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RocketPlane claiming to start tourist flights in 2007



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 6th 04, 05:19 PM
Joe Strout
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Default RocketPlane claiming to start tourist flights in 2007

This is interesting -- RocketPlane is accepting reservations for
suborbital tourist flights on their own craft, which they claim will be
flying in 2007:

http://www.rocketplane.com/mediacenter/rliandia.html

Now, clearly there are marketing people at work here; they're offering
essentially the same ride as Virgin Galactic, on the same time scale,
for half the cost.

The chief difference, of course, is that Virgin Galactic is licensing
technology and experience that has actually put a craft into space.
Poking around on the Rocketplane site, it's hard to be sure, but it
looks to me like they haven't actually built anything yet.

So, if they can pull it off, more power to them, but at first blush, 3
years to production flights seems extremely optimistic. But I'm hoping
there is some reason to see these guys as serious competition. Anybody
know anything more about their funding or experience? What are the odds
that they can actually do it (even if a few years late)?

Best,
- Joe

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  #2  
Old October 6th 04, 10:26 PM
Bruce Hoult
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In article ,
Joe Strout wrote:

So, if they can pull it off, more power to them, but at first blush, 3
years to production flights seems extremely optimistic. But I'm hoping
there is some reason to see these guys as serious competition. Anybody
know anything more about their funding or experience? What are the odds
that they can actually do it (even if a few years late)?


Well, in late 1998 or early 1999 they already had vehicles designed to
the point that they could get fixed price quotes for construction from
the "usual suspects". They've juggled the capabilities vs cost thing a
few times since then, but I don't see any reason they couldn't have
something to fly pretty soon after having real money available to spend.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------
  #3  
Old October 7th 04, 03:04 PM
Joe Strout
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Default

In article ,
Bruce Hoult wrote:

Well, in late 1998 or early 1999 they already had vehicles designed to
the point that they could get fixed price quotes for construction from
the "usual suspects". They've juggled the capabilities vs cost thing a
few times since then, but I don't see any reason they couldn't have
something to fly pretty soon after having real money available to spend.


That's often the real hurdle, though -- there are several here who have
great designs they could build if they had the funding, but they
haven't. Even Roton, which got much further than most, died for lack of
adequate investment.

So the real question is, does RocketPlane actually have the money it
needs to develop vehicles over the next three years (for which it needs
to start bending metal *now*, I would think), or are they yet another
outfit selling "tickets" on a vehicle they have no means to build?

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