The Dawn of a New Space Age
FYI,
"The Dawn of a New Space Age"
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/05/11/visionary.rutan
: CNN talks to SpaceShipOne designer and aviation pioneer Burt Rutan
: about the future of space tourism.
: CNN: Are we at the dawn of a new space age?
: Burt Rutan: I think so for sub-orbital personal space flights,
: which are very different from going to a resort hotel in orbit.
: They go outside the atmosphere to give people the view and then
: they give you four or five minutes of weightlessness.
: We think that when the business is competitive hundreds of
: thousands of people will do this. I believe this service could
: start within about five years or so and that the safety would be at
: least as good as for the early airliners, which were 100 times
: safer than all of government manned space flight.
: I do believe there will be competing spaceline operators giving an
: affordable service relatively early and that the business will grow
: much larger than people are now assuming.
: But we don't have the solution yet for a safe access to orbit. I
: believe and I hope that, after launching a healthy, high volume
: business running spacelines to outside the atmosphere
: sub-orbitally, someone will come up with a way to make it safe
: enough and affordable enough.
: I'm just predicting that within the next decade, after getting a
: good start of flying thousands of people outside the atmosphere,
: we'll have solutions to move in the direction of orbital flight.
: CNN: Does that mean that the era of the space hotel is within reach?
: BR: If you send people into orbit you have to send them to a hotel.
: For sub-orbital space travel you can send them in very large
: spacious ships with big windows where they can float around and
: enjoy their short time in space.
: But spacecraft that go into orbit with people in them should be as
: small and as cramped as possible. If you put them very tightly in a
: small, light spaceship you can send them for a lot less money.
: I believe that when we have personal space flights into orbit we'll
: be launching the hotels with large expendable rockets. Then we'll
: run people back and forth in as small a vehicle as possible so that
: the ride would be as affordable as possible.
: I envision people being cramped into small quarters with tiny
: windows and spending less than a day getting there and then
: spending their vacations in very spacious accommodation in orbit.
: CNN: What are the attractions of going into space?
: BR: If you have to ask why that's attractive you probably won't be
: going. Those that don't want to go, they don't have to. But from
: young children to very old people there are a lot of people who
: really want to have the fun of doing that.
--
Mark Reiff <markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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