Aphelion

Posted: **September 28, 2004, 09:35:16 AM**

Virgin to Launch Commercial Space Flights LONDON - British entrepreneur Richard Branson said Monday that his Virgin company plans to launch commercial space flights over the next few years. The Virgin transport, entertainment and communications group has signed an agreement with pioneering aviation designer Burt Rutan to build an aircraft based on Rutan's SpaceShipOne vessel, Branson said. SpaceShipOne cracked the barrier to manned commercial space flight in June by flying 98,547 meters, or about 99 kilometers (328,491 feet, or about 62 miles) above Earth, just a little more than 120 meters (400 feet) above the distance scientists widely consider to be the boundary of space. The flight lasted 90 minutes. SpaceShipOne's effort was bankrolled by billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Virgin said its agreement to license technology from Allen's company, Mohave Aerospace Ventures, could be worth up to 14 million pounds (US$25 million, euro21 million) over the next 15 years, depending on the number of spaceships built by Virgin. The company said it planned to begin construction of the first vessel, VSS Enterprise, next year, and would invest about 60 million pounds (US$108 million) in spaceships and ground infrastructure for the venture. "Virgin has been in talks with Paul Allen and Bert throughout this year and in the early hours of Saturday signed a historical deal to license SpaceShipOne's technology to build the world's first private spaceship to go into commercial operating service," Branson told a news conference. The new service will be called Virgin Galactic and expects to fly 3,000 new astronauts in its first five years. Fares will start at 115,000 pounds (US$208,000, euro169,000) for a suborbital flight, including three days' training. Branson said the business would "allow every country in the world to have their own astronauts rather than the privileged few." "Virgin Galactic will be run as a business, but a business with the sole purpose of making space travel more and more affordable," Branson said. "Those privileged space pioneers who can afford to take our first flights will not only have the most awesome experience of their lives, but by stepping up to the plate first they will bring the dream of space travel for many millions closer to reality." Virgin Group began as a record label, and now sells everything from soft drinks to bridal gowns, and even runs a train service and mobile phone network. It operates several airlines — British-based Virgin Atlantic and budget carriers Virgin Express in Europe and Virgin Blue in Australia — and plans to launch a low-budget U.S. carrier next year. Date Submitted: 9/27/2004 Content Provider: Business AP Copyright: Copyright 2004 All Rights Reserved

Posted: **September 28, 2004, 11:51:21 PM**

I saw this on the news today at work. They plan to name the first ship Enterprise. Do *you* know any rich Trekies? :D
But it does mean a contract for the SSO people. There will be further developments, they've got funding now! Yeeha!
Dan

Speaking of SpaceShip One, they're supposed to be aiming to do two launches with pilot plus dummies equivalent in weight to two passengers (I think) within a SIX DAY time span, starting this week. NASA, eat your hearts out -- you can't even launch two DIFFERENT shuttles that close together, let alone send up the same bird twice. Robert M. Corrections applied to original post: two launches (I said three originally); two passengers (I said three originally). First launch is scheduled for TODAY (Wednesday, September 29, 2004)

