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| Monday / 2 October 2006 | ||
At Least 9
Suborbital Firms Aiming for Moon.
"Benson Space Company (logos pictured)
will lead the way to the Moon, Asteroids, Mars, and beyond the Stars,"
reads
the
newly created firm's mission statement. Indeed, Founder Jim Benson's
first space start-up, SpaceDev, developed several Moon
missions under contract, including the International Lunar Observatory
(ILO) and the ILO Human
Service Mission. As Benson Space Company attempts to use SpaceDev
spaceships and rockets to become the first suborbital spaceflight
provider, Virgin Galactic and Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) are sitting
on comfortable
leads. Although their websites still aren't up to par with Benson's,
they
have hundreds of reservations for their suborbital trips.
RpK Founder and financier George French has said the Moon is what
is ultimately in his sights. His firm recently announced a partnership with
Andrews Space. The same goes for Virgin Galactic Founder Richard
Branson and spaceship designer
Burt Rutan. Rutan often says he
wishes he were
working on Moon missions, but suborbital is a necessary first step.
"I hope to go to the Moon in my lifetime," he says. Branson starred
in a recent Super Bowl TV commercial in which he takes a rocket trip
from an apparent residence on the
Moon. Space Adventures, also a leading candidate to provide the first
suborbital trips to paying passengers, plans to send humans around
the Moon on a Russia Soyuz before the end of the decade. Blue Origin
Founder Jeff Bezos, in 2001, said,
"If I ever get the chance, I'd like to go investigate the Moon..."
Armadillo Aerospace may be the leading
competitor in the upcoming Lunar Lander Challenge. There's also PlanetSpace
and Canadian Arrow, XCOR, the delusive Sprague Astronautics (claims
suborbital flights by 2006) -- formerly known as Aera, Bristol
Space Planes, Odyssey
Spacelines, Venturer
Space, Starchaser and
probably others that have tossed their hat into the suborbital space
tourism ring and hope to someday reach
the Moon.
The Apollo
Program inspired each of them,
but only Benson and Space Adventures have the legendary Buzz Aldrin
as an advisor. Says Benson, "A new race to space is on!"
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