The first 100 space tourists scheduled to take suborbital flights from the spaceport being built by Virgin Galactic were announced on Tuesday.
Although its putative tourist spacecraft may not be off the drawing board yet, a confident Virgin Galactic revealed the 鈥渇ounder鈥檚 group鈥� will be flying from the port near Roswell, New Mexico 鈥� fabled as the site of a supposed UFO crash in 1947.
The 100 people include a woman in her nineties (who learned to skydive when she was 85), and a honeymooning couple from Washington DC. 鈥淕eorge and Loretta are a charming couple who want to be the first honeymoon couple in space. So they are happy to delay their wedding till the day of the flight,鈥� says Stephen Attenborough, head of astronaut relations at Virgin Galactic.
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The space tourists will each pay $200,000 for a ride on SpaceShipTwo, the company revealed at a news conference at London鈥檚 Science Museum, UK.
The craft has yet to be built, flight-tested or safety-certified. It is an eight-seat (two pilots, six passengers) version of Burt Rutan鈥檚 X-Prize winning air-dropped spacecraft SpaceShipOne. Construction at Rutan鈥檚 firm Scaled Composites in Mojave, California, will begin in March 2006, with testing to follow. Commercial flights are slated for late 2008 or early 2009.
Bargain fares
The fare compares favourably to the $20 million paid by space tourists Dennis Tito in 2001 and Mark Shuttleworth in 2002 for their Soyuz flights to the International Space Station. But the majority of the 38,000 people who have registered an interest in a suborbital flight with Virgin Galactic are expected to wait until the price comes down even further. The 100 founders were among those 鈥渁ble to make a firm reservation鈥� now.
Attenborough says the founder flyers hail from the US, UK, Japan, Ireland, the Netherlands, Canada and South Africa. 鈥淭his geographical diversity is strategic. We want these people to go back to their home countries and tell people about how marvellous the trip and the magic of weightlessness was,鈥� he says.
Around 85% of the founders are male, and the youngest is just 16. The majority do not seem worried about safety. 鈥淥ddly enough I am not even remotely scared,鈥� says PJ King, a former software expert and one of the 100. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all just tremendously exciting.鈥�
鈥淥nly 25% of them said safety was important to them,鈥� says Attenborough. 鈥淗appily, it鈥檚 a lot more important to us.鈥�
Incredible safety
Alex Tai, vice-president of operations at Virgin Galactic, says SpaceShipTwo will not carry a passenger until the craft has met all relevant US Federal Aviation Regulations for commercial aircraft. 鈥淭his specifies everything from the breaking strain of the wing spars to the pressurisation of the cabin and the deceleration rates of the brakes on the ground,鈥� he says.
But Tai notes: 鈥淏urt鈥檚 basic design and architecture gives us an incredible level of safety in any case.鈥�
This is because the craft is air-dropped. In the event of a rocket failure, SpaceShipTwo will simply glide back to Earth. 鈥淚f it was ground-launched, a rocket failure after one second can leave you in a very nasty place indeed,鈥� he says.
Other safety rules have influenced the spaceport鈥檚 venue in New Mexico. The craft must operate well away from 鈥渘on-involved third parties鈥� says Will Whitehorn, Virgin Galactic鈥檚 president. And at an elevation of 4700 feet, the Sierra County spaceport, beside Interstate 54, will provide an extra altitude boost for the venture. It will be of a minimalist design, produced by French designer Philippe Starck.
Orbital flights may well follow if the spaceport hosts suborbital flights in 2008. 鈥淏urt is looking at orbital technology for us, but he hasn鈥檛 made any breakthroughs yet,鈥� says Tai.
A major challenge the team must overcome is enabling the spacecraft to withstand the heat of re-entry into the Earth鈥檚 atmosphere. The space shuttle has a heat shield to protect it during its re-entry at Mach 23. One idea might be to slow an orbital craft down to Mach 3 or 4 using retro-rockets.