Posted: **September 30, 2004, 09:01:23 AM**

Private Rocket Recovers, Enters Space Associated Press - September 29, 2004 MOJAVE, Calif. - The first private manned rocket reached space and returned to Earth's atmosphere in a bid to earn the $10 million Ansari X Prize. SpaceShipOne, with astronaut Michael Melvill at the controls, dropped from its mothership above Mojave Airport, fired its rocket and pulled into a vertical climb that appeared to roll severely before steadying again and reaching an unofficial altitude of 330,000 feet. The specially designed jet with SpaceShipOne under its belly took off at 7:12 a.m. from the airport in the desert north of Los Angeles and began its climb. A crowd of invited of VIPs watched from below the airport control tower, while news media watched from bleachers along the runway. Spectators, some wrapped in blankets to ward off the early morning chills, erupted in cheers as the spacecraft and its chase planes taxied down the runway. At 47,000 feet, SpaceShipOne was released into a brief glide before Melvill fired its rocket motor and pointed the nose up toward space. After a few minutes of weightlessness, it was designed to fall back into the atmosphere and glide back to the airport. Among those watching was Adam Smith, 14, of Vienna, Va., who has earned $1,000 this summer toward a down payment to a company called Space Adventures, which is taking reservations for future space travel. Smith said he's had an interest in space "as far back as I can remember." He committed to raising the money after finding the company's Web site earlier this year. "It was just one of those things - I want to do this," the 9th-grader said. Melvill earned the nation's first commercial astronaut's wings by piloting SpaceShipOne's history-making flight in June. The X Prize will go to the first craft that safely completes two flights to an altitude of 328,000 feet, or 62 miles, in a 14-day span. SpaceShipOne's second, and potentially winning flight, has been set for Oct. 4. During the ship's first flight in June, history and the record books were on the line. Now it's about the money - a $10 million payoff for years of secret work. SpaceShipOne was flying with a pilot and the equivalent weight of two passengers aboard in accordance with rules requiring X Prize contenders to be capable of carrying three people on a suborbital hop into space. Official confirmation of the altitude reached was expected about two hours after landing. The Ansari X Prize was modeled after the $25,000 Orteig Prize that Charles Lindbergh won in his Spirit of St. Louis for the first solo New York-to-Paris flight across the Atlantic in 1927. The St. Louis-based X Prize Foundation, noting the rapid development of air travel after Lindbergh's feat, hopes to inspire an era of space tourism in which spaceflight is not just the domain of government agencies such as NASA. The idea appeared to be working far faster than might have been expected. Maverick aerospace designer Burt Rutan, with more than $20 million in funds from Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, secretly developed SpaceShipOne and is well ahead of two dozen teams building X Prize contenders around the world. And already the ultimate goal of the X Prize appears in sight. Richard Branson, the airline mogul and adventurer, announced in London on Monday that his Virgin Group plans to offer passenger flight into space aboard rockets based on SpaceShipOne by 2007. Branson believes he will fly some 3,000 people into space in the first five years that Virgin Galactic spaceline is operating. --- On the Net: X Prize: http://www.xprize.org Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Posted: **October 04, 2004, 03:54:47 PM**

THEY DID IT! Two flights in six days, this one higher and with fewer problems than the previous manned flights. CNN story is tagged 1919 GMT, or about 1419 Eastern Time(?), so presumably the flight took place shortly before that. I wonder how many Air Miles you need to book a seat? Robert M.

Posted: **October 06, 2004, 12:34:27 AM**

Private Spaceflight Closer to Reality By JOHN ANTCZAK .c The Associated Press MOJAVE, Calif. (AP) - Hoping to build on the momentum sparked by a private rocket plane's dash into space, supporters of opening the heavens to civilians are turning the winner-take-all race into an annual competition that might further fuel imaginations. The privately owned SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X Prize on Monday by blasting into space for the second time in five days, a feat considered the first stepping-stone in the direction of public spaceflight. ``In 10 years, everyone will know that if they want to, they can go to orbit in their life,'' SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan told NBC's ``Today'' show on Tuesday. ``They will know that instead of just hope or dream.'' The X Prize, offered to the first team to get into space twice in a 14-day span, will now evolve into a regular competition called the X Prize Cup. In May, organizers selected New Mexico to permanently host the X Prize Cup. More than two-dozen teams worldwide began projects in hopes of winning the original X Prize, and prize founder Peter Diamandis said the purpose of the Cup competition is to keep such groups going with a ``grand prix of space.'' The first X Prize Cup will be held in 2005-06 at New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, a vast military installation. It will then move to an area 30 miles north of Las Cruces, where a facility dubbed the Southwest Regional Spaceport will be built. Teams will compete in five different categories to win the overall cup: Fastest turn around time between the first launch and second landing, maximum number of passengers per launch, total number of passengers during the competition, maximum altitude and fastest flight time. Diamandis said it is envisioned that prizes will grow to the multimillion-dollar range. Organizers hope it becomes one of the largest space-related events on the calendar, drawing hundreds of thousands of people to cheer for their favorite team. International Fuel Technologies of St. Louis, Mo., announced Monday that it has signed on as the event's first major sponsor. ``IFT has just secured a new position in the new frontier,'' said Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Burst. Terms of the sponsorship weren't divulged. SpaceShipOne proved that privately funded spaceflight is indeed possible. The craft left the Mojave Airport north of Los Angeles at dawn aboard a mother plane named White Knight that carried it to an altitude of 46,000 feet. From there it was launched on a half-hour flight that took it to an altitude of more than 62 miles, the height generally considered the border between the atmosphere and space. After the spaceship landed, Diamandis said the altitude was official, and that SpaceShipOne's team had claimed the prize by being the first to make two such flights within the required 14 days. ``This is the true frontier of transportation,'' said Marion C. Blakey, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, who stood near the runway to watch the flight. ``It feels a little bit like Kitty Hawk must have.'' White House press secretary Scott McClellan said President Bush called to congratulate the SpaceShipOne team. Astronauts aboard the international space station also sent their best wishes. Last week, Richard Branson, the British airline mogul and adventurer, announced that beginning in 2007, he will begin offering paying customers flights into space aboard rockets like SpaceShipOne. Branson said he had a deal, worth up to $25 million over 15 years, to license the technology that led to SpaceShipOne. Fares will start at more than $200,000, and SpaceShipOne designer Rutan will build the spaceship. On the Net: X Prize: http://www.xprize.org SpaceShipOne: http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/ 10/05/04 08:38 EDT Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Posted: **October 13, 2004, 09:10:44 AM**

