Space anyone?

[Fagin]

U.S. Company Plans $265M Spaceport in UAE

Sat Feb 18, 12:45 AM ET

LOS ANGELES - A day after Space Adventures announced it was in a venture to develop rocket ships for suborbital flights, the company said Friday it plans to build a $265 million spaceport in the United Arab Emirates.

The commercial spaceport would be based in Ras Al-Khaimah near the southern end of the Persian Gulf, and the UAE government has made an initial investment of $30 million, the Arlington, Va.-based company said in a statement.

The spaceport announcement comes on the heels of Space Adventures' new partnership with an investment firm founded by major sponsors of the Ansari X Prize to develop rocket ships for suborbital flights.

The agreement between Space Adventures and the Texas-based venture capital firm Prodea would help finance suborbital vehicles being designed and built by the Russian aerospace firm Myasishchev Design Bureau.

Space Adventures is best known for sending the first three space tourists to the orbiting international space station for a reported $20 million a person.

Space Adventures' jump into the infant suborbital flight industry comes at a time when several companies already are designing spaceships to take paying passengers on short trips up into space and then back to Earth without circling the globe.

Last December, British tycoon Richard Branson announced development of a $225 million spaceport in southern New Mexico, which will be the headquarters of Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism company.

Virgin Galactic is contracting with Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites to develop a suborbital spaceship based on SpaceShipOne technology.

Flying out of Mojave, Calif., SpaceShipOne made history on June 21, 2004, as the first privately financed manned rocket to reach space, then made two more flights later that year to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060218/capt.417d847771934428b5d694bd98fd834b.space_tourism_ny109.jpg?x=380&y=292&sig=Wupka2tOmsb3kS3mYYJOFA--

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[Fagin]

That would be a nice trip.

Any takers?

 

[Guest]

 

[Fagin]

I'd love to go into space, but seeing as roller coaster make me queasey, I'll have to pass...
Oh and I'd be a couple dollars short of affording it too

I wonder how much the cost will end up being. A lot less than the $20 million people have paid to go to the Space Station, of course these trips would just be hop and pops. Neverless out of my price range. I still can't afford my dream vacation to Siberia.

 

[Guest]

 

[Peregrinator]

I wonder how much the cost will end up being. A lot less than the $20 million people have paid to go to the Space Station, of course these trips would just be hop and pops. Neverless out of my price range. I still can't afford my dream vacation to Siberia.

Siberia? I'd go, but I'm curious as to why you want to.

I have heard that the Kamchatka is amazing.

 

[Fagin]

Siberia? I'd go, but I'm curious as to why you want to.

I have heard that the Kamchatka is amazing.

History. That's where my grandfather fought in WWI.

An excellent case in point as why not to put your troops under someone else's command.

 

[daWabbit]

I can't wait to go into space. Just waiting for the mothership to pick my ass up off this rock.

 

[Peregrinator]

History. That's where my grandfather fought in WWI.

An excellent case in point as why not to put your troops under someone else's command.

I never even thought of the history. It's a natural-science extravaganza, though.