Cape Breton set to launch NASA North

[scandium]

Cape Breton set to launch NASA North

HALIFAX -- A company that's developing a new, simpler space shuttle plans to build a launch facility in Cape Breton, N. S., to take commercial payloads into orbit. The shuttle, known as the Silver Dart, might land at the Sydney, N.S., airport.

PlanetSpace plans to spend $200 million US preparing for its first launch in late 2009. It could carry satellites and even tourists into space. The company's website, www.planetspace.org, which details the Cape Breton plans, also says it's working with a partner to develop a reality TV show set in space.

Nova Scotia has agreed to donate 120 hectares of coastal land for the launch site.

"It's a very credible opportunity," said Mark James, a business development executive with Nova Scotia Business Inc. "Once you sit down and look at their business plan and their business model and their technical capabilities, you realize very quickly that this is a real project."

PlanetSpace is a partnership between Canadian rocket developer Geoff Sheerin and American Chirinjeev Kathuria, a director of the company that sent the first tourist into space.

PlanetSpace has a rocket, the Canadian Arrow. James said it uses a booster technology which has flown more than 3,000 times. The Silver Dart re-entry vehicle is based on a U.S. military design that never went into production.

"There's very little technical risk to what they're doing," James said Wednesday.

PlanetSpace is one of about six companies trying to launch a commercial space service. Each is trying to be first to offer a regular schedule. The PlanetSpace website says it plans to fly 2,000 astronauts in its first five years.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/na...d61304&k=39328

It'd be pretty cool to see viable (as in, not just for the super-rich) space tourism within our lifetimes. Competition is good.

Cool!

We can never have too many space programs.