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First we had airlines; now we also have spacelines. Virgin Galactic of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin empire has been selling space tickets since mid 2005 for $200,000. Now, Virgin Galactic may see some competition from XCOR Aerospace as the California aerospace company also plans to enter the space tourism industry, estimated at over a half-billion dollars. XCOR is building a rocket ship, the Lynx, capable of suborbital flights.

There are some big differences between the Lynx and Virgin's SpaceShipTwo. The Lynx is a two-seat craft while SpaceShipTwo will carry six passengers in addition to two pilots. The Lynx will reach an altitude of 37 miles above the earth and a speed of Mach2, while the SS2 will reach 68 miles and three times the speed of sound. The lynx is expected to start flying in 2010, the SS2 may start as early as 2009. While XCOR has yet to put a price on the flight, it has called it affordable.

There are other differences as well though. Unlike the SS2, which is launched attached to a mothership and is then released at 50,000 feet when it ignites its hybrid rocket to climb to 360,000 feet, the Lynx, about the size of a small private plane, will launch itself, taking off from a runway like any plane, and reach 200,000 feet.

Continue reading XCOR's Lynx will fly to space by 2010; Virgin's SS2 may fly by 2009

XCOR's Lynx will fly to space by 2010; Virgin's SS2 may fly by 2009 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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