A ride into space costs about $20 million today. In the next few years, entrepreneurs intend to offer rides for $200,000. But for those without a huge disposable income, two companies have offered the chance to win sub-orbital space trips.
SpaceShot has announced it will host a series of online games over the next few months, in which players will compete for a Rocketplane spaceflight. The company has not yet released details of the game. “But it’s not going to be a shoot-em-up video game,” SpaceShot CEO Sam Dinkin told 91av.
The entry fee will be less than $5, and the company expects to collect more than enough to cover the cost of the flight. Dinkin says it will not be a once-only contest, but anticipates an ongoing series of competitions.
Rocketplane XP, a converted Lear jet, aims to make its first test flights in 2006 from the spaceport in Burns Flat, Oklahoma, US. It could start hauling people to the edge of space – 100 kilometres up – as early as 2007. The online winners will be among the first passengers, Dinkin says.
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Virgin Galactic is about to launch its own online game with a space trip as the prize. Scaled Composites, the California company that won the X Prize, is building the suborbital craft SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic. It could fly as early as 2008.
