To lighten the load, both spacecraft are made of carbon-composite materials. Swiss adventurer Andre Piccard, a hot-air balloon enthusiast like Branson, is building an experimental aircraft of his own with such lightweight materials.
Piccard aims to take his 1,500-kilogram "Solar Impulse" aircraft around the world using only the power of the sun (Greenwire, October 31, 2008).
"The basic idea of lightweighting spacecraft or aircraft is going to use a lot less fuel," said Frances Arnold, a professor of biochemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. "The same is true of any kind of vehicle."
Virgin Galactic's use of a mother ship, as opposed to a ground-based launch, will also save fuel, said Rob Anderson, a budding Cambridge University scientist. He is one of seven students planning a high-altitude rocket launch later this year.
The "Cambridge University Spaceflight" team's mission is to deliver payload to space as cheaply and efficiently as possible—or for about $32,000, in this case. The team plans to send a helium balloon up 18.6 miles, at which point a rocket would blast solo to an elevation of 62.1 miles.
Anderson said a balloon-based model would work best for small scientific payloads; the latex balloon will eventually pop as its helium expands. But he predicted that the day when lightweight spaceships carry tourists is not too far away.
"At the speed things are going today, I suspect we'll see a lot of it," Anderson added.
'Exciting days'
A half-dozen space tourists have flown to and from the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz rockets since 2001. Two years ago, Google, Inc., and the X Prize Foundation offered $20 million to the first privately funded team that could launch a robot into space, travel at least 500 meters over the moon's surface and send images and data back to Earth by the end of 2012.
Eighteen teams from around the world are vying for the "Google Lunar X Prize," according to the organization's Web site.
Virgin Galactic hopes to fly 500 people to space in its first year of commercial flights and 50,000 over a decade. The Federal Aviation Administration has yet to issue a commercial license to the company, Whitehorn said, so its spaceships must fly in the name of environmental science for now.
When test flights begin next year, Eve and SpaceShipTwo will be equipped with National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration instruments to measure carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases in the upper atmosphere. NOAA's weather balloons are limited to conducting research at about 25,000 feet up, Whitehorn noted.
"Hopefully, we will develop a commercial relationship with them in the future once we get the license," he added.
As for Virgin Galactic's eventual tourists, will they develop a greener relationship with the blue planet they call home?
"If the people who have the money to go up there then decide to devote their resources to saving that little blue gem they see, then that would be a good outcome," offered Caltech's Arnold.
A recent blog post by Britain's Guardian newspaper is less sanguine.
"Why doesn't Virgin Galactic just call it as it is?" the blog petitioned. "Sure, sell your dreams of space flight to the super-rich if you must...but let's not keep up the pretence that it isn't one of the most extravagant and self-centered uses of fossil fuel imaginable."
For what it's worth, Branson is investing $3 billion worth of profits from his "dirty" transportation businesses in clean-energy technologies. He is also looking beyond the Earth's orbit.
"Exciting days," he said. "Now, whether we'll ever go to the moon? ... I think we'll give the moon a miss and go straight to Mars."
Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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12 Comments
Add CommentYou can't call something "green" just because it has less of a carbon footprint than a round trip flight to another continent! "Hey my H2 gets great gas mileage! Very good on the planet. Just compare it to the standard hummer if you don't believe me."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey mention that space is the last fronteir for tourists but I've heard on countless occations that we know more about the dark side of the moon and Mars than we do about our own oceans floor. So that makes me wonder if the bottom of our oceans will ever become a tourist hotspot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey Jokesterpants - There is no "dark side of the moon."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a FARSIDE!! Maybe you shouldn't be writing to a science magazine.
PeterT
Jokesterpants - There is no "dark side of the moon."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a FAR SIDE. Maybe you should NOT be writing to a science magazine at all.
PeterT
$200,000 for a "class A" amusement ride to the edge of space and it's green! HOW FREAKING WONDERFULL.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a pile of PR crap. and after they kill a couple of tourists all none government space flight will be outlawed.
If Branson wanted a safe true space drive he would back development of an EMF (electro motive force) drive system.
Hey,not bad!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey,not bad!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a ridiculous program! Space travel being leveraged as entertainment before exploration?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey Branson, you might want to go read a certain book with a character called John Hammond. You two seem like a perfect match.
In spite of Jokesterpants's mistake, he makes an excellent point. And PeterT, if you can't figure out how to use the message board without posting the same message twice, maybe YOU shouldn't be writing here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--Dave
vogtr, "green" technologies are used, it is a relative measure. Everything affects the biosphere in some manner, even if we would sit around doing nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is an awful term btw, Earth and its biosphere is "a pale blue dot". I think Virgin may demonstrate just that, combining the true color of a live world with the tangible finiteness of Earth, which will take some of the subjectivity and woo out of environmental businesses.
"So that makes me wonder if the bottom of our oceans will ever become a tourist hotspot."
I'm sure people are working on that, I seem to remember tourist subs. But space seem to attract more people and capital than the down to (and under) Earth businesses of deep diving and spelunking.
look at it this way: every answer to every environmental and energy issue we face today lies Out There. if Branson gets this right, we may well see a boom in private and commercial space development in a fashion similar to (and not seen since) the aviation boom of the 1920s and 1930s. the future has to start *somewhen*.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpace travel can certainly become "more" environmentally friendly, but it will never be as environmentally friendly as simply not engaging in it at all. Not that I'm saying we should stop exploring - but exploration is inherently unnecessary and therefore not "green". http://www.canspace.ca
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