Forget Disneyland, I Want to Go Into Space

Aircraft designer Burt Rutan could very well make that dream come true. With private funding made available by Paul Allen (former Microsoft Owner), Mr. Rutan created a spacecraft called SpaceShipOne that won him the $10 million dollar Ansari X Prize in 2004 for being the first non-governmental organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice in two weeks time.

Last week in New York, he unveiled the updated version of SpaceShipOne called SpaceShipTwo and its carrier plane called WhiteKnightTwo. The pair is designed to ferry passengers to the edge of space, 62 miles above our heads.

WhiteKnight, a two-fuselage, four-engine plane in its new incarnation, will ferry the smaller spacecraft high into the sky and release it. The spacecraft pilot then fires the craft’s rocket engine, which burns a combination of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel, and shoots the vehicle upward to an altitude of more than 62 miles, the realm of black sky. Once there, the pilot is to activate the craft’s innovative feathered wing, which rotates into a position that greatly increases aerodynamic drag and slows the craft for a glider landing back on earth.

Excerpt courtesy of: Entrepreneur Unveils New Tourist Spacecraft

Though quite a bit away from being ready to actually take people on “space trips”, the company Virgin Galactic has already made 200 reservations and has received $30 million dollars in deposits. Most notable is the fact that they had about eighty of the company’s customers take a ride in a centrifuge to test whether or not they could withstand the high G-force of space. All but two passed.

Mr. Attenborough said that means the company’s initial premise — that one did not need to be in absolutely top physical shape to go to space — is sound.

“We’ve proved that ordinary people can go to space,” he said, “and almost all of us have the right stuff.”

With tickets going at $190,000 a pop, though, I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with a trip around the block.

Thank the editor. Buy me a coffee!

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