Space Race 2: After the X Prize United Press International - October 12, 2004 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Oct 12, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The $10 million Ansari X Prize has been won, but the next space race, worth an estimated $1 billion a year, is just beginning. For now, Virgin Galactic, a U.S. offshoot of entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group in the United Kingdom, is the most visible of the half-dozen or so companies developing plans and vehicles to fly tourists to space. Branson licensed the X Prize winner, Mojave Aerospace Ventures of Mojave, Calif., to develop a fleet of five sub-orbital spaceships to ferry passengers beyond Earth's atmosphere. The first flight is scheduled for 2007. Nipping at Branson's heels, however, are a handful of X Prize contenders and other firms that are designing and testing vehicles to travel to the edge of space and back. To make sure the fruits of the X Prize competition continue to blossom, the foundation that set up the private space race plans an annual showcase of sub-orbital spaceflights called the X Prize Cup. "It's not enough to be flying once a week or even once a day," X Prize Foundation head Peter Diamandis told United Press International. "We need ships flying every hour -- dozens of times a day." In order to bring such a prospect to reality, Diamandis emphasized the need for a competitive market. "We need to have not only the Apple, but the Dell and Gateway and HP of space," he said. Along those lines, organizers are planning a demonstration exhibition for next year at White Sands, N.M., and beginning in 2006 or 2007, the venue is expected to move to a new commercial spaceport in southern New Mexico, located about 45 miles north of Las Cruces and 30 miles east of Truth or Consequences. Prospective space concerns will vie for cash prizes awarded in several categories, including the most number of flights within a two-week period, the highest altitude, the fastest climb to space, the maximum number of people flown during a single flight, as well as the maximum number of people flown throughout the two-week venue. The exhibition planners also are considering more subjective criteria -- "coolest ship," for example -- as well as some regulatory-bending races, such as point-to-point flights. Judges will score contenders award prizes in each category, but the team with the highest number of points overall will win the new X Prize Cup. Organizers have modeled the competition after several exhibitions, including the Experimental Aircraft Association's highly successful, annual airshow in Oshkosh, Wis., the National Championship Air Races & Air Show in Reno, Nev., the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing's Formula One competition, and the America's Cup yacht races. Each of these competitions attracts millions of dollars in sponsorships and draws thousands of spectators to venues. X Prize Cup organizers expect their event to be no different. Last week, as the first X Prize competition drew to a close in Mojave, the first sponsor for the X Prize Cup stepped forward: International Fuel Technology Inc. of St. Louis, which pledged multi-year support in "the high six figures." "We are proud to be associated with the X Prize Cup and inspired to work with participating teams from all over the globe," FTI chairman Jonathan Burst said at a news conference after SpaceShipOne nailed the Ansari X Prize. ... (continued)

Posted: **October 13, 2004, 09:11:46 AM**

Parlaying the space race into an ongoing annual competition will add another layer of regulatory and licensing challenges to the technical and financial issues already facing the X Prize teams. The Federal Aviation Administration, charged with overseeing commercial human spaceflight, has pledged to support whatever the industry needs to develop -- as long as public safety is assured. "We all have a stake in this," FAA chief Marion Blakey told UPI. "We want to make things possible. We don't want to be the bucket behind the boat." One of the first obstacles to overcome is to determine who can fly. FAA currently prohibits anyone other than a pilot to ride aboard a commercial space vehicle. XCOR Aerospace, another Mojave firm -- which passed up the X Prize competition to focus on developing a marketable vehicle -- is designing a two-passenger ship that includes both a pilot and flight engineer post. XCOR president Jeff Greason said he thinks it is important to work incrementally with government regulators. "We're not just building a company," Greason told UPI, "we're building an industry." As the X Prize galvanized space entrepreneurs to design reusable, sub-orbital passenger ships, the X Prize Cup will become a tool to clear obstacles that are inhibiting the development of private space travel. For example, Burt Rutan, the designer of SpaceShipOne -- the craft that won the Ansari X Prize with its successful flight Oct. 4 -- was continually frustrated in his attempts to tweak the return flight path of his ship to accommodate wind shifts and other aerodynamic issues. During its return to Earth, SpaceShipOne is strictly a glider, with no rocket engine burns, no motorized flight, and no more of a threat to public safety than any of the thousands of gliders that routinely overfly populated areas every day, Rutan told UPI. X Prize Cup organizers also face issues stemming from import restrictions and launching foreign rockets on U.S. soil. The X Prize competition attracted contenders from all over the world, including two teams in Canada that reportedly are close to flying their vehicles. Whether the teams will be able to compete in the X Prize Cup is another question. In addition to developing a space tourism market, the X Prize Foundation envisions sub-orbital spaceships used to expedite package-delivery services. Organizers are considering a point-to-point contest as part of the X Prize Cup, to demonstrate how fast a ship can travel between two places on the globe via a quick hop through sub-orbital space. So far, the FAA has licensed ships to fly only in tightly restricted corridors above a few spaceports. SpaceShipOne, for example, took an hour to reach its 48,000-foot altitude launch site because its jet carrier aircraft, White Knight, had to spiral up within the narrow airspace over the Mojave Civilian Test Flight Center. "We're evolving our future one painful step at a time," Greason said. -- Space Race 2 is a series exploring the people, passions and business of sub-orbital manned spaceflight. Email sciencemail@upi.com Copyright 2004 by United Press International.

