At the Mojave Air & Space Port in California, indicators are everywhere that the first regularly scheduled, "moderately priced" space-tourism flights are indeed just a matter of months, not years, away. Inside the headquarters of Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites, employees put the finishing touches on the commercial version of the rocket plane that captured the 2004 Ansari X Prize, and contractors grapple over the blueprints of a Philippe Starck–designed spaceport terminal due to break ground in New Mexico later this year. (That's the rendering on the left.) But perhaps the most telling sign of the sea change occurs at the Air & Space Port café, where each day at lunch, Scaled workers bump into employees from XCOR Aerospace on break from working on their own spacecraft.
In March, XCOR released the first advance peek of its Lynx Mark I craft -- and it was a beauty. Roughly the size of a small private plane, the two-seat aircraft will carry one pilot and one passenger on a half-hour flight to a suborbital altitude of 38 miles. And, yes, for that $100,000 ticket price, you get to sit up front with the pilot.
To be sure, hurdles remain (actually building the craft, for one), but XCOR seems to have, if not a lead on Scaled, a legitimate chance of not being very far behind. And XCOR isn't the only one. Not counting Space Adventures -- whose newly customized $30 million–plus trips atop a Russian Soyuz rocket are still targeted at the Google founders of the world -- several dark-horse candidates are vying for the space business of average Joe millionaires. One is even accepting reservations. Here then is a look at the main players in a field that is fast becoming as crowded as it is real.
* Odds of examining each team's chances of getting off the ground, as compiled by Private Air’s resident space bookies.
SpaceShipTwo
Odds: 1-to-2*
Backing: Virgin Galactic, the space branch of Richard Branson's Virgin empire, designed and constructed by Burt Rutan's X-Prize-winning Scaled Composites.
What you need to know: At 60 feet, the craft is twice the length of its predecessor. While the new spacecraft shifts the wings to the bottom, it retains the feathered-wing mechanics that allow it to drift back through the atmosphere. Like SpaceShipOne, Two will be launched at 50,000 feet by a carrier (WhiteKnightTwo), then tote six passengers to an altitude of at least 62 miles.
Ticket price: $200,000; book seats now at virgingalactic.com
ETA: 2009
Lynx Mark I
Odds: 4-to-1
Backing: XCOR Aerospace, a California-based rocket-engine manufacturer, with additional funding from the Air Force Research Laboratory.
What you need to know: The 28-foot-long aircraft, which will take off and land at a standard runway, will fly to a lesser altitude of 38 miles in a half-hour flight, but the system should only cost around $10 million to develop, and the company believes its proprietary kerosene and liquid-oxygen rocket engines will allow for relatively quick refueling and as many as four flights per day. Now they just need to build one.
Ticket price: $100,000
ETA: 2010
Space Plane
Odds: 6-to-1
Backing: EADS Astrium, a European consortium that launches rockets and contributes to the International Space Station. EADS might ultimately position itself as the aircraft supplier for other space-tourism companies.
What you need to know: Despite major institutional knowledge, plans have been slow to materialize. The super-souped-up bizjet would take off and land from a regular runway thanks to standard twin jet engines. Seven miles up, a liquid-methane and liquid-oxygen rocket engine would then kick in to propel the plane vertically to break free of the atmosphere. The 90-minute flight, featuring approximately three minutes of weightlessness, could carry four passengers to an altitude of 62 miles.
Ticket price: $150,000–$200,000
ETA: 2012
New Shepard
Odds: 8-to-1
Backing: Blue Origin, a secretive West Texas company created in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com.
What you need to know: In a November 2006 test flight, Blue Origin flew a bullet-shaped takeoff and landing vehicle called "Goddard" 285 feet above the ground -- making it one of only two vehicles in this race to have achieved some semblance of liftoff. Successors to the aircraft could one day fly three people to suborbital altitudes, once a week. Reminiscent of NASA's Delta Clipper, Goddard has a crew module stacked atop a propulsion system; the total package is 50-feet-tall and 22-feet-wide at the base.
Ticket price: TBD
ETA: 2010
Rocketplane XP
Odds: 15-to-1
Backing: Oklahoma City–based Rocketplane Global, which launched in 2001 with the intent of building and operating tourist spacecraft.
What you need to know: Rocketplane is betting an aircraft modeled on the Space Shuttle remains the best way to space. The 44-foot-long plane will take off and land from the existing Oklahoma Spaceport, 100 miles west of Oklahoma City. Jet engines will carry five passengers to 40,000 feet, at which point a rocket engine will deliver 36,000 pounds of thrust, causing a 70-second nearly vertical climb. Passengers will have to remain seated during weightlessness, lest they not be back in time for the 4G reentry. The company also plans to offer space weddings, for $2.3 million a piece.
Ticket price: $250,000; book seats through Rocketplane, 877-238-0057
ETA: 2010
