Astronomy.com blog : space tourism

On the Eve of civilian space travel

Bill Andrews — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:35:00 GMT

We’re one step closer to taking vacations in space, it seems, after Virgin Galactic showed off its latest launch vehicle Tuesday at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual AirVenture event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Named WhiteKnightTwo but nicknamed Eve, the plane resembles the hull of a catamaran, with the space between its booms intended to carry the still-in-development SpaceShipTwo, and its paying customers, into space as early as 2011. (Presumably Virgin will come up with a good nickname for SpaceShipTwo as well.)

Of course, it’s not cheap, with tickets costing $200,000 for what might be minutes in space. But according to Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn, they’ve already received $40 million in deposits and will need five more spaceships just to meet demand. The company also made a deal Tuesday with an Abu Dhabi investment firm to build a spaceport there by 2014 in exchange for stake in Virgin Galactic.

The spaceship will also be able to act as a mother ship to launch satellites, as well as allow scientists to conduct experiments in space. It’s the successor to WhiteKnightOne and SpaceShipOne, which under aircraft designer Burt Rutan’s direction 4 years ago won the X Prize for sending a civilian into space.

I don’t know about you, but easy space travel can’t come soon enough for me. Perhaps it’s because I love science fiction so much, but I’ve always wondered just what the heck was wrong with us that we possessed the ability to explore space, but not so much the desire. Even NASA, which I admire as much as the next space geek, has sent people no farther than Earth orbit for more than 35 years. Sure, it might be more feasible to send robots or unmanned ships in many cases, but the symbol of sending mankind to another celestial body is huge! We owe it to ourselves to keep striving for more.

Along with flying cars and laser guns, casual space travel represents the future to me. Presuming I can get my hands on $200,000, you can bet I’ll be a part of it.

What about you? Can’t wait for space vacations either? Or will Virgin Galactic go the way of Virgin Express and Virgin Blue?

(image credit of WhiteKnightTwo: Mark Greenberg)

"Train Like an Astronaut" sweepstakes

Karri Ferron — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:23:00 GMT

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a real astronaut? What would it be like to feel the g-forces of spaceflight? How do you perform everyday tasks out in space? Well, here’s your chance to find out.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of man’s first steps on the Moon, Astronomy magazine is teaming up with Borders and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to bring astronomy enthusiasts the “Train Like an Astronaut” Sweepstakes. Now through July 27, you can find a form at Astronomy.com to enter for a chance to win a 4-day trip to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex outside Orlando, Florida. Three Grand Prize winners will each receive roundtrip airfare for the winner and three guests, three-night accommodations in Cocoa Beach, car rental for four days, and the chance to participate in the Family Astronaut Training Experience at Kennedy Space Center. The program includes a mock space shuttle mission, ride flight simulators, lunch with an astronaut and a guided tour of Kennedy Space Center with a close-up view of the space shuttle launch pads and the Apollo/Saturn V Center — the home of a 363-foot long Saturn V Moon rocket.

One First Prize winner will receive a Meade 6" ETX-LS telescope, 10 Second Prize winners will each get a 1-year subscription to Astronomy magazine, and 10 Third Prize winners will each collect a Deep Space Mysteries calendar produced by Astronomy magazine.

And even if you don’t win, you can still save $5 on admission to a 2009 trip to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Find the coupon on page 17 of Astronomy’s August 2009 issue (on newsstands June 30), a special issue highlighting man’s potential return to the Moon by 2020.

Pioneering tourist spaceship installed in museum

Daniel Pendick — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:35:00 GMT

It’s been a busy couple of months for Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson’s space tourism venture. WhiteKnightTwo — the mothership that will launch Virgin Galactic’s tourist spaceship, SpaceShipTwo — made its maiden flight from California’s Mojave Air and Space Port December 21.

On December 17, 2003, the jet-powered WhiteKnightOne lifted SpaceShipOne to 50,000 feet, where it then rocketed into suborbital space.

SpaceShipOne received the Ansari X Prize in 2004 as the first civilian low-cost spaceship to achieve suborbital flight. The 28-foot craft made its first X Prize qualifying run September 29, 2004, with test pilot Mike Melville at the controls. Days later, on October 4, 2004, Brian Binnie flew the craft into space again to win the Ansari X Prize.

