Feasibility Study and Future Projections of Suborbital Space Tourism at the Example of Virgin Galactic

Bachelorarbeit von Matthias Otto

Introduction:

Since its very beginning mankind has been enormously impelled by visions. Striving for records and yearning for adventures is as old as humanity itself. Consequently, the Mount Everest was scaled and the depths of the oceans were explored. After thousands of years it seems that all adventures on Mother Earth have been done. We have always been fascinated by the unknown and the mysterious things, and which territory is more unknown than the Outer Space? Almost everyone has watched movies dealing with this topic, but scarcely anybody has ever set foot on non-Earth area. However, what still seems unimaginable might soon become daily routine. Trips to London, Paris or New York? Why not travel into the endlessness of space one time? Private ventures are currently planning to capitalise on this market niche: spaceports are built, special vehicles are under development, and tickets for suborbital space flights can already be purchased. The start of the Space Race has been heralded. In doing so, safety is the supplier’s top priority. Hitherto, the offer is narrowed down to the wealthy members of our society - a flight costs some hundred thousand dollars. However, the companies expect prices to go down significantly if demand is steadily increasing, which will be the cornerstone for mass space tourism. It might be unbelievable at present, but the first steps towards fulfilling this vision have been taken.

This work deals with the topic space tourism, more specifically the author introduces a Feasibility Study and Future Projections of Suborbital Space Tourism, which is demonstrated at the example of Virgin Galactic. In doing so, the core objective of the present work is to analyse and evaluate whether the emerging suborbital space tourism has the potential to turn into a viable and revenue-generating industry in the near future.

In order to answer this research question, there is a plethora of crucial aspects that will be investigated. First of all, the author comes up with general aspects on space tourism, including an overview about the history of space exploration and tourism, followed by the motives for going to space, the benefits as well as the obstacles of space tourism, and finally its different stages. This information builds the cornerstone for the further analysis. Afterwards, there will be the actual feasibility study and the future projections of suborbital space tourism. At this point, it should be noticed that the feasibility study will be the largest part of the present work since it delivers facts, whereas the future projections are rather based on these facts. A feasibility study in general is a study with the goal of determining a project’s viability. According to these results, a decision can be made whether to proceed with the project or whether to cease it. The feasibility study in the present work consists of the Virgin Galactic approach, an analysis of the direct competitors in suborbital space tourism, an analysis of suborbital reusable launch vehicles and their manufacturers, an overview about the regulatory framework as well as about non-profit space tourism organisations, and finally it consists of the suborbital space tourism demand. At the end there will be a conclusion, which contains the most vital results of the feasibility study and, more importantly, the answer to the research question. In general, the author provides an overview about the content as well as an indication of the used literature in the beginning of each chapter. On the whole, sources of information are the Internet and publications in terms of books or reports, which will provide the basics for this work. Additionally, the author comes up with results from personal interviews conducted with experts that are either employed in companies related to space tourism or that are investigating on this topic. Normally, such an interview consists of five to seven target-oriented questions. The author conducted the interviews either via telephone or via email contact. This work will be finalised by providing the bibliography, the appendix, as well as the affidavit.

Table of Contents:

Text Sample:

Chapter 3.2, Analysis of Virgin Galactic’s Direct Competitors in Suborbital Space Tourism: In this chapter the author provides an analysis of the current and most promising suborbital space operators, which are supposed to directly compete with Virgin Galactic. Companies that are taken into consideration sell the tickets, offer the needed flight infrastructure and, most importantly, conduct the actual flights. Naturally, the main source of general information is the homepage of each company. In order to provide specific information, the author comes up with several interviews conducted with employees of investigated companies, but there will also be additional sources.

As already pointed out, Virgin Galactic is supposed to be the first mover in offering suborbital space flights to the public. However, the company is facing many serious competitors. In particular, these are Space Adventures, Benson Space Company, Space Access, Incredible Adventures, Rocketplane Limited, Starchaser Industries, and Blue Origin. Each evaluation consists of a short history of the company, its vision, news, its partners, and its current state of operations including the suborbital space flight program, the proposed spaceport(s) as well as the vehicle(s). At the end of this chapter the author will come up with a summary of all companies competing in suborbital space tourism.

