Dec. 2, 2008 -- It has been more than 10 years since Rick Searfoss, a retired Air Force colonel, test pilot and NASA shuttle commander has been in space, but that is about to change. His new gig should put him beyond the atmosphere as often as four times a day -- and maybe put you in the cockpit right next to him.
Searfoss is the senior (and so far only) test pilot for XCOR Aerospace, a California startup that started selling tickets today for suborbital trips to space for $95,000 per ride.
That's about half the cost of what another commercial space venture, Virgin Galactic, is charging for future trips to space.
At XCOR Aerospace's bargain price, it won't be a glam-trip, like what competitor Virgin Galactic has in mind. XCOR's Lynx is a two-seater. Searfoss gets the left side, the one with the controls. A passenger will sit to his right.
"When people first look at this they say, 'How are you going to make any money?'" XCOR's Douglas Graham told Discovery News.
The concept is quite simple: You gas up and go.
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Graham said the company plans to be able to turnaround and fly its kerosene-and-liquid oxygen-fueled vessel four times a day. Lynx, which takes off and lands like an airplane, doesn't need a launch pad or a tow into the air to get going.
"As long as you have good airspace and a 10,000-foot runway, you can fly them anywhere," Graham said.
Test flights are scheduled to begin in 2010 and if all goes well commercial service could start a year later.
"A lot of people are pretty good at promising stuff in this business and they don't deliver," Graham said. "We want to under-promise and over-deliver."
The XCOR experience will be very different than what is planned for passengers aboard Virgin Galactic's suborbital ship, which is based on the prize-winner SpaceShipOne, the world's first commercially built manned spaceship.
Aircraft designer Burt Rutan and his company Scaled Composites built SpaceShipOne to win a $10-million contest for private spaceflight in 2004.
For SpaceShipTwo, the company is thinking bigger and more luxurious service: Seats for seven, not one; room to float; no spacesuits needed.
XCOR's passengers, meanwhile, will wear pressurized garments, fly only with a pilot and be strapped down for the entire ride. It won't last as long or go as high. XCOR's strongest selling point is the view.
"You take off quickly, climb up at a 65 or 75 degree angle. After about two minutes, the sky starts to turn colors, then black. You have another minute of (engine) burn, then you coast to the apogee of your path. You'll feel a minute or so of weightlessness, then the pilot will flip the plane over and you'll see Earth's horizon and the atmosphere below," Graham said.
Riders should feel the equivalent of about four times Earth's gravity during the climb into the sky and during the steep descent back to the ground, but that is well within what a normal person -- "not even a particularly healthy person," Graham added -- can handle.
"Flying with XCOR is going to be more like 'The Right Stuff,'" said Searfoss, referring to the Tom Wolfe book, later adapted into a movie, about NASA's original Mercury Seven astronauts. "This is not like ultra-first class on Virgin Atlantic."
Initially, XCOR plans to fly from the Mojave Air and Space Port, which also houses Scaled Composites, now owned by Northrop Grumman, and other space launch services and rocket companies.
"We believe … it's almost a philosophical change that happens once you've seen the Earth from this level. It will be a life-changing experience," Graham said.
Searfoss, who has been flying passengers aboard aircraft for years, doesn't see it is much of a stretch to ferry novices into space.
"There will be a level of preparation so people know what to expect," Searfoss told Discovery News.
"It's really just an extrapolation of flying," he added. "Maybe a few other astronauts will be looking at this for their post-NASA careers."
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