Wanna go to space? You can, but it’ll cost you over 300 grand.
At least, it will if you do it through the Austrian Penny Markt, which just opened a travel business.
And travel it is: for $314,000 you’ll train in Oklahoma for five days, then board a Rocketplane XP flown by Rocketplane Global. Once aloft, you’ll be taken to 105 kilometers high — just above the official 100 km limit into space — where you’ll get a precious few minutes of microgravity. Then it’s back to Earth.
Personally, I have no desire to do this. I want to be in space, but I don’t want to have to go to space to get there. Strapping myself in a rocket seems like a bad idea to me, since I get sick on playground swings. But if you are made of sterner stuff, start saving your pfennigs (OK, Euros). The trips are promised to start at the end of 2011, though more likely it’ll be sometime in 2012.
I’ll wave to you from here.
Tip o’ the spacesuit visor to Gábor Török.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:19 am
Most people won’t count this as being in space at all. Who cares if there’s an official “line” to be crossed that says you’re a space traveler now? When the general public thinks of being “in space”, they think of actually being in orbit for a little while, bouncing around a bit, drinking globs of juice that are floating around, and so on.
Sorry if I’m being a bit cynical, but I can only call it as I see it.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:21 am
Similar to you, Phil, I want to BE in space, I want to GO to space, but I don’t want to be strapped in to a confining seat, as I know I’d have to be. I can handle the speed and the g’s, but claustrophobia, ugh.
If they can confine the restraints (ha) to something similar to the restraint system on the Millenium Force, I’m in. Just have to save up.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Microgravity? Given that the Earth’s radius is about 6400 km, it seems to me that going 100 km above the surface would only reduce your weight by about 3%… unless I’m missing something here.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:29 am
So a few rich, lucky individuals will be able to watch the world end from 105 km!
October 29th, 2009 at 8:30 am
I agree with Darren… OK, this might technically be a “space” flight, but so what? You could get many of the same effects on the Vomit Comet, albeit not for as long. The only real advantage would be the view.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:30 am
More than 1/4 million just for a few minutes? I wouldn’t pay that much even if I could afford it. I’d rather pay a small fraction of that to fly parabolas in a plane.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:34 am
I’m surprised how cheap it is. If someone had asked me I would’ve guessed maybe a million dollars… Let’s hope the price keeps coming down, down, down so I can tell my grandchilden, “Back in my day…”
October 29th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Trips start in 2011 – I’d like to see that!
Best wishes to ‘em .. But something tells me they’ll take a bit longer than that.
I hope they fly, I’m not holding my breath though & will believe it only when I see it..
October 29th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Yeah I agree with those above: For such a short flight, plane parabolas is what I’d do for less moolah. Now if I could spend a week aboard the ISS? – I’d rather spend $20 million for that opportunity.
October 29th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I would like to take a flight if I could afford it. I was mad when the US space plane project was scraped in the 90s this would not have used rocket engines but a new kind of jet engine called a scram jet this could opperate in the upper atmosphire were there are only a few o2 atoms (there are rumors of a spy plane called the auora that uses a scram jet but no one has confermed this) this may use the same technology
October 29th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Someone talk Universal or Six Flags (or NASA Space Camp) into making a virtual trip. Strap you into a full suit with 3D VR goggles in the helmet, dump you in a swimming pool and go for a space walk!
I’d use up TWO E-tickets for that. Ooh, dating myself with that reference…
October 29th, 2009 at 9:19 am
… still nothing on the successful launch of ‘Ares’
Please BA can you post on that soon? I menan its only NASA’s first new rocket in 30 years and all but ..
Heck, I’d like your take on that please.
October 29th, 2009 at 9:23 am
A different perspective on the $300K…. They’re going to have 250-350 passengers per year at first. Now, how high can they set the price before the queue of passengers gets too short? Market research says: 300K.
But once the technology is proven, once the demand is proven, once there is competition for passengers, and each competitor is flying multiple vehicles, expect the price to drop *fast* as the business model switches from “limited-availability” to “get into the growing market”.
I mean, look at the tech: a small bizjet with reworked aerodynamics, heat-resistant coatings and edges, a rocket engine in the back, additional avionics and controls, and higher safety factors on the structure. Their jet engines are COTS, as are (I’ll bet) their flight-control actuators, landing gear, most of their avionics….. name an aircraft manufacturer in the world that couldn’t build something like this if they wanted to.
If this is a success, they will.
October 29th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Nitpick: It’s 210’1000 Euros.
