Yup, nothing to see here folks, just move along...
Posted on 09/07/2004 5:30:41 AM PDT by Arkie2
The first flight is slated for Sept. 29, and if it comes off without a hitch, Rutan says he might climb into a passenger seat for the second launch on Oct. 4. But by then one of the two dozen other X Prize competitors will be close on Rutan's heels. A Toronto group called the da Vinci Project plans the first launch of its Wild Fire rocket on Oct. 2 from the remote airport in Kindersley, Sask. It's a goal that da Vinci head Brian J. Feeney, now 45, has been working toward full time since the week the X Prize was announced in 1996. STIFF COMPETITION Like SpaceShipOne, which was built by Scaled Composites LLC, Wild Fire will ignite its engine high in the sky. But instead of being ferried up to 50,000 feet by a mother jet, as happens with Rutan's ship, Wild Fire will float up under a giant helium balloon, then fire its rocket at around 70,000 feet. "We know we're up against some stiff competition from Burt," says Feeney, "but I'm not giving him any ground."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
About 10 years ago, entrepreneur Peter H. Diamandis figured a prize might have the same effect on manned space travel. So he set up the X Prize Foundation and coaxed wealthy contributors to offer a purse of $10 million to the first privately funded, three-person spacecraft to fly into suborbital space twice within a two-week period. On June 21, the world witnessed the lead contender: SpaceShipOne, designed by aeronautics engineer Elbert L. "Burt" Rutan with backing from billionaire Paul G. Allen, soared up 62 miles to the edge of the earth's atmosphere.
At the end of this month, the Rutan-Allen partnership will make a real run for the prize. The first flight is slated for Sept. 29, and if it comes off without a hitch, Rutan says he might climb into a passenger seat for the second launch on Oct. 4. But by then one of the two dozen other X Prize competitors will be close on Rutan's heels. A Toronto group called the da Vinci Project plans the first launch of its Wild Fire rocket on Oct. 2 from the remote airport in Kindersley, Sask. It's a goal that da Vinci head Brian J. Feeney, now 45, has been working toward full time since the week the X Prize was announced in 1996.
STIFF COMPETITION Like SpaceShipOne, which was built by Scaled Composites LLC, Wild Fire will ignite its engine high in the sky. But instead of being ferried up to 50,000 feet by a mother jet, as happens with Rutan's ship, Wild Fire will float up under a giant helium balloon, then fire its rocket at around 70,000 feet. "We know we're up against some stiff competition from Burt," says Feeney, "but I'm not giving him any ground." Indeed, Feeney already has his eye on the next milestone: commercial space tourism. "We have an eight-person vehicle we want to fly late next year or early in 2006 -- and 12 paying passengers might be even better." Rutan, meanwhile, has designed a stretch version of SpaceShipOne that can accommodate six or more people.
Waiting in the wings is Canadian Arrow in London, Ont. Before yearend, the team hopes to launch its rocket, based on the V-2 designed 60 years ago by Nazi Germany. Canadian Arrow head Geoffrey T. Sheerin, 41, is looking for someone who will cough up $1 million or $2 million "to put a logo the rocket."
Two other X Prize contenders recently suffered minor setbacks with tests of unmanned rockets. On Aug. 8, the Rubicon, built by Space Transport Corp. in Forks, Wash., dove into the Pacific Ocean shortly after launch. A day earlier, the Black Armadillo rocket, developed by Armadillo Aerospace, climbed to only 600 feet before crashing back to earth. On its Web site, the Mesquite (Tex.) company is now hawking pieces of the wreckage -- "Armadillo droppings" -- for $125.
So far, Armadillo founder John Carmack has laid out about $1.5 million from the fortune he amassed developing video games such as Doom. "We'll be flying [another test rocket] in a month or so, but we're pretty much out of the running for the X Prize," he admits. Carmack says his long-range goal is to rake in another fortune from space tourism.
SPACE TOURISTS Now that Rutan and Allen have shown that suborbital hops are possible for what amounts to pin money at NASA, the roadblock to space tourism isn't technology. It's politics. Even if Carmack had a rocket that could whisk tourists into space, he notes, "there is no commercial spaceport in the U.S. licensed for vertical rocket launches from ground level." Until Congress enacts legislation that clears the way for such launches, his only alternative would be to pay nearly $200,000 per launch to use White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. That would drastically hike ticket prices.
Before Rutan's feat, says Sheerin of Canadian Arrow, "if you suggested building a space-tourist vehicle, you couldn't find the capital, because culturally we've been taught you can't do that." But since June 21, there has been a sea change: "The business community is now starting to look hard at suborbital tourism to make sure they don't miss an opportunity," Sheerin says.
That's just the result that Diamandis envisioned. He grew up with the expectation that his generation would regularly venture into space. Hooked on space since he watched Apollo 11 land on the moon in 1969 at age 9, he even earned an M.D. in hopes that the credential would help get him on missions as an astronaut. He gave up that ambition, and medicine, when he realized "the government wasn't going to get us into space routinely," he recalls.
For that, he says, "we need a mass market -- the same kind that gives us low-cost airlines like JetBlue (JBLU )." The X Prize just might hasten liftoff for affordable, everyday space travel.
Those darned entrepreneurial folks just keep raining on your parade, Willie... :-)
Willie
Why would you object to tourists in space if it's a privately funded outfit doing the flying and the tourists paying their own money. Frankly, it wouldn't matter what portion of the population got to go into space as tourists if they're paying their own way.
As long as it's privately funded, I don't have any objection at all.
I just don't think that there's gonna be a very large market for that service.
Oh, you might get several dozen astronaut wannabes with money to burn. But these fads quickly pass once the novelty wears off. It'll be considered gauche among the status conscious when "everybody" is doing it. And more practical people will quickly discover that there's nothing up there worth going to see.
IMHO, if the Chinese can figure out a way to grow rice on the Moon, let 'em have it.
LOL
When somebody brings back that tin flag left on the moon, I'll be impressed.
Hopefully, that'll be an American crew and one privately funded at that. However, I suspect they might be thrown in prison for desecrating an historical site!
Yup, nothing to see here folks, just move along...
The site is under management by National Parks or National Forests or National something. Nobody should overturn a rock on that site unless they want to 'splain it to Park Rangers.
Yeah! And Smokey will be there to monitor camp fires!!!
We can't afford to let them take the high ground though...I agree with you that NASA is bloated and inefficient, however much of that is due to Congress and their feeding at NASA's trough to get projects/jobs for the folks in their district/state (no matter where their district/state is or if it's even practical).
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