Future Plans for Space Travel Created by Manish Chetty, Connor Handley, Matthew Hansen

Focus Question What are the future concept designs for commercial space travel and tourism?

Contents US President Barack Obama’s predictions on space travel Space travel concepts, Sir Richard Branson’s “Mothership Eve”, Space ship one, The Space bus, The Ascender Space Hotels Bibliography

Barack Obama’s Predictions for space travel US President Barack Obama predicted his new space exploration plans will lead American astronauts to Mars and back in his lifetime, a bold forecast relying on rockets and propulsion still to be imagined and built. He wants to be around to see it and wants to make a new revolution. He is predicting by 2025 the nation will have a new robust aircraft. Obama said he was "100 percent committed to the mission of NASA and its future”.

Sir Richard Branson’s “Mothership Eve” Sir Richard Branson’s “Mothership Eve” is a possible aircraft part of the future of commercial space travel. The aircraft was tested at the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual AirVenture convention in Oshkosh, USA, and Richard Branson hopes to use the aircraft to carry a spaceship in the upper atmosphere and then detach the spaceship which travels 100km into space.

Space Ship One Spaceship One Spaceship One is a three-place, high-altitude research rocket, designed for sub-orbital flights to 100 km altitude. The unique shape allows aircraft-like qualities for boost, glide, and landing. The ship converts to a stable, high-drag shape for atmospheric entry. This “care-free” configuration allows a “hands-off” re-entry and greatly reduces aero/thermal loads. Designed for a “shirt- sleeve” environment, the 60” diameter cabin has is space-qualified, as well as dual-pane windows. The ship uses three flight control systems - manual-subsonic, electric-supersonic and cold-gas RCS. Space Ship One’s hybrid rocket motor is a non-toxic, liquid nitrous-oxide/rubber- fuel hybrid propulsion system.

The Spacebus Spacebus is designed to carry fifty people or equivalent cargo. Spacebus would be used for launching medium satellites and as a general-purpose launch vehicle, but its main use would be for transporting tourists and supplies to and from space hotels. A useful comparison can be made with a new supersonic or hypersonic airliner. The cost per flight would be approximately $125,000 (250 passengers at $500 each). Such an airliner would be of comparable size and shape to the lower stage of Spacebus.

The Ascender Ascender carries one pilot and one passenger or experiment. The passenger remains strapped in his/her seat during the flight. Ascender takes off from an ordinary airfield using its turbo-fan engine and climbs at subsonic speed to a height of 8 km. The pilot then starts the rocket engine and pulls up into a steep climb. Ascender has a maximum speed of around Mach 3 on a steep climb and can reach a height of 100 km. At that time, the passenger will see superb views of Earth and will see the sky turn black even in daytime. Then Ascender enters a steep dive, where a passenger can experience two minutes of weightlessness. On reaching the atmosphere, the pilot pulls out of the dive and flies back to the airfield from which they took off 30 minutes previously. Ascender would be the first spaceplane capable of taking off under its own power and of making several flights to space per day. Ascender could be flying in three years as a research aeroplane, and carrying passengers on space experience flights within seven years.

The galactic suite A future space hotel promoted by a Spanish company is set to launch in It will cost $4.5 million for three nights stay, and people will be transported by their spaceship will be a space tourism spacecraft designed to carry at least four passengers and two pilot-astronauts into orbit, at a speed of 28,000km/h to an altitude of 400km, using a double hybrid rocket engine (DHRE). It will also include new solutions to optimize both the passenger experience in space.

Bibliography Websites: unveiled plans-space-hotel Book: License to Orbit: The Future of Commercial Space Travel (Apogee Books Space Series) by Joseph Pelton, Peter Marshall

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