The XCOR Lynx rocket plane was recently announced in Beverly Hills, California by CEO Jeff Greason. For a mere $100,000 a single passenger will be able to sit next to the pilot and fly around 200,000 feet above sea level, look at the stars, float weightless for around 90 seconds and then come back to Earth.
The whole experience is said to last around ½ hour from takeoff at an airstrip as would a regular jet plane and glide back upon the same landing strip similar to what one has come to expect from the Space Shuttle. The Lynx flight will be well below the 62-mile low Earth orbit barrier (327,000 ft.) of other proposed tourist spacecraft, but it is also half the price or more of other competitors.
The XCOR Lynx is small, light and does not need to be piggybacked up to 40,000 feet or so like the Rocketplane XP space plane before it ascends further. The XCOR Lynx has a pressurized cabin and both pilot and tourist will be wearing a pressurized space suit as well.
There are two concerns, that Xcor will need to address at some point about the Lynx. First is that there are no ejector seats (but they say they have other ‘safety features’ in place). Second, is the issue of incapacitation of the pilot. What if the pilot were to have a heart attack or brain aneurism, for instance, during the flight?
Other spacecraft are known for their redundancy of equipment along with personnel. Will this flight be so automated that an actual copilot instead of a tourist copilot is not necessary? So, far Xcor hasn’t spoken about this point, but expect to see more information coming in the days and weeks ahead.
