Commercial passenger flights into space could be authorised in the United States by 2008, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta told a group of space entrepreneurs on Thursday.
Based on test flights of privately developed passenger spacecraft planned for next year, Mineta said, the department could issue licenses for commercial flights by 2008.
”The timeline isn’t based on science fiction,” he said in a statement released by the department.
”It is a timeline based on the reality of where commercial space is today and where we expect the state of commercial space to be within two short years.”
”We will move quickly to green-light flights that we know are safe,” he told the Ninth Annual Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington.
Mineta’s comments came just months after SpaceShipOne, developed by US investors and space enthusiasts, snatched a $10-million prize as the first private spacecraft to prove its mettle in two closely scheduled launches last October.
SpaceShipOne, developed by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, also smashed the sub-orbital flight altitude record, reaching 112km in its nearly 90-minute second flight in five days.
In December, British Virgin Group tycoon Richard Branson announced plans to build a commercial spaceport in New Mexico to launch his new Virgin Galactic space tourism business based on a second-generation, eight-passenger SpaceShipTwo that Rutan is developing.
With the southwestern US state also putting money into the project, construction could start as early as this year.
Branson said Rutan’s company, which is partly financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, plans to build five of the new spacecraft, as well as a launch vehicle for them.
The prototype is expected to be finished next year and test flights are to start in 2008, according to Virgin.
Tickets for the first flights, which could start in 2009-2010, are expected to cost about $200 000, and about 40 000 people have already signed up, the company said in December. – AFP
