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Space Tourism
    #7043898 -

PARIS - Europe's biggest aerospace company, EADS, has concluded that carrying wealthy tourists to 100 kilometers in altitude for several minutes of weightlessness could be a multibillion-dollar industry in 20 years and is seeking co-investors to build a rocket plane it already has designed.

EADS's Astrium division, prime contractor for Ariane 5 rockets and for Europe's contribution to the international space station, said a group of its engineers has spent two years quietly designing a vehicle that looks like a business jet with exceptionally long wings and a rocket engine powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen. The company unveiled the project here June 13.

Taking off from an as-yet undetermined spaceport using two conventional jet engines, the plane would climb to 12 kilometers [40,000 feet] in altitude before its rocket engine ignites, powering the vehicle through the atmosphere and into a coast phase whose 100-kilometer apogee would provide passengers with one and one-half minutes of near-zero-gravity experience.

The round trip would last about 90 minutes. The plane would carry four passengers and a pilot, with the passengers each paying about 200,000 euros ($267,000) for the experience.

Astrium President Francois Auque said one side benefit of the project is to shatter the cliche that established aerospace giants like EADS have lost their imagination and sense of daring.

Auque said Astrium and EADS have investigated the business model in recent months and concluded that their project has sufficient advantages compared to similar efforts under way by start-up companies in the United States to attract as many as 4,500 paying customers per year by 2020.

At $267,000 per ticket, that customer volume would generate gross revenues of some $1.2 billion per year.

Auque said the company has determined that designing and flight-qualifying its proposed space plane would require 1 billion euros in investment. He said Astrium has begun hunting for co-investors and would give itself until the end of this year to round up the needed commitments before abandoning the project.

Astrium Chief Technical Officer Robert Laine, who leads the Astrium team working on the idea, declined to say how much of its own resources the company would be willing to invest alongside its co-investors. "We will make our business plan available to co-investors only," Laine said.

Laine said project officials envision building five initial vehicles, with the planes capable of being refurbished quickly enough to fly once per week.

He said Astrium has surveyed other space-tourism projects, mainly in the United States, and found most of them lacking in engineering or business-model seriousness. "There are those who think you can design a rocket plane in a garage," Laine said. "Suffice it to say that that is not our niche."

Auque said Astrium and its parent company have enough experience in designing Airbus aircraft and rockets to be confident in their ability to design a craft that meets the stringent safety and operating-cost constraints of a space-tourism business. "The big part for us will be finding private finance partners. If we succeed, we will open the door to private financing of space."

space.com


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: Diploid]
    #7046745 -

Wonderful news! Let private money of the superwealthy pay for the development of lower space vehicles.

A rocket plane able to reach 100 km altitude? It could launch a couple of military air-to-air missiles that instead of a warhead will deliver satellites to suitable orbits. That's just one of the more scientific uses such a rocketplane could have.

And if it funds itself with frivolous trips for the superrich - that's just great.


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personal empowerment for the world

:nyan: LGBT - Love God Before Tradition :nyan:

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: Asante]
    #7051999 -

Yes, very good news!

Quote:
A rocket plane able to reach 100 km altitude? It could launch a couple of military air-to-air missiles that instead of a warhead will deliver satellites to suitable orbits.


There is a huge (energy) difference between reaching 100km straight up or truly go in orbit. You need a velocity change of around 7km/s to go into orbit. I don't think an air-to-air missile is capable of that, you still need a large rocket to do that.

This of course is the first step to commercial orbital flights, which I really hope I can do in my life.

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: Annom]
    #7052157 -

Yeah, the delta-v is still the same, but a rocket is VERY inefficient from the Earth's surface to 100km because it has to dead-lift a huge amount of rocket fuel and requires a large rocket engine.

If the whole thing can be flown using efficient wings to the edge of the atmosphere, THEN use a rocket the rest of the way, it would cost a lot less than launching from the ground.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: Diploid]
    #7052812 -

It will not use wings at 100 km. It will rely on rockets to get that high.

It is more like the Pegasus rocket that is dropped from an large carrier aircraft or like spaceship one.

It sure does have some advantages to launch from a high altitude, but it isn't that much more efficient. Propellant costs are relative low anyway.

A reusable launch-aircraft can be very cheap though.

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: Annom]
    #7068381 -

In order for this kind of business to be profitable at all, it would have to carry many passengers up at once. I cant imagine a flight like this costing anything less than 10s of millions of dollars, if not 100s. This means 100s of passengers to turn a profit, which implies a significantly large launch vehicle and a lot of fuel. Even flying the craft to high altitude and launching rockets from there, I'm sure the fuel tanks will have to be quite large. Any idea how big these aircrafts are supposed to be?


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Word to your mom.

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: BrainChemistry]
    #7068419 -

I cant imagine a flight like this costing anything less than 10s of millions of dollars

Wow, you didn't read the article. :tongue:

The round trip would last about 90 minutes. The plane would carry four passengers and a pilot, with the passengers each paying about 200,000 euros ($267,000) for the experience.

Any idea how big these aircrafts are supposed to be?

 


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: Diploid]
    #7070811 -

Diploid said:



Oh, that is no good at ALL....  :noway:

For 200,000+ buckages~, I damn well am going to enter the "10-Mile High" club.....!?
They need a few curtains, some padded walls, and some restraints....  :naughty:    :thumbup:

:tongue:


>^;;^<


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I'll be your midnight French Fry....  :naughty:

"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."
>^;;^<

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: BrainChemistry]
    #7074190 -

Quote:
I cant imagine a flight like this costing anything less than 10s of millions of dollars, if not 100s.


The Soyuz launcher can launch 6000 kg into a 220 km circular orbit around Earth for under 40 M$. Manned Space Shuttle flight is so expensive (500-750 M$ if I remember correctly) because it uses the way too expensive Space Shuttle and an extreme safety policy (while the Soyuz launcher has a higher reliability).

Soyuz and Space Shuttle are orbital flights. This first space tourism is about suborbital flight. Suborbital flight doesn't need a large rocket as can bee seen from Spaceship One.

It shouldn't be impossible to make a flight for under 10 M$ if you can fly often.

Edited by Annom (06/21/07 08:47 AM)

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Re: Space Tourism [Re: PhanTomCat]
    #7083249 -

PhanTomCat said:
For 200,000+ buckages~, I damn well am going to enter the "10-Mile High" club.....!?
They need a few curtains, some padded walls, and some restraints.... 




And some attractive stewardesses that can float around and serve me cocktails when we hit zero g.  :cheers:


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Word to your mom.

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