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Space Tourism - Our PerspectiveUniversal Space Systems will present our quarterly assessment of the Space Tourism Industry here. Good, bad or indifferent, we will tell it like it is. Previous assessments can be found in the archives. April 2008Sub-orbital spaceflights are projected to begin commercial operations in 2009. Who is leading the pack? The "Front Runners" in the Sub-orbital “Race" to SpaceAlthough most commercial space companies are not willing to
admit it, there is a kind of informal “race” now as to who will be first to
market with a space vehicle capable of transporting paying customers (i.e. Space
Tourists or “space flight participants” as NASA likes to call them) into
space. The word “race” means that it is a competition and the winner will be
rewarded for their effort to achieve first place having accomplished the effort
in the least amount of time. That in itself is notable, however, the bigger
picture in this nascent industry is not to rush to space to say you did it first
but to help establish a safe, sustainable industry where everyone can benefit. The first race, and what eventually created what we now
refer to as the Space Tourism Industry, was truly a race. The race, now known as
the Ansari X-Prize, was to see who would be the first non-government entity to
send people on a sub-orbital trip into space and could repeat that effort in two
weeks or less. From the beginning the leader of the pack to win that race was,
without question, Scaled Composites. As we all know now, Scaled Composites led
by the aeronautical brilliance of Burt Rutan and the huge financial muscle of
Paul Allen, won that race with little, real competition. Actually, there were
more competitors on paper than there were with real space hardware that could
fly! The technology used to create SpaceShipOne (and it’s
carrier aircraft WhiteKnight) that won the Ansari X-Prize was bought by Sir
Richard Branson's Virgin Group. That technology is now being used by Sir
Richard’s Virgin Galactic company to build SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo for
commercial sub-orbital spaceflight. Needless to say, from the research we have
done, Virgin Galactic is the company to beat in the sub-orbital “race” to
space. However, there are a few commercial space companies that want you to believe otherwise. Up until about last October, after Rocketplane Kistler (Rocketplane Global) repeatedly failed to meet its deadlines for raising the $500 million (USD) in private financing it needed to complete the K-1 reusable rocket as part of NASA’s COTS program, we thought that they could be real competition for Virgin Galactic. They even had a Spaceport in Oklahoma lined up. Obviously they were to deep into an orbital program with NASA to focus on their sub-orbital program and now their funding for either program is all dried up. Jim Benson of Benson Space Company is convinced that his
vehicle will be the real competitor for Virgin Galactic. There is a lot of truth
in that considering that Jim’s former company, SpaceDev, built the rocket
motors for SpaceShipOne so he knows what he is doing. Benson Space Company
recently changed the design of their sub-orbital vehicle claiming it will "be easier and
faster to construct, allowing (them) to remain on-schedule to make its initial
commercial spaceflights in 2009." We don’t believe that that schedule
will hold up but Benson Space Company will get their spaceship into space. Another
company hoping to make things happen quickly is XCOR Aerospace. A few months
back they revealed their sub-orbital plans with the spaceship, Lynx. Their
rocket-powered vehicle is substantially smaller, slower and less expensive to
build than any of those proposed by rivals. From that standpoint it is more like
SpaceShipOne. A trip into space on the
company's Lynx vehicle is projected to cost $100,000 (USD) or about half the
ticket price of a trip with Virgin Galactic. The big difference here is that the
Lynx will transport a pilot and a single passenger to experience about 90
seconds of weightlessness and “sightseeing” (sports car) whereas the
spaceliner SpaceShipTwo will take a pilot, co-pilot, six passengers and offer
about 5 minutes of weightlessness and “sightseeing” (limo). Because of this
difference, don’t count XCOR out of the race. XCOR will build the Lynx with
another company operating it and setting the ticket prices. XCOR, if you recall,
has already developed a prototype rocket engine for use in the forthcoming
Rocket Racing League. After these companies we believe there is a substantial gap
as to when the other commercial space companies (Armadillo
Aerospace, Blue Origin, DreamSpace Group, PlanetSpace & Space
Adventures, to name a few) will be bringing their
spaceships on-line. That’s not to say that these won’t be as good as the
previously mentioned vehicles because they certainly will be given the ideas
that are currently on paper. We want them all to succeed because there is
nothing like capitalism and true competition to make better products and
services and drive down the price that passengers will have to pay to become an
“astronaut”. Bottom line, who “wins” the “race” is not
important, what is important is the ability to create a safe commercial space
transportation system for paying passengers. The history books will put the
spotlight on who actually sent the first paying sub-orbital passengers into
space, but time will determine if the right decisions were made to make Space
Tourism a reality.
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