The piston pumps being developed by the two companies can operate over a wide range of speeds and conditions. Rapid prototyping techniques have allowed the companies to develop the hydrogen piston pumps in just under four months.

One of the advantages of burning hydrogen is that the only byproduct is heat and water.

The process of obtaining the proper licensing and permits took 4 yeas. The Cecil Field spaceport will be the first of its kind on the East Coast. The spaceport currently has a 12,500-foot runway which will accommodate spacecraft such as spaceplanes to take off easily.

According to the Daily Record, “Proximity to the ocean is another feature that makes Cecil ideal for the industry. After the spacecraft takes off from the launch site, it must wait until it is over the ocean before it can ignite its rockets to propel it into suborbital outer space.”

No longer does California and New Mexico have a lock on the space tourism industry as Florida has just joined the party as well. And, why not since one of the things the great state of Florida is known for is its Cape Canaveral launches. Houston, we have some competition, over.

Also on hand were Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic and Burt Rutan of Scaled Somposites. Scaled Composites is the company who built the VSS Enterprise for Virgin Galactic. The VSS Enterprise is the new name for the SpaceShipTwo which has been under development for the last couple of years.

Richard Branson’s daughter Holly gave the SpaceShipTwo its new name. The VSS Enterprise rocket plane and the WhiteKnightTwo carrier signal that a new era in space tourism. On the nose cone of the VSS enterprise is emblazoned piece of art called “Galactic Girl” who’s modeled after Branson’s mother as she looked in the 1940s.

The timeframe for the first commercial flights of the VSS Enterprise are in the 2011 or 2012 timeframe. Six passengers and two pilots will enter lower Earth orbit (LEO) and experience weightlessness for about five minutes. This is being called the world’s largest roller coaster ride.

The whole experience is said to last around ½ hour from takeoff at an airstrip as would a regular jet plane and glide back upon the same landing strip similar to what one has come to expect from the Space Shuttle. The Lynx flight will be well below the 62-mile low Earth orbit barrier (327,000 ft.) of other proposed tourist spacecraft, but it is also half the price or more of other competitors.

The XCOR Lynx is small, light and does not need to be piggybacked up to 40,000 feet or so like the Rocketplane XP space plane before it ascends further. The XCOR Lynx has a pressurized cabin and both pilot and tourist will be wearing a pressurized space suit as well.

There are two concerns, that Xcor will need to address at some point about the Lynx. First is that there are no ejector seats (but they say they have other ‘safety features’ in place). Second, is the issue of incapacitation of the pilot. What if the pilot were to have a heart attack or brain aneurism, for instance, during the flight?

Other spacecraft are known for their redundancy of equipment along with personnel. Will this flight be so automated that an actual copilot instead of a tourist copilot is not necessary? So, far Xcor hasn’t spoken about this point, but expect to see more information coming in the days and weeks ahead.

The survey is also designed to gather views and opinions of the general public and will be presented in a final paper titled “Entrepreneur’s influence on Space Travel.”

When I asked Andrew about his personal interest in the subject of space tourism, he replied, “I have kept an eye on its progress and had found the subject highly interesting, therefore when in May of last year when I was on secondment with a Applied Materials (a semiconductor company) I spoke to the head of research projects and discussed this project on space tourism with him and he allowed me to go forward with it, and in September last year after I filed my initial report and project method I was given permission to carry out this research project by the University.”

If you would like to take the Space Tourism Survey and contribute your insight and opinion to this exciting and developing field, Andrew and the University of Surrey in England will indeed appreciate it.

WhiteKnightTwo (WK2), which will be the largest commercial aircraft made from composite materials, will carry SpaceShipTwo (SS2) up to 60,000 before SS2 will ascend into suborbital space.

Both WK2 and SS2 are being built so that they may accommodate two flights per day. SpaceShipTwo is being designed so that it can tolerate the worst case scenario upon reentry into the atmosphere, meaning nose first, belly first or even upside down. Branson is not claiming that WhiteKnightTwo will be as safe as modern day aircraft, however, as he likens the flight upon SS2 to aircraft in the 1920s when the industry was just getting started.

Both SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo will be ready later this year for their first test flights and are expected to be available for public flights are early as 2009. Branson says the two aircraft will have open architecture in that those who wish help in developing other commercial spacecraft based upon WK2 or SS2 will be welcomed.

Branson’s ambition is to build 40 to 50 such aircraft, which will be able to accommodate over 100,000 passengers.

Space Access is betting that they will be able to accomplish this feat because of the design of the aircraft that will take off and land at a typical airport and the special Ejector Ramjet engines (not to be confused with the Roger Ramjet engines).

The body is designed to be 23-percent lighter than other comparable spaceplanes and inhibit ice build up and are capable of dealing with reentry heat. The air-breathing ramjet engines are similar to the ones used in the past on classified hypersonic aircraft.

From January 6-11, 2008 Space Access will be offering its SpaceGateway Experience to the public at an exclusive resort in Key Largo, Florida. According to Space Access they will be lifting the veil of secrecy for this event and letting the public interact with personal and have a say in the development of low cost space flight.

But, there is also a question of law in outer space, such as if someone breaks the law or is thought to have broken the law, who decides guilt or innocence? There is an interesting article about astronauts on the International Space Station following the laws of the nation that owns certain parts of the station or breaking the laws of a nation that the ISS happens to be flying over at the moment.

These issues also will have to be addressed for the space tourism industry as well. For instance, if a Russian spacecraft is passing over the United States when an alleged crime occurs, whose jurisdiction is it? If a spaceplane collides with a satellite who has the right of way?

Since space tourism is such a new endeavor, these international legal questions regarding the proliferation of humans in space have not yet been worked out. But, they will need to be worked out since the space tourism is set to commence in a couple of short years.

The injured and deceased were working at Burt Rutan’s Mojave Spaceport at the time on SpaceShipTwo, which is scheduled to bring tourists to space as early as 2009. Rutan’s company has set up a Scaled Family Support Fund to funnel generous contributions from the public to the affected families. The Scaled Composites employees were the first fatalities in the burgeoning space tourism industry.