Comments on: EADS getting into the space tourism market?

By: Personal Spaceflight » EADS reinvents Rocketplane

Personal Spaceflight » EADS reinvents Rocketplane — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:32:58 +0000

[…] actual vehicle design is somewhat different from the Rocketplane XP.) It also appears that those earlier reports about the use of an A380F as a carrier aircraft turned out to be […]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 04:20:24 +0000

EADS getting into the space tourism market?…

Some analysis on reports that EADS is about to enter the suborbital space tourism business using a freighter version of the A380 as a carrier aircraft….

By: Garrett Smith

Garrett Smith — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:10:25 +0000

I doubt the A380 being used as a carrier aircraft for a commercially viable space tourism operation. Operations costs for the A380 would add an additional cost burden to the suborbital flight. It would make more sense to do a piggyback launch from an A330-Freighter that could be leased on a daily basis. The same A330 Freighter could be modified to perform parabolic flights in order to compete with Zero Gravity’s 727, if the legal issues are resolved to permit parabolic passenger flights.

The FlightGlobal article talks about “serial launching” from a rear door of the A380 freighter. The A380 freighter is not a military aircraft with a rear ramp, but rather a commercial aircraft with a side door. Major structural modifications would be necessary to adapt the A380, greater than modifications to an A330.

I also have trouble understanding why passengers would want to be constrained to launching with another group. I would be a very upset passenger if my flight were cancelled due to a minor technical glitch or other problem with the first spacecraft which was supposed to launch.