Chapter 3.2.1, Space Adventures: Space Adventures, based in Vienna, USA, is a private space exploration company that was founded in 1998 and is currently headed by Eric Anderson. As already mentioned, the company was responsible for successfully launching the first paying travellers to space, which were Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Dr. Greg Olsen, Anousheh Ansari, and Dr. Charles Simonyi.

The vision defined by the company is „to really open up the private space flight industry”.

On July 22, 2002, Space Adventures signed a marketing agreement with XCOR Aerospace, which enables the company „to offer the first 600 flights to 62 miles altitude aboard XCOR’s Xerus suborbital vehicle.”.Almost six years later, on March 19, 2008, the company announced that is has completed the acquisition of the Zero Gravity Corporation, a FAA-approved entertainment and tourism company with headquarters in Florida and Las Vegas. In doing so, Space Adventures aims at strengthening its market position and at broadening its offer since the Zero Gravity Corporation is specialised on weightless flights and already served more than 5.000 customers hitherto. By the way, the company won a research and training contract from NASA worth up to $25 million. Moreover, Space Adventures announced that Richard Garriot will be the next civilian to fly into space, with a flight scheduled for October 12, 2008.

Current partners of the company are U.S. Airways, Hard Rock Café Dubai, Pepsi, Volkswagen Brazil, and the Oracle Corporation, all which gave away seats on suborbital, zero-gravity, and edge of space flights on behalf of Space Adventures.

Coming to the suborbital space flight program, the company has set the price for such a flight at $102.000, with a $4.000 cancellation insurance included. Arising from a personal interview with Space Adventure’s Vice President of Marketing, Tom Shelley, the actual experience will be as follows: „There will be a few days of training before the flight, which will give people an insight into the technology that is involved and the actual process of taking people into space, but it will also be a very fun experience. And then the flight itself will be a mixture of the thrill of high G thrust as the engine fire takes people up into space and the very gentle sensation of floating a little bit in weightlessness and admiring the view out of the window of the Earth below, so it will be a very mixed experience of adrenaline and a very emotional experience of people.” At Space Adventures, one does not disclose the date the company is planning to launch first commercial flights since „there are still some hurdles on spacecraft to overcome.” Furthermore, Mr. Shelley explained that there is no single defined spacecraft at present to be used for the company’s suborbital flights. Above all, he stated that „there are many companies who are working on designing spacecrafts that will take people into suborbital space, so it is a question of whether one company succeeds or if many companies succeed and I can not say there is just one company where the demand is sufficiently high and that there maybe is one design of spacecraft.” However, a hint on potential spaceships the company might use in the future was found on Space Adventure’s old homepage. In particular, possible vehicles are the C-21, Xerus, Ascender, and the Pioneer XP, some of which will be described in the course of this work.

An important topic that has not been finalised so far is the place where Space Adventure’s future suborbital flights will be launched from. According to the company, „there is no single defined location at the moment” but „there are spaceports in development in Singapore and in the Middle East.” Mr. Shelley also confirmed that the company has already received concrete bookings for suborbital flights, but he did not disclose the number of total bookings.

Chapter 3.2.2, Benson Space Company: Benson Space Company, based in Poway, USA, is a private sector corporation that was founded by Jim Benson in 2006. Benson, who also founded Compusearch, stepped down as CEO of SpaceDev, an entrepreneurial space systems company, before starting his space tourism venture.

The company’s vision is „to provide the first, safest, and lowest cost astronaut-making space flights for the emerging personal space flight market.” Since Benson Space Company was established no more than two years ago, there have not been a lot of press releases so far. An important event for the company took place on December 14, 2006, when Vietnam veteran and retired NASA astronaut Robert Gibson joined the company as chief operating officer and chief test pilot. Due to his broad experience, his first fields of work at Benson Space Company were and still are to manage the contract with SpaceDev for the work on the spaceship as well as to prepare its test flight program.

At present, the only partner of the company is above mentioned SpaceDev, which is responsible for developing the spaceship’s technology.

