-orbital spaceplane designed from off-the-shelf technology

Link to a copy of the Bristol Spaceplanes Limited concept  here.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07. 

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call.

Little has been produced from Bristol Spaceplanes Limited since 2004 other than reports, meetings, seminars and lectures. We hear nothing about the "Ascender".

This company's "entry" for the Ansari X-Prize was a  disc-shaped spacecraft called the "The Space Tourist". The concept of such a vehicle is not new but getting one to actually fly is. Such an aircraft was constructed by AV Roe of Canada in the early 1950s, but it never flew more than a few feet above the ground because of an aerodynamic instability  and the project was discontinued.

Download a copy of the Discraft concept here.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call.

Another company in name only with nothing to offer the future "Space Tourist".

Information suggests that there had been an arrangement between Dr. Peter Diamandis, of the Ansari X-Prize Foundation and Dr. Dorrington of Flight Exploration for a "team" to be set up as a token UK entry to the Ansari X-Prize, at an early stage in the competition, i.e. without any genuine intention to compete and build.

Download a copy of the Flight Exploration concept here.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call.

This company (?) is anything but a Space Tourism company.

The mission of Fundamental Technology Systems was to pursue and assist others in achieving the Ansari X-Prize. They developed the flight navigation and instrumentation system for the X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne. They are staying true to their mission by only developing and providing engineering support for others involved in Space Tourism spacecraft systems.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

The High Altitude Research Corporation, Inc (HARC) began as a spin-off of the High Altitude Lift-Off (HALO) program of the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society (HAL5), a chapter of the National Space Society (NSS). That having been said, the company consists of mostly ex-space employees who are working on this project as time permits.

HARC’s prime focus has been to develop launch vehicles for flight, atmospheric and microgravity research with the intention to have that knowledge transferred to their sub-orbital Liberator capsule launch vehicle. The Liberator is an Apollo type vehicle that was part of the Ansari X-Prize competition although it never really got beyond the design phase. 

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call.

As small as the company is, they seem to have a workable infrastructure in place and have made a great amount of progress in terms of small engine design and testing. They certainly are in no position to beat anyone to space but down the road with the right financing they could actually have a flying piece of space hardware. Whether or not the Liberator is built and flies is another question.

Lone Star Space Access was developing the Cosmos Mariner for small payloads and sub-orbital Space Tourism. It is "a convenient, flexible, scalable, and inexpensive spaceplane concept designed for operation at airport facilities...".

The Cosmos Mariner would also act as a testbed for technologies being developed for an orbit-capable Cosmos Mariner II being developed for future markets.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

As far as we can tell, they are out of business now having closed down their Web site. From the beginning everything they produced was just paper.

Micro-Space claims to be actively involved in manned and unmanned spaceflight programs but we don't see anything to validate that! Their concept is primative at best and is more along the lines of a rocket hobbist idea. 

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call.

The name says it all - micro space. In order to find something worth writing about on this company (?) you would need to be looking through a microscope to find it. It is pretty safe to say that Micro-Space will never see anything that they build fly for the Space Tourism market.

I guess it looked good on someone's resume to say that they were involved in the Ansari X-Prize competition.

Unique concept. Originally called the Condor-X when they were "participating" in the Ansari X-Prize for sub-orbital flight. PanAero has since refined the concept for an orbital configuration called the Space Van 2008. 

Link to a copy of the PanAero sub-orbital concept here.

Link to a copy of the PanAero orbital concept here.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call.

Information on this company is so outdated that we can't believe they will ever get off the ground.

TGV Rockets Chief Operating Officer Earl Renaud says Space Tourism too risky to justify investment (see Space Review article of 7/11/05).

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

Will NOT enter the Space Tourism marketplace. 

Vanguard is working towards what they say is "the first deep range spacecraft designed specifically for commercial use" - including Space Tourism. Their vehicle is called Odyssey and consists of 3 modules: Booster, Payload and Command Capsule. They also have other plans on the drawing board for an Orbital Utility Vehicle (OVU) and Spacedock.

Vanguard is taking a very disciplined approach, with success,  to working up to a vehicle capable of taking  people into space but they are barely out of the starting gate compared to other companies that are running laps around them.

Reviewed: 10/27/08
No change since our last report on 05/28/07.

NOT Flight Ready

Not enough information to make a call.