A Chinese government-backed company intends to fly up to 20 passengers to the edge of space, more than any other commercial space travel firm is currently planning. The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology has designed a winged rocket that takes off under its own power (it doesn’t need to be carried to a high altitude by another aircraft, as is the case with many of the other proposed space tourism projects).
“The vehicle will take off vertically like a rocket and land on the runway automatically without any ground or onboard intervention,” team leader Han Pengxin has stated.
They are developing two versions of the spaceplane. The smaller will accommodate five passengers. It’s the larger one that has the potential to change the space tourist industry. Paul Marks writes in New Scientist about how the:
It will look like a cross between a jet plane and a rocket, and will blast off under its own power into the near regions of space and then manoeuvre back down to Earth. The spaceship will be reusable up to 50 times.
The plan is to first build a smaller version that will take five passengers up 100 kilometers, and then scale up to a much bigger craft that will carry 20 passengers per flight up to 130 kilometers. Prices are estimated at $200,000 to $250,000 a seat, which would make them competitive with Virgin Galactic and other private space tour offerings.
That larger spacecraft is fast enough to help deliver small satellites into orbit, with the help of a small rocket stage add-on that would sit on top of the vehicle. And that payload-carrying capability will reduce tourist ticket prices, says Han. They also intend to make it reusable, so each plane should be good for up to 50 flights.”
Go high enough in the atmosphere, and eventually you’ll reach space. That is assuming a vehicle can, somehow, carry itself there–as the atmosphere thins, traditional flight becomes difficult and then impossible. Getting to space takes a rocket, sometimes carried by an airplane, like Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, which blasts off from the underbelly of its White Knight Two transport–or it takes a rocket launch from a platform on the ground. A state-backed firm in China wants to get rid of all the extra parts, instead completing the entire process with one rocket-powered spaceplane that takes off like a rocket, and returns to earth like a shuttle.
China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in Beijing said that it has designed a simple, one-piece spaceplane whose design can be scaled up to carry more people, academy rocket scientist Lui Haiquang told the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico.
The announcement comes days after Space X Founder Elon Musk detailed his ambitious plans to colonize mars.