Space Tourism Industry Gains New Competitor

mattnyc99 writes "There's a new entry in the race for the first space tourism jet: XCOR Aerospace, a California-based rocket builder. The company says its clean-burning, two-seat Lynx spacecraft will lift off by 2010. After we only saw a mockup of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo a couple months back, you'd think this was serious competition in the 'New Space' race, but these photos show that Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites is well on its way with construction."

Comments

Two Notes

[eldavojohn]

As far as I know Virgin and Scaled Composites are the same endeavor, they are both signed to a two year deal to build SpaceShipTwo.

Also, it should be noted that there was a an accident involving two deaths last year at Scaled Composites and prior to that their buyout by Northrup Grumman.

Honestly, I kind of expected that endeavor to fail as a result of those two news stories, I'm pleased to find out they are continuing on their contract although I question further contracts with Virgin.

What's more...

[an.echte.trilingue]

its clean-burning, two-seat Lynx spacecraft will lift off by 2010 What's more, it will include web browsing capabilities.

Re:Pretty Impressive

[garett_spencley]

"Right now...unless you have more money than God, you are pretty much out of luck."

Bad analogy.

Linus has certainly made some coin via free stock options from Linux companies, various donations, trademark royalties etc. but he's not THAT rich.

Re:Pretty Impressive

[moderatorrater]

Which raises the question: can God create a vacation so expensive that He Himself cannot afford it?

cover some ground

[Thelasko]

As I understand it, these companies both plan on sending people straight up and returning them to the same place they took off from. This is wonderful, but impractical for anything but a joy ride. How about creating something that lands you at some other place on the earth's surface? I don't even care if it can only travel from East to West.

Re:Space tourism will be banned

[evanbd]

Why? Climbing Mt. Everest isn't banned -- and I believe there has been 1 climbing season since it was first climbed that there *hasn't* been a death. Adventure tourism regularly claims lives, and hasn't been banned. Now, I doubt the company that had a fatal accident would survive, but there are a lot of dedicated engineers working very hard to make accidents both unlikely and survivable.

Disclaimer: I've interned at XCOR. Assuming I go back, I'll be getting a ride on this vehicle -- not as an option, but as a job requirement. It's part of the way they do safety. Anyone who works on the vehicle rides on it. That way everyone is directly motivated to work on making it safer.

Better article; more points worth noting

[FleaPlus]

The linked article is a little sparse on info, so here's XCOR's press release and a more informative article: XCOR Unveils New Suborbital Rocketship

Also, some additional points worth noting:

• XCOR isn't just some random wannabe company which recently hopped onto the "space tourism" bandwagon. They're a small (30-person) but well-respected private company noted for their expertise in building reusable liquid-fueled rocket engines.
  
• In 2001 they first flew their XCOR EZ-Rocket, which made regular demonstration flights at air shows for a few years and in 2005 set the distance record for a point-to-point rocket powered takeoff and landing.
  
• XCOR has a reputation for not tooting its own horn, instead working quietly and being rather conservative about its announcements.
  
• Their first version will go up to 61km, and they're planning on making incremental improvements to produce a second version that goes to 110km.
  
• Estimated total project cost is $10 million, with a passenger ticket price of ~$100K (half of Virgin Galactic). XCOR isn't planning on selling tickets directly to customers though, instead selling to ride operators who will deal with customer themselves.
  
• They already have a deal with a private research lab to fly multiple research flights for them each year.
  
• This quote from XCOR chief Jeff Greason explains their philosophy quite nicely: Lynx is seen by XCOR Aerospace as one piece of a larger roadmap of vehicles -- a start small and then add performance approach -- eventually culminating in a piloted orbital system, Greason said. "We've selected the basket of technologies ... technologies that we believe position us very well for the suborbital market, but also put us on the road for later, higher-performance systems," he explained.
  

image of Earth's curvature from Lynx's cockpit

[bobdotorg]

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7373/celestal.htm#earth

And here's the shot of Mars:
                  .