That may be roughly equivalent to US$314’000 *now*, but the exachange rate is /not/ fixed – so you should at least mention the original amount.
October 29th, 2009 at 9:41 am
If it’s weightlessness you want, I’m guessing you could book the Vomit Comet for you and all your friends for considerably less than that. And if you want to actually “be in space,” as opposed to slightly grazing the edge of it for a few minutes — well, you’re probably out of luck there.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Well… at least the Website of pennymarkt Austria doesnt know anything about such an offer.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Anyone else troubled by the lack of any photos of any actual flight technology, I mean not so much as mockup or a rocket engine? Compared to Virgin Galactic it all seems a bit shaky.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I’m still waiting for the Space elevator to “take off”. Check this link to the International Space elevator Consortium.
http://www.isec.info/splash
The NASA funded first place prize is $2 million this year. At this rate, we should be in position to actually build this thing in merely 20 years or so. Even at 86 years old, I could stand that. Now, if we just have an old folks home in orbit,,,
Gary 7
October 29th, 2009 at 10:23 am
This is Rocketplane? This is bad. Someone should tell them no one is flying out of Oklahoma:
http://tiny.cc/tAhRj
“Pledging to build a suborbital space flight business in Oklahoma and spur economic development, Rocketplane received a king’s ransom funded by taxpayers, but folded up its Oklahoma City operation and moved out last February. The promises made were enough for the state Legislature and three state agencies to write a check for $18 million.”
People need to do some research before getting involved with promotions.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:48 am
3. Dan Says:
Microgravity? Given that the Earth’s radius is about 6400 km, it seems to me that going 100 km above the surface would only reduce your weight by about 3%… unless I’m missing something here.
____________
It’s not the distance from Earth that produces weightlessness, it’s the falling – the same reason astronauts in orbit and on the Vomit Comet are weightless. The microgravity happens for a few minutes as the rocketplane reaches the top of its arc, and comes back as the plane descends into the thicker part of the atmosphere and starts flying instead of falling.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:55 am
I’m with Phil. I’m waiting for the space elevator, so I don’t get horribly sea/space/air sick.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:05 am
According to the photo, Seth Green is going. Or is that Ray Park?
October 29th, 2009 at 11:34 am
For $300K, I’d need to go further than just the edge of space and be there for far more than a few minutes.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:55 am
I’ll start saving now, but wait until there’s a relatively reasonably priced company that will put me on a ship that will actually achieve orbit, say at 200+km, take a couple trips around the planet for 4-5 hours or so before deorbiting and landing back on Earth. That trip just might be worth my kids’ inheritance.
Just surpassing 105km is still pretty cool and it would be a sight to behold. This is a nice indication that achieving orbit for Joe Public is still pretty far off, but getting closer.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:56 am
@ Todd W, #4:
Yes, Todd, only a few filthy rich people will be able to do this. At first. The money they pay for the trip isn’t just for the cost of the trip, you see. The potential funds for research, manufacturing, testing and so forth are the means to better, more efficient and reliable and therefore less expensive missions over all.
While there are other sources of capital available to commercial exploitation of space, one surefire way is to sell tickets; very exclusive tickets. And, perforce, those who can afford them will be limited to a small set. Now, notwithstanding whether they pay the price primarily for the thrill of the moment or to voluntarily fund the ongoing progress of space exploration, they certainly arefunding it. In addition, the public will just eat up celebs and royalty and top-selling authors vaulting into the sky while twitting OMG OMG incessantly. Great PR for the whole notion.
So consider them early benefactors of a human effort that has a future limited only by our ability and desires. They should be shown the gratitude of anyone whose dreams lay at least partially in LEO and beyond.
October 29th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Phil if ya lend me the cash i ll go and take pics ect and write up a blog entry for ya OK. Not sure when i can pay it back but …..
October 29th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
25. Crudely Wrott Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 11:56 am
In addition, the public will just eat up celebs and royalty and top-selling authors vaulting into the sky while twitting OMG OMG incessantly.
_____________
But how would one tweet from a rocketplane? You’d be out of range of any cell phone towers. Satellite phone, maybe?
October 29th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I think that article is bogus. At least it’s not offered in the generally accessible penny markts I have access to here :p
October 29th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
“… start saving your pfennigs …”
Actually, Austrian Schillings was divided into Groschen, not Pfennig
Unfortunately, I don’t have 300 grand, so I’ll have to miss out on this one
October 29th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Damn. How did I miss that one.. tip of the hat to Togan. Oo
October 29th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Yes, Todd, only a few filthy rich people will be able to do this.
