x prize

[brina]

U.S. on verge of private space travel 2 teams seek FAA license, perhaps by end of year

By Traci Watson

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- By the end of the year, humans are likely to ride a privately funded spaceship into suborbital space for the first time, an organizer of a competition encouraging such flights said Monday.

Two U.S. teams are so close to launching people into space that they have applied for licenses from the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA officials said Monday.

The $10 million X Prize contest seems likely to change the government monopoly on space flight. About two dozen teams from around the world are competing to launch the first privately funded vehicle that would fly people into space. Organizers believe there will be a market for space tourists willing to spend sizable sums for a short ride into space to experience weightlessness.

To win, a craft capable of holding three people doesn't have to orbit the Earth but must fly to an altitude of 62 miles. NASA considers anyone reaching an altitude of 50 miles to have flown in space. There's a catch:

The spacecraft must make a second flight within two weeks to win. That rule would've eliminated America's first manned spacecraft, the Mercury capsules, which flew only once.

''This year we do expect to have a winner,'' X Prize spokeswoman Diane Murphy said.

The X Prize Foundation, based in St. Louis, promotes the development of private, reusable launch vehicles. Board members include Dennis Tito, the American who spent $20 million to fly in a Russian spacecraft in 2001, and Erik Lindbergh, grandson of Charles Lindbergh.

The leading contender for the prize is a company led by Burt Rutan, who designed the Voyager, the first plane to fly nonstop around the world without refueling in 1986. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is funding Rutan's effort.

Rutan's spacecraft would be carried to 50,000 feet by a jet before being released and firing its own rocket. It has made 11 test flights. During its most recent flight in December, it reached 13 miles and broke the sound barrier. Rutan estimates that anyone aboard would experience weightlessness for three minutes. Commercial jetliners cruise at roughly 35,000 feet, or 6 miles high.

Rutan's company, Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., is one of two competitors for the X Prize that has applied for an FAA license to launch into space, says Patricia Grace Smith of the FAA. Also competing is Armadillo Aerospace of Mesquite, Texas, headed by computer game designer John Carmack, who made a fortune on the games Doom and Quake. The team is testing its rocket engines and plans to launch this year.

Smith said they were ''very close'' to granting a license to either
Scaled Composites, Armadillo Aerospace or a third company that is still far from flying into space.

The winning flight will be similar to Alan Shepard's in 1961. That flight included five minutes of weightlessness.

© Copyright 2004 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.





--is that fun stuff or what--

[Blinky]

I have been following this for some time. I can't wait until this actually happens!

Thanks for the article brina