With last Thursday’s successful test launch of a model of the
Starchaser rocket, Britain took the lead in trying to capture the X PRIZE. The team's next great race is for more time and dollars.
Of the 17 or so contenders for the X PRIZE, the recent successful test leapfrogs Starchaser over most of the competition. "We’re definitely in the top three," says project leader Steve Bennett. "We’re the only ones who are flying rockets at this stage."
But Bennett is still short on time and money. "Realistically we’re about 25 percent of the way there. What we really need is the cash. Once we’ve got the funding, then it’s just a question of working against the clock."
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The effort may receive an extra boost with money from Microsoft and The Discovery Channel.
Starchaser project leader Steve Bennett, with his rocket in the background.
The $10 million X PRIZE will be awarded to the first private three-person crew that reaches space, defined as 62 miles (100 kilometers) high, in the same launch vehicle twice within 14 days.
"It has done exactly what it was meant to do, so I am very, very happy," Bennett said right after the 23-foot- (7-meter-) long Starchaser Discovery achieved a maximum speed of 700 m.p.h. (1,100 kilometers per hour) in just under three seconds. "My space dream is no longer pie in the sky."
Next steps
The next step is to scale everything up. The rocket's one-tenth scale and ultimate altitude are primarily limited by strict controlled airspace restrictions in Britain.
"As soon as we get the money we need, we’re going to go ahead and do it. I don’t see any real technical issues and problems ahead. We just need bigger everything," says Bennett.
Starchaser is building a mobile rocket launcher on the back of trailer truck that will be reminiscent of a Russian mobile missile launcher.
According to Bennett, "Our next major target is to send up a rocket capable of carrying a pilot into space. We’re now extremely confident we can do that before the end of 2001, which would be very poetic." Flights carrying tourists would start in 2003.
Ticket to ride
This rocket will be single-stage-to-space, but break into two stages for safety reasons shortly before landing. The15-minute flight will be similar to
Alan Shepard’s first Mercury flight. The rocket will not go into orbit: it’s a ballistic straight up and down into space. Passengers will experience five minutes of weightlessness at apogee. They’ll see the curvature of Earth and the darkness of space. When it returns to Earth, steerable parachutes will guide it to a landing site.
The Starchaser vehicle probably won’t be the type of ship that will regularly ferry people and cargo into space, but Bennett hopes it will jump-start the
space tourism industry. "Just like Charles Lindbergh built his airplane to fly across the Atlantic and nothing else. We’re building a rocket specifically to win the X PRIZE."
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Bennett will be in the pilot seat too. "I really want to fly in that rocket. Even if someone wins the X PRIZE and beats us to it, I’m still going to build that rocketship and I’m still going to fly it."
In addition to the pilot, there are two empty seats available. The first chair will go to the person with the fastest and fattest wallet. The current asking price is $190,000 (£125,000). If it isn’t sold by January 1, 2001, the ticket price will double.
Bennett says that he expects the seat is worth $1.5 million (£1 million), so he’s currently selling it at an eighth of its value. "I think that’s a small price to pay to be the Charles Lindbergh of the 21st century."
That’s still a cheaper ride than the $10 million a U.S. scientist recently paid to stay aboard the
Russian Space Station Mir. "There are certain risks," admits Bennett. Russian rocketry "is old engineering but it works. Our technology is adapting existing technology in news ways."
"We do have people contacting us regularly about buying the seat, but none have put their hand in their pocket and written a check."
The third seat will be awarded in an internet lottery. But as the Starchaser site states: "No bucks, no Buck Rogers."
Sponsorship
One of the early sponsors was a big British sugar company. "A lot of the early launches I did used sugar as a propellant." Now that he’s importing fuel from the United States (similar to the fuel used by the space shuttles), his alliance with the sugar company has dissolved.
But some famous names are contributing dollars to the project. "We’ve reached a critical mass of sponsorship now," says Bennett. Both The Discovery Channel and Microsoft sponsored Thursday’s launch and "they’re both talking about sponsoring the project long term."
Microsoft and Discovery Channel put "quite a lot of cash in the last launch." Bennett won’t say how much. Both firms were cautious about the launch. From a technical and publicity point of view, the launch went well. Many news outlets carried shots of the rocket with the Discovery Channel and Microsoft logos.
Discovery Channel, which is making a short film about the Starchaser program, even had the name of the rocket changed to Starchaser Discovery. Currently, the plan is that the ultimate X PRIZE vehicle will be called Thunderbird (inspired by the 1960s science-fiction puppet show of the same name).
Why is Microsoft interested in the X PRIZE? They’re looking at the rocket as a promotional vehicle. Bennett realizes that Microsoft gambled on the launch. "If it had crashed, the press would’ve said that Microsoft is crashing again."
Bennett doesn’t want to give the impression that he’s about to go on a rocket shopping spree with Bill Gates’ credit card. "Let’s see what happens. They say they want to sponsor us long term, but I haven’t got that blank check yet."
Does Bill Gates want that seat? "Nothing like that. We’re dealing with a little finger of a small arm of [the] Microsoft Empire. Bill Gates probably isn’t aware that Microsoft is sponsoring us."
But wouldn't some people in the computer industry pay 10 times the ticket price to put Bill Gates in space?
"You’re probably right, but they wouldn’t want me to bring him back down again."
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