It's been five years since SpaceShipOne promised to open space to the masses. So where's your ride on a rocket? Still under development.
Five years ago, there was a lot of buzz about the average person flying to the edge of space and enjoying a little weightlessness. SpaceShipOne had just claimed the Ansari X-Prize and a host of teams were touting their spacecraft development programs and talking about suborbital tourist flights from "spaceports" around the country.
But in the years since, a shortage of funding has dashed the dreams of future astronauts. Several companies that promised to take us beyond atmosphere have quit the space race and others have gone quiet. Like everything else, the fledgling space tourism biz has been hit hard by the economic downturn. Building space ships isn't cheap, and when the flow of capital slowed, so too did the development. But George French, CEO of Rocketplane, says things are starting to look better.
"We believe raising capital to complete the program has a much better chance now than it has in the last 18 months," he told Wired.com.
Former astronaut and International Space Station resident Jim Voss says space tourism remains on track. He's a program director for space systems at the Sierra Nevada Corporation and he spends a lot of time exploring ways to work with NASA to provide transportation to orbit. But part of the business plan is to continue the development of space travel for the rest of us.
"I want to develop more systems that would allow more people to go to space," Voss says.
Prices are still looking pretty high for the first groups of people who want to see the black sky -- the cheapest ride being talked about now is still almost six figures. Those who lack the funds but like black beer can enter a contest to win a ride with the current leader in the space race, Virgin Galactic, according to the according to theTelegraph.
Virgin is just one of the companies hoping to provide rides to space. Here's a rundown of some of them:
- The Scaled Composites team that garnered headlines with SpaceShipOne is the team getting most of the headlines today. No surprise when Richard Branson is on your team. Serial No. 1 of what is expected to be several Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwos is in the final stages of construction in Mojave. The mother ship, Eve (pictured), has endured numerous test flights and will appear at the big Airventure air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, next week. Virgin Galactic has sold more than 300 tickets at $200,000 each and says suborbital flights from their New Mexico spaceport could happen as early as 2011.
- Also in Mojave, XCOR continues work on the Lynx spacecraft. The company hopes to start selling rides next year for $95,000. It will be an intimate experience for the only passenger riding shotgun with the pilot. The catch? The flights will only make it to an altitude of about 40 miles -- more than 20 miles, or 130,000 feet, short of what is considered the boundary of space. But that's a fuzzy line, and it should be quite a ride.
- Rocketplane, with a spacecraft that looks like a business jet, has had a rocky start. It's working toward suborbital flights. Like most companies working on private space travel, it had to adjust its timeline, but CEO French says it's hopeful money will start flowing again and a new timeline will be announced soon.
- John Carmack, the man behind the videogames Doom and Quake, continues to work on space travel with his company, Armadillo Aerospace. The company is still talking about space tourism, but these days, it appears more focused on the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. They hope what they learn with their lunar lander research can be applied to their suborbital tourism flights, which they say will also use a vertical take off and landing system.
- Blue Origin, the company founded by Jeff Bezos, appears in stealth mode these days. The company is not commenting on the program, and its website hasn't seen an update since the launch of its Goddard vehicle in 2006.
A few companies aren't working directly on space tourism right now, but their current work could lead to orbital visits in the future. Two companies that have actual space experience could complement each other, as one could provide the flight and the other a place to stay.
- PayPal founder and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk's SpaceX is making great strides in delivering payloads into space. Last week, SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket delivered a Malaysian satellite into orbit. Last December, the company won a $1.6 billion deal to develop its Falcon 9 rocket for possible trips to the International Space Station. Initially, the flights will be for cargo, but they might one day carry people to the ISS.
- Bigelow Aerospace put two orbiting test vehicles into space in 2006 and 2007. The company continues to develop habitable space stations for low Earth orbit, but the focus for now is on accommodating researchers and astronauts.
Photo: Virgin Galactic
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