Another Space Tourism Entry

Space Adventures is teaming with Armadillo Aerospace to offer suborbital flights to the edge of space at some point in the near future. The flights would be vertically-launched by a rocket Armadillo is developing and would reach an altitude of at least 62 miles. The launch experience, therefore, would give tourists something of the feel of the earliest flights by Mercury astronauts, for example.

That feel would be in contrast to what the assumed leader in suborbital tourism, Virgin Galactic, offers. Instead of the classic rocket launch, VG's suborbital spaceship would be carried aloft by plane and upon reaching the necessary altitude the spaceship would separate from the plane and ignite its own rocket to push higher. Another contrast is the ticket price. SA intends to offer its flights at about half the price quoted by VG.

Eric Anderson, president of SA and no relation to this writer, plans to reveal more details about the agreement at the International Space Development Conference in Chicago later this month. Getting into suborbital, though, fills out SA's offerings. It already offers orbital flights aboard Soyuz capsules to the ISS. for several million dollars, and it is offering a circumnavigation of the Moon in a Soyuz. So far, there have been no takers on the lunar voyage.