On Jun 9, 9:37 am, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 8/06/2011 10:57 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
...
What is "real space tourism" and why don't suborbital flights count?

I mean it's not a stepping stone. In particular, it's not a stepping
stone to space tourism that involves orbiting the planet.

Sylvia

It can be. You have to learn how to crawl before you can walk. The US
launched many suborbital sounding rockets before Explorer I was
successfully placed into orbit.
If we are to make a comparison of the step from suborbital flight to
orbital flight I prefer to looked at staged rockets, rather than air
launched vehicles such as the X-15 and SpaceShipTwo. The reason is the
X-15 didn't lead directly to an orbital flight program.
The other suborbital tourism ventures besides Virgin Galactic will be
using vertically launched rockets rather than air launched vehicles.
They expect to be making their first test flights this year or the
next. I'm pretty confident they can accomplish at least unmanned
suborbital flights within this time frame.
The Redstone family of rockets capable of suborbital flight led to
orbital versions:

Redstone (rocket family).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstone_(rocket_family)

According to this page, the first unmanned suborbital flight took
place in 1953. This led to a upgraded version launching Explorer I to
orbit in 1958.


Bob Clark