Posted: **October 13, 2004, 09:15:34 AM**

... "It's not enough to be flying once a week or even once a day," X Prize Foundation head Peter Diamandis told United Press International. "We need ships flying every hour -- dozens of times a day."

In order to bring such a prospect to reality, Diamandis emphasized the need for a competitive market. "We need to have not only the Apple, but the Dell and Gateway and HP of space," he said.
...

Um, okay, but I'm not sure I want to be riding the Gateway spaceship with Windows XP Multimedia Center as the operating system. Robert M.

Posted: **October 25, 2004, 11:24:34 PM**

Shatner aims for real 'Star Trek' LONDON, England -- William Shatner wants to boldly go where he's only pretended to go so far. The "Star Trek" star is among more than 7,000 people who have told Richard Branson they would gladly pay him $210,000 (£115,000) for a trip aboard his planned spacecraft, the entrepreneur said Friday. Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro has signed up for a ride, and a Hollywood director who was not identified has booked an entire ship. Trevor Beattie, chairman of the ad agency TBWA -- responsible for campaigns such as the "Hello Boys" Wonderbra campaign with Eva Herzigova -- offered to send a check as soon as the project was launched last month. In all, more than $1.45 billion (£800 million) has been pledged -- years before the Virgin Galactic spaceship is even built, Branson said. Branson, 54, is pouring $135 million (£74 million) into his latest commercial experiment, which promises to send the paying public 70 miles above the planet to experience six minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. Speaking from the Mojave Desert in California, Branson told the UK's Press Association he was overwhelmed by the response. "We are extremely pleased because it just means in a sense that the gamble we took seems to have paid off," he said. "Market research suggested that there were that sort of number of people willing to agree to that sort of price. "We have committed £60 million and we have had a tremendous take-up. All indicators are that the risk was worth taking. In addition to that amount, Virgin has spent £14 million buying the licensing rights to Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, which successfully launched into space twice earlier this month to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize. Five- or nine-seater spacecraft are being designed which will travel at three times the speed of sound. The journey into space will last around three and a half hours. Despite the interest, Branson said the first flight will be reserved for him and his family -- including his father, Ted. The spacecraft is scheduled to be ready in 2008 -- to coincide with the elder Branson's 90th birthday. "My dad has put his hand up and will be 90 at the time, my kids definitely want to come and if there is room for my mum she will come as well," Branson said. If his father joined the flight, he would be the oldest person to fly in space, beating U.S. senator and space pioneer John Glenn, who went back into space in 2001 at age 77. Alongside would his mother Eve, 80, his 21-year-old daughter Holly and 18-year-old son Sam. But Branson said his wife, Joan, has no desire to leave the planet. "My kids definitely want to go, my parents definitely want to go, but Joan will have her feet firmly on the ground, I suspect, trying to encourage the kids to stay on the ground." Virgin will build five spaceships, and Branson said he hopes they will eventually be launched from various stations around the world, including Europe. "If we can make it a success, then I hope we can lower the price so that more people can realize their dream and go into space."

Aphelion

Virgin Galactic (no, not Galaxina ...)

Virgin Galactic (no, not Galaxina ...)

Re: Virgin Galactic (no, not Galaxina ...)

That's ONE down ...

Rutan Takes the X Prize

Private Spaceflight Closer to Reality

Space Race 2: After the X Prize

Space Race 2 (continued)

Re: Space Race 2: After the X Prize

Shatner aims for real 'Star Trek' (from CNN.com)