Unknown new British company will fly space tourists in five years
Private vaporware: A new and previously completely unknown British rocket company, Starchaser, has claimed today that it will be flying tourists into space within three to five years.
How do I know this is vaporware and won’t happen? Besides the fact that I’ve never heard of this company before and that the story above includes a lot of fishy details (such as the head of the company has apparently most spent his time building large model rockets), there was this one quote:
The flight will only take an hour and will see the rocket reach around 330,000ft – ten times the average cruising altitude for an aeroplane flight.
An hour is too short for an orbital flight, and is much too long for a suborbital flight at 330,000 feet. In other words, something here is just not right. Regardless, I hope my cynicism here turns out to be wrong, and this company joins the new competition to lower costs into space.
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Private vaporware: A new and previously completely unknown British rocket company, Starchaser, has claimed today that it will be flying tourists into space within three to five years.
How do I know this is vaporware and won’t happen? Besides the fact that I’ve never heard of this company before and that the story above includes a lot of fishy details (such as the head of the company has apparently most spent his time building large model rockets), there was this one quote:
The flight will only take an hour and will see the rocket reach around 330,000ft – ten times the average cruising altitude for an aeroplane flight.
An hour is too short for an orbital flight, and is much too long for a suborbital flight at 330,000 feet. In other words, something here is just not right. Regardless, I hope my cynicism here turns out to be wrong, and this company joins the new competition to lower costs into space.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I remember these guys! They had a rocket (or maybe a mockup) on display at the 2007 X-Prize cup at Holloman AFB in New Mexico. It looked a bit small for a 100km launch of a person, though. The plan at the time was for the capsule to descend with a paraglider-type chute, landing somewhat horizontally. I hadn’t heard a thing about them since. Looking at the photo in the link above, it’s the exact same rocket – so they’ve made zero visible progress in 9 years. Here’s a few photos I took of it there:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/musematt11/1802435925/in/album-72157602795784583/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/musematt11/1803277294/in/album-72157602795784583/
Interestingly enough, just a few dozen yards away, was an early manufacturing test article of a SpaceX Dragon capsule. A lot has changed in 9 years with that!
Matt in AZ
Maybe one could, as a swindler, earn money by painting a trunk of wood white, put a hat and some fins on it, and drive around with it on a truck to pretend being doing space. Some enthusiasts and politicians will readily donate, imagining they help space flight. After having been released from jail, for unrelated crimes, they brought this thing out of the garage again.
The web link to Starchaser for those interested is http://www.starchaser.co.uk/. Their main focus seems to be educational outreach and Retail, having kep’t an eye of them over the years Elon will be on Mars long before they get into orbit.
I note the word “orbit” appears only in the headline. Given the general standard of journalistic malpractice these days, that doesn’t surprise me in the least. Nothing in the text of the article or the reported remarks of the company CEO suggest anything but a sub-orbital flight. The CEO even uses the word “hop.”
That said, I’m in rough agreement with ZimmerBob about the likelihood of these folks getting any other folks off the ground.
Matt in AZ wrote: “The plan at the time was for the capsule to descend with a paraglider-type chute, landing somewhat horizontally.”
This might explain the extra time of the flight. It could take a while to glide the last few kilometers back. Their website says a flight should take about 20 minutes: “This will enable the capsule to be flown back to the launch area for a controlled soft landing some 20 minutes after lift off.”
http://www.starchaser.co.uk/space_tourism_mission_scen.php
If they already have a rocket and capsule ready for test, then they may be able to make their five-year start date, if testing goes well. Blue Origin has been testing their New Shepard system for about four years, and they seem to be a year or so away from starting their own operations. Blue Origin has been working on for New Shepard over a decade.
Edward: “If they already have a rocket and capsule ready for test” – that’s usually the catch, isn’t it?