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SpaceShipOne year later: What's next?
Suborbital firms gear up for commercial blastoff
 Jim Campbell / Aero News Network The SpaceShipOne rocket plane soars through the air on June 21, 2004, during the first piloted spaceflight in a privately developed vehicle. |
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The future looks bright for civilian suborbital spaceflight, with a host of private firms developing spacecraft to carry anyone with a willing heart and a robust bank account on the ultimate trip.
One year after the history-making suborbital space shot of SpaceShipOne, commercial spaceflight efforts continue to make headway through regulatory and technological hurdles, each with its eye on the space tourism market.
On June 21, 2004, the privately built SpaceShipOne dropped from its White Knight mothership above the Mojave Desert and rocketed into history as the first civilian-funded spacecraft to reach suborbital space with a human pilot at the helm.
Built by aerospace veteran Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites firm, SpaceShipOne went on to make two more suborbital flights within two weeks in September and October 2004. Those final two flights clinched the $10 million Ansari X Prize for the company behind SpaceShipOne, Mojave Aerospace Ventures, backed by entrepreneur and billionaire Paul G. Allen.
Virgin chief Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, a tourism firm licensing SpaceShipOne’s technology for commercial suborbital flights, hopes to have a final design of its five-seater spacecraft by year’s end.
“I’m still confident we will get there this year,” Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn told Space.com. “Suborbital space tourism will prove that governments don’t need to stand behind us in order to reach space.”
Meanwhile, at least two firms, Canadian Arrow and Aera Corp., have announced plans to launch their first flights by 2007, while still others have chosen their spaceports, launch sites, completed propulsion studies or have begun seeking launch approval from their host governments.
An annual celebration based on the efforts spurred by the Ansari X Prize, the X Prize Cup, plans to hold its first exhibition event in October 2005.
Building on what works
Among the more proven manned commercial launch concepts is Virgin Galactic’s vision of VSS Enterprise and four other spacecraft that will round out its fleet of suborbital passenger carriers.
The five spacecraft and two evolved versions of SpaceShipOne’s White Knight mothership will serve Virgin Galactic’s initial, $208,000-a-ride flights, slated to begin by 2008.
“The fundamental technology doesn’t change at all,” Whitehorn said of going from SpaceShipOne to a commercial tourist-dependent business. “And over five years, we hope to get that price down to $50,000 or so.”
Whitehorn’s primary concern is customer safety, especially in light of Virgin’s long record of air and train dependability.
“It will be our north star,” Whitehorn said of passenger safety, adding that he plans to ride aboard the final test flight of VSS Enterprise before its inaugural launch. “I think one of the biggest risks to commercial spaceflight is that someone somewhere out there decides to launch before they’re ready.”
Arlington, Va.-based Space Adventures also has a tried-and-true method of launch paying customers into space, though the price tag is admittedly much more than a Virgin Galactic flight.
Space Adventures has helped broker orbital flights aboard Soyuz spacecraft and the international space station for two entrepreneurs, Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth, who each reportedly paid about $20 million for their trips. A fresh candidate for a space station trip, New Jersey optics entrepreneur Greg Olsen, is currently training for his own flight to the station, though an exact launch date has not yet been set.
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