Passenger market for suborbital flights.

Just saw this article on Rocketplane XP, which plans to offer
suborbital, tourism rocket flights, while using jet engines for take-
offs and landings:

Rocketplane reset
by Jeff Foust
Monday, November 5, 2007

The revised Rocketplane XP design (above) is intended ultimately to be
more competitive in the emerging suborbital space tourism conference.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/994/1

The Second Space Age.
March 6, 2008
Patrick Mahoney
"Ready for a space cruise? The technology is taxiing to the runway."
http://machinedesign.com/article/the...space-age-0306

Rocketplane XP's current design was modified from the original Lear
Jet base airframe but still has the look of a passenger business jet,
with a rocket in the tail.
It has some titanium and steel portions to withstand the heat of
reentry in addition to an aluminum frame. This makes it heavier than a
Lear Jet and it has to use a long military base runway for take-offs
and landings. However, quite likely if it used all composite
materials, as does SpaceShipOne, to replace the heavy steel, titanium,
and aluminum it could take off and land from a standard sized airport
runway.


Bob Clark