Tales of the Heliosphere

Two companies made news this past week with announcements of their space tourism plans. Virgin Galactic's celebrity boss, Richard Branson, announced that his company's plans for commercial spaceflights are complete. Virgin Galactic's jump into space tourism was announced with great fanfare last year when Space Ship One flew into space.

Meanwhile, in Southern California's bedroom community of Temecula, Aeraspace Corporation unveiled an animation of its commercial space rocket. Aeraspace has contracted with the United States Air Force and Cape Canaveral to send vertically-launched rockets into space carrying commercial passengers. Their plans include a highly ambitious goal of launching the first commercial flight in 2006 and manufacturing one rocket each month after that.

Thanks to a world-class PR campaign, everybody on Earth has heard of Branson and his plans to fly into space. Who's ever heard of Aeraspace? Their website doesn't tell a whole lot about themselves. And Temecula? To Southern Californians Temecula is known more for it's relatively low housing costs, wineries, balloon rides, and being located about halfway between San Diego and Riverside. Who'd have thought commercial space tourism would be developing there? But if Aeraspace pulls this off, they'll beat Virgin Galactic by two years and Temecula will never be the same.

-tdr

Labels: Space Captains Of Industry