NEW YORK -- Traffic cops beware, there's a whole
new league of speed demon in town.
A private
group of rocketeers has banded together to create the
Rocket Racing League with aims at blurring the line between competitive racing
and human spaceflight. Their vision: A fleet of at least 10 stock rocket planes
flown by crack pilots through a three-dimensional track 5,000 feet above the
Earth.
"This is
where innovation begins," said league co-founder Peter
Diamandis, who unveiled the new rocket league
here today, in an interview. "It's all part of the same...mission, which is to
make space personally accessible to the public."
Diamandis,
who also founded the $10 million Ansari X Prize suborbital competition for
private piloted spacecraft and the Zero Gravity
Corp. for weightless flights aboard a modified airplane, envisions a
NASCAR-like competition with regional contests leading to a final showdown for
prize money.
That final
showdown will be held each year in Las Cruces New Mexico, which will host the first X Prize Cup
exhibition on Oct. 9 to promote private spaceflight and X Prize contenders.
Meanwhile, SpaceShipOne--the winning X Prize entry developed by
aerospace veteran Burt Rutan and funded by
millionaire Paul Allen--has been donated to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and will be unveiled on Oct. 5.
"I think
this is going to change the face of racing competitions," said rocket league
co-founder and president Granger Whitelaw, who has spent 18 years in the auto
racing field. "It's like a new [National Football League]."
The Rocket
Racing League will feature customizable X-Racer planes based on the EZ-Rocket
design developed by Mojave, California's XCOR Aerospace, which will build the first generation of X-Racers. A prototype
X-Racer will be demonstrated at the upcoming X Prize Cup, league officials
said.
Diamandis said the first rocket races, currently slated for October 2006, are expected to
see four X-Racer planes compete alongside one another, with the full 10-plane
group to follow in 2007. While the initial set of racers will be built for the
league, officials are actively searching for interested sponsors, teams and
pilots, he added.
Like the
EZ-Rocket, the prototype X-Racer features two, 400-pound thrust rocket engines
fueled by liquid oxygen and alcohol. A belly-mounted fuel tank carries just under three minutes' worth of fuel and allows a top speed of about 218 miles an hour (190 knots), said former shuttle astronaut Rick Searfoss, who serves as chief pilot for both XCOR and the Rocket Racing League.
But the
first full-up races are expected to see at least four X-Racer planes compete,
each equipped with a single 1,800-pound thrust engine fueled by liquid oxygen
and kerosene.
The liquid
oxygen/kerosene fuel mix is expected to have a burn time of about four minutes,
which would force pilots to repeatedly shut down their engines and glide, then restart as needed to surpass opponents, explained Searfoss, who will demonstrate the method during the
upcoming prototype demonstration.
Onboard heads-up
displays are also expected to project each pilot's "flight tunnel" or lane in
order to stay on course, league officials added.
Because of
their fuel type, X-Racers should also generate a 20-foot flame easily visible
from the ground, which will be vital for spectators, Diamandis said.
"Imagine
not one, but 10 of these fire-breathing dragons flying around a race course,"
he added.
Current
league plans call for a Grand Prix-type competition in which X-Racers stagger
their takeoffs and fly side-by-side in lanes spaced a few hundred feet apart.
Cockpit cameras, global positioning systems and even a planned "virtual X-Racer
league" - which league officials hope will allow video game fans to race
alongside actual flyers during races - are on the drawing board to engage
public interest in human spaceflight, league officials said.
"It's got
to be participatory," Diamandis said, adding that only by engaging the public - and more importantly young people - can a general
interest in human spaceflight be supported. "It's about bringing 21st
century racing into people's living rooms."
advertisement
