Bristol Spaceplanes
Bristol Spaceplanes is a British company which is focusing on the use of existing technologies to bring tourists into outer space. Their plans consist of three stages.
Development of Ascender
The ascender is a space plane that will take off from a traditional air strip, fly to an altitude of about five miles, at which point rocket engines will ignite bringing passengers briefly into space. Within 30 minutes, the ascender will return to Earth.
Development of The Spacecab
The Spacecab would be an improved Ascender, and would be a means of transporting a small number of people to a space hotel.
Development of Spacebus
The final stage of Bristol's plan is to develop a Spacebus, which is simply a larger Spacecab.
All of Bristol's plans use technologies already in use today, meaning that we will likely see these plans take place in the very near future. |
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