The Road Ahead Fri. To provide flight stability, the crew cabin is equipped with four extendable fin plates, similar to the type used on Russian launch abort systems. Canadian Arrow promises that passengers will experience acceleration of no more than 4.5 g. After separation from booster, the pilot orients the crew cabin to provide the best window view for the passengers.
Experts see a number of necessary steps before public liftoffs become a roaring business.
If space tourism is to become affordable and routine, it must start from the ground and work its way up. The cost of a passenger-carrying rocket isn't the key issue. And it's not the fuel either, said Angie Bukley, an engineer for The Aerospace Corporation at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. The major expense of hurling payloads and people into space is ground support, she said. Bukley's views were honed as co-leader of a space tourism study recently completed at the International Space University in France.