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XCOR Aerospace Offers Space Flight At A Discount

Filed under: Wings


The first entrant into any marketplace has the benefit of being able to set the price for the service and those that follow often need to offer a lower price. That's the case in the space tourism game, now that XCOR Aerospace is offering tickets for suborbital rides at less than half the price of main competitor Virgin Galactic. XCOR Aerospace is partnering with tour developer and operator Jules Klar, co-creator of the 1960s-era "Europe on $5 a Day" guides, to sell rides aboard its Lynx spaceship for $95,000. The two-seat Lynx craft is under development at XCOR's Mojave Desert base. Lynx passengers fly in the cockpit next to Richard Searfoss, who made three spaceflights for NASA. The company plans to be able to make up to four flights a day. Test flights are set to begin in 2010 with first paid flights as soon as early 2011.

Elegant Resorts Offers Space Flights

Filed under: Wings


With the plans for Virgin Galactic proceeding full steam, tourists are lining up for commercial sub-orbital spaceflights. Elegant Resorts has announced that they are the official "space agent" in Russia, CIS and the UK. Some of the staff from Elegant Resorts went to the International Space University in Strasbourg this summer to learn about spaceflight technology, G-forces, weightlessness and all of the details of the three-day Virgin Galactic Experience. The first commercial flight is expected to take place in 2009 and already 70,000 people have registered their interest on the Virgin Galactic website. So far 200 people around the world have signed up to pay the $200,000 fee for a short suborbital space ride.

Plans For Spaceport America Revealed

Filed under: Wings


We first heard about the plans for Virgin Galactic and Spaceport America back in December 2005. The home base for space travel promises to bring space tourism to the New Mexico desert. Now the team of US and British architects and designers working on the project have released design renderings of Spaceport America. The design is from a US-British consortium of URS Corporation and Foster + Partners and shows a low-slung design which is tucked into the earth and uses passive energy for heating and cooling with photovoltaic panels for electricity and water recycling. Massive windows open out to the runway. People enter through a deep channel cut in the landscape. The terminal and hanger are expected to cost around $31 million and construction will begin in 2008 with late 2009 or early 2010 projected as a completion date. Big pics of the design drawings in the gallery.

[via Aero-News Network]



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