NewSpace firm XCOR has announced it plans to begin commercial operations with its Lynx suborbital spacecraft next year. Lynx will begin taking tourists to the edge of space from Mojave, California, in 2013, according to the company, and the plan is to expand operations to flights from the Caribbean island of Curacao in 2014.
Lynx is a spacecraft right out of futuristic science fiction. It's sleek and small, taking off from and landing on a runway. Lynx seats two, a pilot and a passenger, and a ticket goes for $95,000, less than half the price of a Virgin Galactic ticket. VG also plans to begin commercial flights next year. XCOR plans to be able to fly the same Lynx up to four times a day.
Since Lynx can only fly one paying passenger at a time, XCOR's economic model has to be different than that of a company like VG, but, so far, it has 175 reservations for Lynx flights. That's not a bad start.
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