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Europe Unveils New Space Plane for Tourist Market
mrminator writes to tell us Space.com is reporting that Europe's largest space contractor, EADS, has just announced their plans to build a new space tourism vehicle. The new rocket, powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen will carry passengers on a 90 minute round trip flight for somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 euros ($267,000).
$200,000 isn't that much to many people, so a target of 4,500 customers per year by 2020 seems reasonable.
On top of that, by 2020, many more "poor" people might also be able (and willing) to save up $200K for a taste of pseudo-space.
More importantly, no businessmen will allow one company to tap into this multibillion-dollar industry unchallenged, which means ticket price can only go down.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
And why their odds of success are better than the abyssmal record of rocketry smaller companies whose gravesites litter international scene.
Everybody point at the libertarian and laugh.
I think some people here are missing part of the draw of such a venture as this. People aren't interested in spending the money just for a minute and a half of weightlessness... they're interested in considering themselves astronauts. Once you break the 100km altitude mark--the Karman Line--you're in outer space. If you're in outer space, you're technically an astronaut. People want the title, as it is still somewhat exotic and mysterious.
If you think about it, space exploration is turning out to be just like the development of powered flight. It starts with a handful of daring, adventurous explorers, followed by governmental applications and novelties (like barnstorming and such), leading to common use by a large portion of society. Right now, we're moving through that second phase.