Next, the ship will carry paying passengers to an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers), where they will experience weightlessness for 6 thrilling minutes. At $200,000 per passenger, that works out to around $33,000 per minute per ticket.

Yesterday (January 13), an exact scale model of SpaceShipOne was welcomed to the Flying Heritage Collection at Paine Field in Everett, Washington. Philanthropist Paul G. Allen (pictured below, in the middle, with Burt Rutan, the aeronautical engineer who developed SpaceShipOne, and Brian Binnie, the pilot of SpaceShipOne) founded the collection and also paid for SpaceShipOne’s successful bid for the Ansari X Prize.

Related: "SpaceShipOne up-close"

All photos courtesy of Vulcan Inc.

So you want to be a space tourist?

Matt Quandt — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:46:00 GMT

It’s easy to love magazines when you work at a magazine publishing company, and I LOVE magazines. A few subscriptions here at the office, and a few at home, keep my nose in some publication during most of my free time — which is significantly less now as I spend most of my time at home chasing my now-walking daughter around. Sometimes the issues pile up, and it takes me a while to get to them. Hence, why I’m about to direct you to an article in Wired magazine’s September issue.

“Welcome to Star City,” by David Kushner, follows online-gaming giant Richard Garriott’s 8-month stay at Russia’s cosmonaut training ground, Zvyozdny Gorodok (“Star City”). He’s there to prepare for his trip to the International Space Station. If everything goes as planned, Garriott will be seated next to NASA astronaut Mike Fincke and mission commander Yuri Lonchakov when the Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft blasts off from Kazakhstan October 12 on its way to ISS.

You’d think that for $30 million, Garriott wouldn’t have to subsist on his own candy bars and macaroni and cheese, but that fee isn’t for amenities.

The article includes pictures from inside the “birthplace of spaceflight,” and it details the physical and technical training Garriott and actual cosmonauts go through before heading into space.

Here are a few more articles about space tourism:

Mars, the next Everest?

Daniel Pendick — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:54:00 GMT

Once upon a time, barnstorming over the countryside in a biplane was sufficiently thrilling and expensive for the idle rich. Then, the only thing that would do was taking a steamer to Africa to blast away at lions for the season. Then there was (and remains) the curious habit of paying a small fortune for the privilege of expiring on Mt. Everest from hypothermia, oxygen deprivation, or stumbling into a crevasse. Much later, attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon, a la Sir Richard Branson, did the trick.

More recently, megabuck tourism has gone into orbit. Several people have paid tens of millions to hang out on the International Space Station. Soon, people will pay a few hundred thousand for suborbital joyrides.

But it gets better. The era of space tourism one-upmanship is here. How about space diving?

In case skydiving seemed terrifying enough for you, consider the world's most extreme sport. While traveling 18,000 mph in orbit, you leap out of your ship in a shuttlecock-shaped heat shield to keep you from broiling on your way through the upper atmosphere. After deploying drogue chutes and perhaps firing small retrorockets, you deploy a normal parachute and land safely.

Crazy? Yes, of course. "Scary as hell," one JPL employee commented to the press. But not impossible. (To learn more about it, read the recent article in Popular Science by one of the best magazine science writers in the business, William Speed Weed.)

There is already a company, Orbital Outfitters, actively planning super-high-diving space jumps. In the meantime, they are pretty busy designing a standard-issue spacesuit with enough high-tech bling to please wealthy space tourists. The company will eventually be prepared to sell you a custom suit for $50,000 to $80,000, although you can rent one for $5,000 to $7,000 per flight.

Not crazy enough for you? OK, then think about going to the Moon. A Virginia-based company, Space Adventures, says it will boomerang you around the Moon using Russian Soyuz spacecraft. This will cost an estimated $200 million per couple.

The moon ride is pretty hard to top. But I have come up with something.

NASA wants to go to Mars, Congress probably won't pay for it, but the entertainment industry is flush with cash from reality shows. What about "Survivor: Mars"?

It goes like this: A conglomerate of entertainment companies provides matching funds to NASA to send a gaggle of well-groomed, suntanned, and gullible contestants to Mars for a 2-year mission. While on Mars, they have to complete various tasks — setting up a pressurized greenhouse to grow food, hiking to the South Pole to gather water, setting up a plant to produce rocket fuel for the return trip. Whoever is left alive at the end of the mission wins.

The only thing I haven't worked out is where the people would go who are voted out of base camp. Phobos?