Co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, is planning to build a spaceship that could replace the Space Shuttle - to ferry space tourists into orbit this decade.
As a first step, Allen intends to build aircraft superstores. At first, he plans to launch an unmanned rocket to carry satellites, both public and private, into space. After that, it will launch a rocket carrying a human.
Initiative Allen - who throughout his life was very excited by all things related to space - comes just months after the United States retire the Space Shuttle program after 30 years of operation and opened the door for private enterprise to supply space vehicles.
Allen's rocket will be launched from the aircraft which will be the largest in the world - which supported six jumbo jet engines and will be built by Scaled Composites, a unit of defense contractor, Northrop Grumman Corp.
How big is this plane?
Wings are 385 feet or 117 meters, wider than a football field, and 70 percent longer than the wing of a Boeing 747.
SpaceX rocket will be made - the private space companies made billionaire Elon Musk, founder of the site payment online , PayPal. Rocket and aircraft would then be integrated by aviation and missile specialists companies, Dynetics.
Flight test is targeted to be made in 2015, following the first commercial flight a year later.
"I have long dreamed of making great strides in space flight," said Allen.
The company will operate the program are Stratolaunch Systems that have a motto, "All the orbit, any time".
Allen - who became sole funder for this ambitious project - not to mention how much money he's going to drizzle. However, suspected purse money will be reduced by approximately U.S. $ 200 million or more. This is far greater than U.S. $ 20 million he had to spend to support the first private spaceflight in 2004.
Space enthusiast
Allen is now 58 years old, in the notes Forbes , ranks 57th richest person in the world, with a net worth of U.S. $ 13.2 billion.
Allen is now 58 years old, in the notes Forbes , ranks 57th richest person in the world, with a net worth of U.S. $ 13.2 billion.
He was the last billionaire IT field who have an interest in private space flight. His ambition in line with Musk, SpaceX owner and founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos; who founded Blue Origin that dream could bring a man into space at an affordable cost, less than millions of dollars as it is today. Two years, Blue Origin will fly humans into sub-orbital space at a cost of U.S. $ 200 thousand. Already 500 people who register.
Allen said he has long harbored a desire to space. "I never dreamed of becoming an astronaut, he said. Unfortunately, rather than become an astronaut, her poor eyesight did not even allow him to fly the plane., But that ambition never dies, even when he was battling cancer twice.
Sources: vivanews.com
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