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First Commercial Space Tourism Company
uberdave writes "The Canadian Arrow team (one of the contenders for the Ansari X-Prize) has joined forces with Dr. Chirinjeev Kathuria, a leading American entrepreneur, to form a new corporation called Planetspace. The goal of the company is to make space flight available to the public within 24 months.
Geoff Sheerin, President of Canadian Arrow, says that Planetspace has entered final discussions with partners who will establish a reality television show set in space, and with a company to hold an international lottery with space flight prizes. Planetspace expects to fly almost 2,000 new astronauts in the first five years of flying. Fares will start at USD $250,000 for a suborbital flight, including fourteen days training."
This may be interesting, but these guys are definately not the first.
TW
Is it just me, or does the website look like 12-yr old's first try with HTML? does that mean i'm in good hands?
A company that hasn't put anyone... anyone at all... into space, is starting a company to put people into space.
One step at a time guys...
If the guys financing hem have money to burn... I've got a company with a real product taat could use some investment.
If you've got the cash to consider dropping $250k for this, you've already got the house. And the beach house. And the Aspen condo.
Yeah, because rich people aren't people are they?
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
...when I say: SCREW SUB-ORBITAL FLIGHT.
If I want a quick rush I'll get on a damn roller-coaster.
Put me in orbit for a week, and bring me back safely.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
I've thought some on this before, and here's my view:
Technological progress helps social progress.
Many new technologies start out as luxuries, then due to economies of scale become widely available.
Therefore, no luxuries, less technological progress, less social progress, less ways to help the poor.
Of course, that means you need concrete applications of space technology for non-luxury use... hmm:
- various spinoff technologies
- orbiting solar power generation
- doing polluting/dangerous things in space instead of on Earth
Of course they are people, but they are not the community or people as a whole which is what public means.
If you are in a position to be able to drop a quarter mill on a trip then good for you but dont try and market it as something available to the public when clearly it is beyond the means of all but a tiny elite.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
You gotta start charging high if you're gonna raise the capital to develop the technology to make it available to everyone.
And it's when you can start making it available to everyone that you can start making serious money.
Look at refrigerators, microwaves, cars. All of them originally rich peoples' toys, but nowadays, they're nothing special at all.
And none of it was made a bit easier by class warfare games.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Um, no. Most launches worldwide use kerosene-based fuels reacted with LOX, at least for the lower stages. Lower stages of LOX/LH (like the shuttle (excepting the boosters) and Arianne are actually relatively rare. Hydrazine is rarely used (off the top of my head, all I can think of present day for getting to orbit is the optional 4th stage to the Pegasus). Solids are usually only used on boosters and ICBMs, although there are a few systems (for example, Pegasus) that use them to get to space itself.
Even if that weren't the case (which it is), LOX is produced using electricity (mostly generated through fossil fuels), LH is produced from petroleum and compressed/chilled with electricity, etc.
And furthermore, you missed the fundamental error in the GP's post, which is that rocket fuel consumption is somehow relevant. It isn't. The world consumes 71.7 million barrels (3 billion gallons - about 24 billion pounds) of oil per day. If you can shove even close to that much oil into production of rocket fuel in a decade, I'll be impressed.
The shuttle (a large launch vehicle), for example, burns about 1.6 million pounds of hydrogen with every launch (corresponding to about 4 million pounds of oil, plus, say, a million pounds of oil for producing solid fuels and LOX). So, you'd have to launch five to six thousand shuttle launches in that decade to make up for one *day* of oil consumption.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
First the daVinci project made a TON of noise about their October 2004 launch plans. Did those ever happen?
Then we have aera corp, which is selling tickets for rides NEXT YEAR. They are ALREADY selling these. This is without demonstrating anything, or even having an engine, much less a space vehicle that can support a crew of humans. They have THIRTY flights scheduled for 2007.
"We're using such plain-vanilla technology that very little detailed testing is required," Sprague said.
MOTHER OF GOD!
Now we have this Canadian Arrow group. I mean, NONE of these guys has even gone to space ONCE with even a test pilot! I guess I'd just be a little cautious going up in things from these operations, hopefully folks considering this get some good advice before signing up.
The one contender I have some faith in is Burt Rutan and the Virgin Galatic effort.
These guys actually test, have actually gone to sub-orbital space and back with real live people inside their vehicle. Solid history building actual flying machines that don't kill people, and met some folks with great things to say about the group.
Curiously, I also noticed they don't have as many hot air releases.
So, while some folks seem to get tons of PR and are ALREADY selling tickets, I'd keep the eyes away from the Golden Palance Casino Davinci Project, Aerea Corp or Canadian arrow, and on Burt Rutan and his gang.