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Astrium studies tourist spaceship
By Matthias Gründer
“Astrium to move into space tourism,” was the actual title of the official press release, but Hugues Laporte-Weywada, Deputy Chief Technical Officer in the company's Paris headquarters, dismisses questions on this subject. “No, we are not going to found an Astrium travel agency. Other people will be sending the tourists into space. All we will be doing is building the space plane.” But the “only” is something of an understatement – after all, we are talking about a revolutionary space plane, if it should ever enter into service.
The background to the Space Plane, as the vehicle is still currently designated, could make an interesting anecdote in the future. After all, the idea for the project came about during a seminar for young engineers who were asked to think about future space technologies to be developed by Astrium, including analysis of the market and costs. None of the people who took part in the exercise seriously thought at the time that there was any prospect of realising their “crazy ideas”, but their work was so good that the project subsequently stood up to scrutiny by the Board. The idea of an aircraft dedicated to space travel took shape.
The rationale behind such seminars and possibly off-beat brainstorming sessions is real enough: the European space industry is looking for new tasks and fields of activity. The launch of Columbus is not far away, likewise the ATV, there is still no successor to the Ariane 5 in sight, and the satellite business alone will not pay the salaries bill. The ongoing programmes occupy only a fraction of all the highly qualified specialists, who can hardly be fired. So the industry must itself come up with some marketable ideas which are of interest to the public at large and at the same time will hold the high-tech blacksmiths together.
Hence the idea of a space plane for four people who would experience weightlessness for three minutes at an altitude of 100 kilometres – for a hefty price. Is this the idea that is supposed to be of interest to society? “Not at the moment,” says Laporte-Weywada, “and therefore we don't want any taxpayers' money for it either. The project will be financed purely privately, and we are assuming that we will be able to get all the investors to commit to it by the end of this year. The actual development work will then begin in the spring.”
The approach to realisation of the plans is quite pragmatic. As part of the European EADS conglomerate, Astrium does not need any industrial partners for the system, as all the competencies, from the actual aircraft through to the engines, can be found in-house. The Space Plane design is the creation of the well-known designer, Marc Newson, as it is important for the vehicle to look attractive. But below the shell, it is bristling with the very best in high-tech.
The aircraft will take off in a horizontal direction, powered by two off-the-shelf jet engines, and in a 45 minute flight it will reach an altitude of about twelve kilometres. There a novel methane/liquid oxygen (LOX) engine will be ignited for 80 seconds, causing the passengers to be briefly pressed into their seats by a force of 3g. This will be followed by a three-minute, unpowered parabolic flight in the course of which the aircraft will reach the uppermost point of its trajectory at an altitude of about 100 kilometres above the earth's surface.
There the passengers will be able to gaze through large portholes at our Blue Planet or at the infinite blackness of the universe and float around freely in the generously dimensioned cabin. After that the aircraft will nosedive, causing it to brake aerodynamically in the denser layers of the atmosphere, exposing the passengers to a force of up to 4.5g. This phase will last about a minute, and will be followed by an approximately 30 minute landing approach. After not quite two hours the adventure will be over and the passengers will have firm ground under their feet once more.
The environmentally friendly methane/LOX engine has still to be developed, but here the specialists have a trick up their sleeve: the necessary research programme is in fact currently under way at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and test runs have already taken place on the test rig in Lampoldshausen. Here Astrium is exploiting the right of access to publicly funded research results that everyone has, and as a result is able to make significant cost savings.
The Space Plane will be manned by a single pilot who will not even need much extra training. Experience at piloting medium-sized business jets will be quite sufficient, possibly with a few thousand flying hours on the credit side. The work will not actually be particularly exciting, possibly comparable to the work of an airline pilot who flies from Berlin to Hamburg and back again every day. There is the possibility that these pilots will later be classified as astronauts, as recently happened to all NASA's test pilots who climbed above 80 miles in their aircraft.
The aircraft will apparently take four years to develop and build, so that operations should be able to commence in 2012. Credible market analyses suggest that by 2020 some 15,000 customers a year from around the world might be interested in and willing to pay for such flights. Astrium itself conservatively estimates that it might win about one-third of the market, given that the Anglo-American SpaceShip 2 also has good prospects and that additional competitors could come forward from other quarters. For example, the Russians could surprise everyone by running their own project. After all their public coffers are currently extremely healthy thanks to the sale of oil and, moreover, the country has more than enough millionaires who don't know what to do with their money.
Transporting 5,000 tourists safely into space and back again every year would require five aircraft per year, with a total fleet of 20 after ten years. For safety reasons one can assume only one flight per aircraft per week followed by thorough checks.
Marketing and sales are no longer in the hands of Astrium
On top of this twenty rocket engines per year will have to be produced, and these will need regular replacement. This would be Astrium's share of the project. “Otherwise we will sell the aircraft and engines to interested operators,” says Hugues Laporte-Weywada. Operation, maintenance and marketing are no longer the concern of the manufacturer. The operators in turn could be based anywhere in the world, as the Space Plane can operate from any medium-sized commercial airport. The maintenance bases, the medical centre for looking after the passengers and even other offerings will also be based there. These could include theme parks, hotels, flight simulators, museums, souvenir shops or 3D cinemas – the tourism experts are free to let their imagination soar. Finally there will be a requirement for experienced travel agencies to plan and sell the tickets, but that will no longer be Astrium's concern. Even assuming this all turns into reality, the space specialists are already thinking about new projects.
It is clear that the capacity of the Space Plane will not be fully utilised by purely tourist usage. Such aircraft could also be used for scientific or military purposes or, after a few modifications, serve as superfast business jets for intercontinental connections. The market opportunities are far from having been fully researched and no doubt there will be ideas which no one has yet thought of. At any rate tourism is the starting point.
From FLUG REVUE 12/2007
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