Welcome to Private Space Plane (PSP-1)!
 
With the success of SpaceShipOne and upcoming commercial version SpaceShipTwo, the doors of Private Space Tourism have been opened. It is only the first step. SpaceShipOne or Two is not really a rocket or a space shuttle that flies all the way into the orbit with a required orbital insertion speed of 25 times speed of sound. It is still only a rocket powered plane that reaches Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound) and only to the fringes of outer space at 62 miles or 100 km up and comes back as a glider. So basically it is still a plane. Still, it is good enough for suborbital flights and such space tourism for which there is a great deal of interest.
We should not forget that the X-15 reached even greater (360,000 ft) height way back in 1958. NASA pretty much abandoned pursuit of Space Plane Development then and even recently with prototypes such as X-34 designed by Orbital Science Corp or X-35 designed by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works which is very hard to understand NASA’s long term space access policy. A true space plane that uses Scram Jet engines and goes all the way into the Earth's orbit is still very expensive and too risky to be developed by a single private company.
A true Space Plane travel to full Earth's orbit at Mach 25 will take some time before it becomes a reality. But when it does it will boost space tourism and Materials Processing in Space (MPS) to the whole new levels. ISS plans to be involved in the development of such fully Orbital Space Plane(s) together with other private companies
Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has signed an exclusive agreement with Rutan's group to build up to 5 next phase SpaceShipTwo systems to be used for tourist suborbital flights by late 2010 or early 2011 at around $200,000 per person. Several other companies with different approach to suborbital flights are gearing up their systems and hardware. The amount of market interest and individuals willing to pay $100,000-$200,000 per suborbital flight is many fold larger then there will be available suborbital flights in the foreseeable future.
ISS has been working on its own suborbital flight system called Private Space Plane 1 or PSP-1. For a carrier aircraft as White Knight is for SpaceShipOne or Two system PSP-1 uses one of the larger commercial aircrafts instead such as Boeing 747 with a rocket powered smaller plane attached on the top of the Boeing 747 that can reach 60-80 miles at suborbital speeds of 3 Mach. This is a very similar configuration to the one used by NASA to transport Shuttles around. ISS may actually attempt to negotiate use of Kennedy Space Center Mate-Demate facility for this purpose.
ISS also plans to lease a used Boeing 747 or sign a Joint Venture Agreement with one of the United States major airlines for use of the same and adapt it for this unique application. ISS also plans to sell seats on these Boeing 747 Flights to many interested observers via www.privatespaceclub.com joining us for each PSP-1 launch and
have a "Private Space Party" at 45,000 ft
for about 400 people. We expect a sold out Boeing 747 for each PSP-1 mission. We have started to receive inquiries and soon we will be offering reservations for such seats that many more can afford.
ISS is also communicating with several private firms already working on several designs and eventual manufacturing of smaller Private Space Planes. Even more aggressively, ISS is also looking into modifying some of the existing planes with smaller solid rocket fuel strap-ons and other modifications to make them suborbital worthy. The ideal way would be to have 2-3 different PSP systems available to fly off of the Boeing-747 and into the sub-orbit. Various options of PSP design can eventually lend themselves to more powerful space planes reaching Mach 10 and greater flight and zero-g times.
We believe Private Space needs and can sustain many more different suborbital space flight systems and approaches. It is no different than when airlines became private. It is the competition and different airline choices and services that drove the industry to its growth and commercial level it enjoys today. Access to Suborbital Private Space will follow a very similar route.
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