Next stop for space travel: star wars
Similar to the US airlines, a price war is breaking out among companies who want to sign up high-flyers who want to rocket into space.
This particular price war already is brewing years before the first privately financed rocket planes are scheduled to begin flying. But that’s no surprise considering what is at stake.
“Some estimates see annual revenue reaching hundreds of millions of dollars by the end of the next decade,†says the Wall Street Journal, which adds it is perhaps too early to accurately determine the size of space tourism as a business since most operations are not expected to begin before 2010.
XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, Calif., is the latest entrant to the race to blast thrill-seekers into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. They are looking at a rocket-powered vehicle that is substantially smaller, slower and less expensive to build than many of those proposed by rivals.
“With tickets projected at $100,000 a pop, the low-fare carrier to the heavens would hardly be cheap,†says the Journal.
The project has a lower price tag than many with an estimated $10 million budget. XCOR’s Lynx vehicle is intended to carry a pilot and a single passenger at twice the speed of sound to about 37 miles above the earth.
The entire outing, which would begin and end at a conventional airport and include about two minutes of suborbital zero gravity, would take less than half an hour, according to the newspaper.
That is a shorter trip that costs only about half the ticket price envisioned by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson on his Virgin Galactic spaceship. A powerful six-passenger craft, it is designed to travel at about four times the speed of sound and zoom completely out of the atmosphere — reaching true space more than 60 miles above the earth.
The price tag to develop Mr Branson’s high-profile venture could end up being more than $50 million per spacecraft.
Proponents of commercial space have speculated about even larger potential profits in decades to come, ultimately involving everything from setting up orbiting hotels to mining minerals found on asteroids or the moon.
But for the shorter term, suborbital tourism is most likely the next step.
XCO apparently believes that its cut-rate prices, combined with the its adaptability to test space components for the US military, other government agencies and perhaps corporate customers, will help it carve out a niche in the burgeoning commercial-space sector.
The company concluded the early model “is more than sufficient to address a large enough portion” of the pent-up demand. Rivalry will drive down prices, said Jeff Gleason, XCOR’s chief executive. He added:
“Everybody is going to be surprised at how effective real competition will be” in benefiting customers.
Report by David Wilkening
David
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