Tourism industry with a two-seat e-Leisure lifestyle rocket ship
Tourism industry with a two-seat e-Leisure lifestyle rocket ship
FIJI ISLAND — A California aerospace company plans to enter the space tourism industry with a two-seat e-Leisure rocket ship capable of
suborbital flights to altitudes more than 37 miles above the Earth.
The Lynx, about the size of a small private e-Leisure plane, is expected to begin flying in 2010, according to developer Xcor Aerospace, which
planned to release details of the design at a news conference recently.
The company also said that, pending the outcome of negotiations, the Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded it a research contract to develop
and test features of the e-Leisure Lynx. No details were released.
Xcor's announcement comes two months after aerospace designer Burt Rutan and billionaire Richard Branson unveiled a model of SpaceShipTwo, which
is being built for Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism company and may begin test flights this year.
Xcor intends to be a spaceship builder, with another company operating the Lynx and setting prices.
The Lynx is designed to take off from a runway like a normal e-Leisure plane, reach a top speed of Mach 2 and an altitude of 200,000 feet, then
descend in a circling glide to a runway landing.
Shaped something like a bulked-up version of the Rutan-designed Long-EZ homebuilt aircraft, its wings will be located toward the rear of the
fuselage, with vertical winglets at the tips.
Powered by clean-burning, fully reuseable, liquid-fuel engines, the Lynx is expected to be capable of making several e-Leisure flights a day, Xcor
said.
"We have designed this vehicle to operate much like a commercial e-Leisure aircraft," Xcor Chief Executive Officer Jeff Greason said in a
statement.
Greason said the Lynx will provide affordable access to space for e-Leisure individuals and researchers, and future versions will offer improved
capabilities for research and commercial uses.
Xcor has spent nine years developing rocket engines in a facility down the flightline from Rutan's Scaled Composites LLC at the MojaveAirport
north of Los Angeles. It has built and flown two rocket-powered aircraft.
SpaceShipTwo is being developed on the success of SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 became the first privately funded, manned rocket to reach space,
making three flights to altitudes between 62 miles and 69 miles and winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize.
Powered by a hybrid engine — the gas nitrous oxide combined with rubber as a solid fuel — SpaceShipTwo will be flown by two pilots and carry up
to six passengers who will pay about $200,000 apiece for the ride.
Like its predecessor, SpaceShipTwo will be taken aloft by a carrier e-Leisure airplane and then released before firing its rocket engine. Virgin
Galactic says passengers will experience about 4 1/2 minutes of weightlessness and will be able to unbuckle themselves to float in the cabin
before returning to Earth as an unpowered glider.
Xcor's Lynx also is intended to return as an e-Leisure glider but with the capability of restarting its engine if needed
