ALTERNATIVE TAXIS
Isle of Man-based space
MOON TAXI SERVICE LOOKING FOR PASSENGERS WITH £100M TO SPARE deeper
into space exploration
company Excalibur Almaz has said it will be ready to take peo- ple to the moon by 2015, but
the ride
comes with a £100m catch. According to ZDNet UK,
British-based
Excalibur Almaz has lifted the lid on its plan to transport paying passengers and cargo to the moon within the next three years. The Isle of Man space exploration company has a fleet of six vin- tage Russian-built spacecraft, which it wants to use to take people into deep space - if they can put up the £100m fare. “Excalibur Almaz is willing and able to send crewed missions
than would be possi- ble aboard any other spacecraft
in exis-
tence today,” com- pany founder Art Dula said. “Our fleet of space stations and re- entry capsules enable us to safely fly mem- bers of the public to the moon by 2015.” Dula was speaking at an event in London to show off its re-useable re-entry
vehicles
(RRVs), one of which is shown here. The company has four RRV capsules and two Salyut-class
space
stations, comparable to the Zarya module used in the Interna- tional Space Station, it said. The plan is to use the RRVs - essentially a sort of space taxi - to
nine successful cap- sule flights, re-entries and landings, in the 1970s. Launches will be on a Soyuz-FG rocket, according
to a
spokesman for Excal- ibur Almaz. They will take off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kaza- khstan,
site for already com- pleted test
the launch flights.
One of British-based Excalibur Almaz’s vintage Russian-built RRV capsules
dock with a space sta- tion in Low Earth Orbit, and then use the com- bination
as a
transportation system to the moon, asteroids and deep space. Each RRV is on the snug side and has room for three passen- gers at a time, one of
whom will be an expe- rienced cosmonaut. Excalibur Almaz has been testing the spacecraft since it pur- chased the equipment from NPO Mashinos- troyenia. The Russian firm supplied the Almaz space pro- gramme,
However, the compa- ny is looking at four alternative
locations to help keep costs down,
launch the
including
spokesman said. Unlike other space exploration missions, Excalibur Almaz is re- using systems and products from the European, Russian and US space pro- grammes in order to keep costs and devel-
opment time to a mini- mum. Other
commercial
space projects are underway, but with less lofty ambitions than reaching the moon. SpaceX has broken ground by sending a commercial cargo ship to the International Space Station, while Virgin Galactic expects to take 50 space tourists into Low Earth Orbit next year. Excalibur Almaz says the RRV capsules are useable for another 15 space flights, if they undergo minor mod- ernisation requiring a “comparatively mod- est investment over three years”. The space stations are also estimated to offer up to 15 more years of use.
PAGE 18
PHTM JULY 2012
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