Posted on 03/26/2008 11:18:38 AM PDT by anymouse
A California aerospace company plans to enter the space tourism industry with a two-seat rocket ship capable of suborbital flights to altitudes more than 37 miles above the Earth.
The Lynx, about the size of a small private plane, is expected to begin flying in 2010, according to developer Xcor Aerospace, which planned to release details of the design at a news conference Wednesday.
The company also said that, pending the outcome of negotiations, the Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded it a research contract to develop and test features of the Lynx. No details were released.
Xcor's announcement comes two months after aerospace designer Burt Rutan and billionaire Richard Branson unveiled a model of SpaceShipTwo, which is being built for Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism company and may begin test flights this year.
Xcor intends to be a spaceship builder, with another company operating the Lynx and setting prices.
The Lynx is designed to take off from a runway like a normal plane, reach a top speed of Mach 2 and an altitude of 200,000 feet, then descend in a circling glide to a runway landing.
Shaped something like a bulked-up version of the Rutan-designed Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft, its wings will be located toward the rear of the fuselage, with vertical winglets at the tips.
Powered by clean-burning, fully reuseable, liquid-fuel engines, the Lynx is expected to be capable of making several flights a day, Xcor said.
"We have designed this vehicle to operate much like a commercial aircraft," Xcor Chief Executive Officer Jeff Greason said in a statement.
Greason said the Lynx will provide affordable access to space for individuals and researchers, and future versions will offer improved capabilities for research and commercial uses.
Xcor has spent nine years developing rocket engines in a facility down the flightline from Rutan's Scaled Composites LLC at the Mojave Airport north of Los Angeles. It has built and flown two rocket-powered aircraft.
SpaceShipTwo is being developed on the success of SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 became the first privately funded, manned rocket to reach space, making three flights to altitudes between 62 miles and 69 miles and winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
Powered by a hybrid engine — the gas nitrous oxide combined with rubber as a solid fuel — SpaceShipTwo will be flown by two pilots and carry up to six passengers who will pay about $200,000 apiece for the ride.
Like its predecessor, SpaceShipTwo will be taken aloft by a carrier airplane and then released before firing its rocket engine. Virgin Galactic says passengers will experience about 4 1/2 minutes of weightlessness and will be able to unbuckle themselves to float in the cabin before returning to Earth as an unpowered glider.
Xcor's Lynx also is intended to return as a glider but with the capability of restarting its engine if needed.
space ping
IMO..it ain’t a genuine space flight if you don’t go into orbit and then re-enter and land.
I thougt space was considered to start at 50 miles.
With only one ticket per ride, I am guessing pretty expensive.
I bet Steve Fossett would have like this. But then we might be hearing about the missing Lynx.
The competition is charging $200,000. Even if it's cheaper, I can't afford a a second mortgage for the sake of a 20 minute joyride.
I guess I'm not in their target customer demographic.
Too bad it won’t go into a solar orbit. There are just enough seats for Hillary and Obama.
Yup, but we have come so far from that.
Sub orbital flights are just so 1940’s V2 rocket’ish.
Ever since Sputnik achieved escape velocity and went into orbit in 1957 the real definition of spaceflight has been achieving escape velocity.
Commercial spaceflight will someday begin orbital flights...now that will be real space tourism.
If you can’t even rendezvous with the ISS, which is in very low orbit then it’s just not much of space flight...it might be a fun experience though.
Our early sub-orbital space shots were just to shake out the bugs in the mercury vehicle by launching it on a small redstone rocket...after two launches that was the end of suborbital testing.
This should be a big hit with the leisure class!
(groan)
A tip of the hat to an extremely bad pun.
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