According to the company, ticket prices have not yet been officially determined, but are supposed to be between $200.000 and $300.000. Like other businesses, Benson Space Company offers pre-flight training that can be individually chosen by the customers. People can „come in and fly the same day, or enjoy (...) training and pre-flight preparation, and take the journey into space on the third day.” And then the actual flight experience, which will be FAA-licensed, is as follows: The spaceship will launch vertically from the ground and climbs up to an altitude of about 65 miles (approximately 105 kilometres), with G forces steadily increasing. After some minutes of experiencing weightlessness and watching the Earth from above, the spaceship begins its fall, re-enters the atmosphere, and finally „glides to a soft landing.” The total length of the flight is supposed to be less than fifteen minutes. Afterwards, there will be a ceremony including the disposal of the astronaut wings. Benson Space Company will conduct test flights in 2008 and plans to begin commercial space travel in 2009, presumably with one flight per day. The company’s proposed vehicle is called Dream Chaser, which will be explained in the course of this work. For its future operations concerning suborbital space tourism Benson Space Company plans with three vehicles of this type. Furthermore, the venture is considering various launch sites, „including the Mojave Spaceport in California, the Kennedy Space Center and Titusville’s Space Coast in Florida, the Southwest Regional Spaceport in New Mexico, the Maryland and Virginia Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport near NASA Wallops, and Nevada.” (Benson Space Company, 2007) There was no hint on the homepage concerning the number of concrete bookings at the time of writing this work.

Chapter 3.2.3,Sace Access: Space Access, based in Huntertown, USA, is a privately held company engaged in the aerospace industry that was founded by Stephen G. Wurst in 1994. Over the last years the company has established concepts to develop the world’s fastest aircraft.

Space Access’ vision is to deliver „safe, reliable, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective access to space for the benefit of the whole world.” On January 6, 2008, the company started its five-day SpaceGatewayExperience event, an opportunity for people to take part in the development of Space Access’ first commercial hypersonic (at least five times faster than the speed of sound) vehicle and to learn about the used technology.

The company does not mention any partners, but gives a hint on its homepage. Precisely, Space Access has several „subcontractors” and „there is a tremendous wealth of companies with facilities and personnel qualified and eager to work for SA.” General information on the space flight program is provided in the FAQ section of the company. The price of a ticket has not yet been fixed, but „suborbital flights can be compared to an ocean cruise in price.” Before the actual flight, there will be some days of training, a program that is currently developed in conjunction with the FAA. The spaceship, with two pilots and one cabin attendant aboard, will then take off like a normal airplane and ascends with forces of up to two times the force of gravity. Floating in weightlessness will last several minutes, before the spaceship descends for returning to the spaceport. The whole flight is supposed to last approximately 30 minutes. Space Access plans to conduct suborbital flights in 2012 and is going to operate fifteen or more flights a day. The company’s proposed vehicle is a RLV called Skyhopper, which will also be explained in the course of this work. Space Access is going to build a fleet consisting of eight vehicles. According to Stephen Wurst, the suborbital flights will take place at Corpus Christi in Texas. No concrete information on when and how to make a reservation was offered on the company’s homepage at the time of writing this work.

Chapter 3.2.4, Incredible Adventures: Incredible Adventures, based in Sarasota, USA, is a business specialised in offering a range of adventure programs, including Russian space training, high-altitude jet flights, and space flights. The company exists since 1993, initially under the name MIGS etc. In 1996, controlling interest in the company was sold to venture capitalist Norman Fast. Currently, Jane Reifert is the president of the company.

The vision defined by the company is „to deliver the most incredible adventures available at the fairest possible price.” On October 4, 2004, Incredible Adventures made a marketing agreement with Rocketplane Limited, a company engaged in space travel. In detail, the companies decided on jointly taking reservations for Rocketplane’s suborbital space flights. On December 12, 2007, the company announced that it would already offer more than 30 different adventures in 8 countries hitherto.

As mentioned above, a current partner of the company is Rocketplane Limited. Furthermore, Incredible Adventures made a plethora of promotions over the past years, including programs in conjunction with Ford, Maggi, Budweiser, and Dr Pepper, just to name some of them. Last but not least, the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center at Star City, Russia, is used in order to prepare clients for space travel.

Arising from a short enquiry of the author about the different offers at Incredible Adventures, Mrs. Reifert stated that „we are not directly involved in suborbital space tourism (...) we will help to sell seats on suborbital flights and help to sell or organize training for participants, but we aren't building or planning to operate a vehicle ourselves.” Since the company has broad experience and is very engaged in space-related operations, it is considered being kind of a competitor to other businesses in the author’s opinion.

Due to the fact that the company’s suborbital flights will be carried out by Rocketplane Limited, information on the ticket prices, space flight program, proposed spaceport and the proposed vehicle is provided in the following.