‘Rocket racing league’ gets its start

Speeds of 200 to 300 mph
Diamandis said the rockets would fly at speeds of 200 to 300 mph (320 to 480 kilometers per hour). Spectators could be provided with palm-size computer displays to follow the competitors, Whitelaw said.

Viewers at home could watch the racers zoom neck-and-neck on a video overlay. That's a bit of TV trickery analogous to Dartfish's "SimulCam" technology for sports ranging from auto racing to track and field.

Whitelaw said the detailed rules and specifications for the league were still being drawn up. Financial arrangements — including sponsorships — were also pending, he said. "We're initiating talks right now with some of the major channels" about a TV deal, he said.

He said the first league finals would take place in October 2006, with four rockets competing in the debut. The field would expand to 10 rocket planes in 2007, he said, and video games based on the competition also would make their debut in that time frame.

A concept’s second stage
The idea of racing rockets isn't exactly new: In fact, the California-based EZ-Rocket last took its show on the road in 2002 for a demonstration at the EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with support from a fledgling organization called the Experimental Rocket Racing Association, or X-Rocket.

Although X-Rocket is no longer active, Diamandis and Whitelaw hope that their funding and familiarity with racing and rocketships will help their venture achieve cruising altitude.

Diamandis, the league's chairman, is not only the founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, but the founder and chairman of Zero Gravity Corp., which offers weightless-simulation flights on converted cargo jets; and a co-founder of Space Adventures, the tourism company that arranged this week's trip to the international space station by New Jersey millionaire scientist Greg Olsen.

Whitelaw, the league's president, has been involved in Indy car racing over the past decade, as a partner in two winning Indy 500 teams as well as a race organizer. He is the founding partner and managing director of BlueCar Partners, a venture-consulting firm, and has been involved in businesses ranging from virtual offshore banking to fashion publications to movie production. (His name has also shown up in the New York Post's gossip column.)

Rocket regulation
In addition to the financial hurdles, the rocket league would have to be cleared for takeoff by the Federal Aviation Administration. Patricia Grace Smith, the FAA's associate administrator for commercial space transportation, indicated at the news conference that the league would get a sympathetic hearing.

"We're here because we see this as another means of making rocket flight more tangible to the public. This is an opportunity to introduce the power and thrill of rockets in the form of high-velocity entertainment," Smith said. "Today's announcement resurrects the great American tradition of air racing, wraps it in the technology of the 21st century, and gives the nation a thrilling glimpse of things to come, thanks to Peter Diamandis and Granger Whitelaw. The Rocket Racing League is an atmospheric showcase for the kind of rocket technology that will evolve in time from spectator sport to citizen suborbital spaceflight."

She told journalists that the FAA "stands ready to enable this business through an efficient and responsive regulatory approach."

Diamandis indicated that the rocket planes involved in the racing league would operate under experimental airworthiness certificates, as the EZ-Rocket has in the past.

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