Rocketplane shoots for space trips by 2007

The Rocketplane XP development project was "still in the electronic and paper stage, doing testing, analysis and designs," Urie said. However, he said Rocketplane has built the first actual part for the conversion.

"A wing spar has been completed and has undergone inspection," he said.

He pointed out that the LearJet model to be converted already has been certified for an altitude of 51,000 feet, and that the pressure difference between that height and the 62-mile mark was "about one-tenth of an atmosphere." For the craft's rocket engine, Rocketplane has selected the Rocketdyne RS-88, a pressure-fed liquid oxygen/alcohol-fueled thruster, Urie said.

The company has a marketing agreement with Florida-based Incredible Adventures and is negotiating another nonexclusive deal with Virginia-based Space Adventures to sell seats, he said. The tour packages would be priced in the $150,000 to $200,000 range, he said, but the company has not determined when they'll go on sale.

Flight tests are to begin next year, but Urie said Rocketplane still needed to get its launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. "We have pretty much kept up the pace with their requests for our safety plans and mission control plans," he said.

The Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority's chairman, Ken McGill, said during this Wednesday's meeting in Tulsa that the FAA could grant a spaceport license to the Burns Flat facility by the end of the year.

FAA spokesman Hank Price confirmed that the agency has had discussions with the Rocketplane and the Oklahoma space authority, "but we haven't received a substantially complete application." That means the 180-day application review period has not yet begun.

The Oklahoma Legislature created the space authority back in 1999 to help lure a chunk of the spaceflight business to the area, and since then the state has become home to Rocketplane as well as another suborbital space company, TGV Rockets.

During Friday's interview with MSNBC.com, Urie paid tribute to last year's SpaceShipOne flights in California, which won the $10 million X Prize, set the stage for Virgin Galactic's follow-on commercial venture and spurred hopes for creating a private-sector space tourism industry.

"We try to minimize the flash," Urie said, "but it's an interesting area now that Burt Rutan and his Scaled Composites team were so successful with the X Prize and [Virgin billionaire] Richard Branson has stepped in. It's raised interest around the country in this enterprise. It's an interesting market, that allows baby steps into space."

This report includes information from The Associated Press in Tulsa.

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