Suborbital Space Tourism
Published on May 25, 2007 at 11:50 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under conference blogging, space businesses.
One of the presentations this morning was from Alex Tai of Virgin Galactic. For those that don’t know, Virgin Galactic is part of Richard Branson’s Virgin group of companies, and it’s goal is to provide private suborbital trips into space for anyone who can pay. The two hour trip, which includes five minutes of weightlessness, will cost about $200,000. That seems outrageous, but amazingly less so after hearing the presentation. It looks like they plan to do this up right. It will be a fantastic experience for anyone who can afford it. I sure wish that I could. But, the price is less than 10% of what a trip into space would have cost just a few years ago, so the price is getting better now that private companies are getting involved.
They seem to want to make this a really wonderful experience. The spacecraft is based upon Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne. It will be carried to an initial altitude of about 50,000 feet by a mothership and then released. The spacecraft will then light its own engines and fly into space. Upon burnout, the craft will continue to an altitude of about 110 kilometers before beginning to fall back to Earth. Passengers will experience about 5 minutes of weightlessness. The entire flight should take about two hours.
Though based on SpaceShipOne, the Virgin spacecraft will be quite a bit larger, holding six passengers and two pilots. It is big enough to hold more, but Virgin wants to have each passenger get a window seat. Passengers will get training before flight. That won’t be training to take over in case the pilots are incapacitated. Rather, it will be training to know what to do when. After all, the flight is short, and you don’t want to miss anything now being able to maneuver yourself in zero g to get to a window, or getting an injury during the high g boost phase.  Passengers will get zero g training in an aircraft, and high g training in a centrifuge.
Though not needed, Virgin is looking at the possibility of spacesuits. The craft will be shirt sleeve capable, but passengers paying so much may want to dress the part. And, they are even thinking of having a flight attendant on board to help out the passengers. The title was “space attendant”, but the function would be the same: to watch over the passengers.  Hmm. I’ve got several friends who are flight attendants, and I wonder what they’d think of that job!
-AstroprofÂ
ISDC News Wrap-up - Out of the Cradle on May 29, 2007 at 11:18 pm: 1
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