Piffle. I could totally do this, and I’m not even considered rich by Obama. I merely live within my means and invest. Of course it would mean abandoning my plans for early retirement, and I really do not want to do that, so no go for me. I’m like Mike @#24 above. I’l wait for a better deal on a longer trip.
October 29th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Sorry Phil, as gss_000 pointed out these guys are pretty much out of business. They bit off far more than they could chew and have completely and totally ceased all operation of any kind in the state of Oklahoma. Heck it does not appear that the web site you linked to has even been updated in a very long time.
http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=10806368
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketplane_Limited,_Inc.
Virgin Galactic appears to be the real deal for this sort of thing. Their flights will be out of New Mexico.
October 29th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I’m with QD. $20mil is for the super rich. $300k puts it in the reach of motivated individuals with some liquidity. Retirees will probably comprise half the “astronauts”. I know that if you do an Antarctic trip a good 80% of your fellow passengers will be over 60. They’ve got the time and the money. When I went (to Antarctica not space) I was the only male passenger under 40 at the time.
October 29th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
3. Dan Says:
October 29th, 2009 at 8:26 am
“Microgravity? Given that the Earth’s radius is about 6400 km, it seems to me that going 100 km above the surface would only reduce your weight by about 3%… unless I’m missing something here.”
That’s why it’s called micro gravity, not zero gravity. The fact is that anywhere near the Earth, particularly in Low Earth Orbit, you are in a gravitational field strong enough to feel its effects. However, if you are either orbiting the Earth or on a parabolic trajectory in this field, you are effectively freefalling. Due to Einstein’s equivalence principle and all that, you can (almost) rightly consider yourself to be in a region free of gravitation, in so far as there is no experiment or observation that you could do in sufficiently small an area over sufficiently small a time period that could tell you definitively whether you were freefalling in a gravitational field or in empty space far from any sources of gravitation.
I say ‘almost’ in the last paragraph, because if you relax the “sufficiently small an area over sufficiently small a time period” part, you could in theory perform experiments that could detect whether tidal effects are present, and hence determine whether you were in a gravitational field or not. Hence, if you are, it is called microgravity not zero gravity. You feel weightless, but subtle effects still exist.
October 29th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
21. Gamercow Says: “I’m with Phil. I’m waiting for the space elevator, so I don’t get horribly sea/space/air sick.”
The dynamics of a space elevator are pretty interesting. It sounds like a simple concept, but when you look at the specifics you’ll see why they haven’t been built yet.
The “anchor” of the elevator (i.e. the center of mass) has to be, by definition, in geosynchronous orbit. That’s 22,000 miles (35.000 Km) straight up. Put another way, the elevator shaft would wrap almost completely around the globe at the equator. Remember that all of the mass of the elevator structure has to be balanced by an equal mass further out. Of course, the structure itself must be exceedingly light for something even as strong as nanotubes to support it while the “ballast” on the up-orbit side can be a small asteroid.
You may not get motion sick, but you’d probably be bored. Even if the elevator car could travel at 1,000 MPH (1.600 Km/hr), that’s a 22 hour trip, not counting stops at other levels. That’s also, you’ll notice, faster than the speed of sound at sea level. Of course, if you hold it down to “only” 100 MPH at first, you’ll be out of all appreciable atmosphere in less than an hour. Rather than a spaceship, the space elevator would be analogous to taking a train trip across the US or all of Europe 100 years ago.
Gravity is interesting as well. Not counting the initial acceleration of the elevator, you’re at 1 g at the start of your journey. At the last stop, the net gravity is, of course, zero, so you can pick any value in between that you want to experience. It’s been suggested that Icarus-style human flight (with wings strapped to your arms) is possible for the average person at about 1/10 g.
The entire way up you’ll feel a sideways acceleration as well since at ground level you are traveling about 1,000 MPH (160 Km/hr) sideways with the Earth, but when you reach your destination, the orbital velocity is about 5,800 MPH (9.300 Km/hr). All that sideways velocity has to be added as you ascend. The faster you go up, the stronger this acceleration will feel.
For a great description of how this all works, try Clarke’s “Fountains of Paradise.” He also did an extensive description in “3001″ where the Earth was being surrounded by a complete ring at geosynchronous orbit connected by several elevators down to the surface.
- Jack
October 29th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Another reason why a space elevator won’t work is because eventually every satellite orbiting at less than the height of the tower will intersect it. That includes the thousands of little chunks of flotsam.