An aircraft designer has been given permission to fly to the edge of space in an experimental re-usable rocket plane that could launch the era of space tourism.
Burt Rutan, who designed Voyager, which flew non-stop around the world on a single tank of fuel, now has a licence to test a high-altitude manned supersonic light aircraft which, if successful, "will mark the renaissance for manned space flight".
Mr Rutan talks of a future, "hopefully within 10 years, when ordinary people, for the cost of a luxury cruise, can experience a rocket flight into the black sky above Earth's atmosphere, enjoy a few minutes of weightless excitement, then feel the thunderous deceleration of aerodynamic drag on re-entry."
His approach, under development since 1996, consists of a rocket plane, dubbed SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, an exotic-looking twin turbojet aircraft designed to carry it aloft for a launch at 50,000ft. The spaceship drops into gliding flight and fires its rocket while climbing steeply for more than a minute and reaching 2,500mph.
SpaceShipOne, funded by Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, has completed nearly a dozen preliminary test flights and broke the sound barrier last year on the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' powered flight over Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Mr Rutan, the head of Scaled Composites, based in Mojave, California, has made his latest craft from graphite and epoxy. It has already reached an altitude of nearly 13 miles in a test flight.
The new licence, granted by the United States Federal Aviation Administration, allows the spacecraft to reach the edge of space, about 60 miles up, not enough to complete an orbit but offering a similar view at much lower cost.
The licence is a prerequisite for the coveted X Prize, an international space race that will give $10 million to the first company or person to launch a manned craft to 62.5 miles (100 km) above Earth, and then do it again within two weeks. The craft must be able to carry three people.
The X prize is sponsored by a privately-funded foundation in St Louis. Supporters include Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles Lindbergh, the Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and the actor Tom Hanks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Burt Rutan, who designed Voyager, which flew non-stop around the world on a single tank of fuel, now has a licence to test a high-altitude manned supersonic light aircraft which, if successful, "will mark the renaissance for manned space flight".
Mr Rutan talks of a future, "hopefully within 10 years, when ordinary people, for the cost of a luxury cruise, can experience a rocket flight into the black sky above Earth's atmosphere, enjoy a few minutes of weightless excitement, then feel the thunderous deceleration of aerodynamic drag on re-entry."
His approach, under development since 1996, consists of a rocket plane, dubbed SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, an exotic-looking twin turbojet aircraft designed to carry it aloft for a launch at 50,000ft. The spaceship drops into gliding flight and fires its rocket while climbing steeply for more than a minute and reaching 2,500mph.
SpaceShipOne, funded by Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, has completed nearly a dozen preliminary test flights and broke the sound barrier last year on the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' powered flight over Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Mr Rutan, the head of Scaled Composites, based in Mojave, California, has made his latest craft from graphite and epoxy. It has already reached an altitude of nearly 13 miles in a test flight.
The new licence, granted by the United States Federal Aviation Administration, allows the spacecraft to reach the edge of space, about 60 miles up, not enough to complete an orbit but offering a similar view at much lower cost.
The licence is a prerequisite for the coveted X Prize, an international space race that will give $10 million to the first company or person to launch a manned craft to 62.5 miles (100 km) above Earth, and then do it again within two weeks. The craft must be able to carry three people.
The X prize is sponsored by a privately-funded foundation in St Louis. Supporters include Erik Lindbergh, the grandson of Charles Lindbergh, the Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and the actor Tom Hanks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
