Private Space Travel Goes for Launch
It looks like our desire for private space travel for practical commercial uses is going for launch! A new company Planetary Resources, Inc. has been formed to mine asteroids. They have contracted with Richard Branson's private Virgin Galactic company to use his WhiteKnightTwo jet plane freighter to take off from Spaceport, New Mexico, and carry the LauncerOne rocket up into the edge of our atmosphere where it will detach and ignite to carry the 500 pound payloads out into space. The total cost for launching 500 pounds is reportedly about $10 million. The cost savings over NASA public launches comes about because for most of the launch distance the payload is propelled by the normal air breathing jet engines on WhiteKnightTwo until it runs out of air in the upper atmosphere. Since it only has to carry fuel and doesn't have to carry heavy oxidizer gas and can collect it from the surrounding air with the big compressor fans cramming it into the front of the jet engines for most