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Fishbowl Spaceship to give tourists a breathtaking 360-degree view
The visionaries at Armadillo Aerospace have some big ideas. The most outrageous is this "Fishbowl Spaceship," giving two passengers a spectacular 360-degree view of suborbital space. The company, founded by iD software (Doom, Quake) chief John Carmack, plans to build this far-fetched space bubble next year, aiming to start its first suborbital flights a year later. The company says a ticket on this wild ride will cost you a relatively cheap $100,000.
How can such a bubble survive re-entry? We're thinking this must be a collapsible dome of some sort. Meanwhile, the consumer space race goes on, with all sorts of ambitious ideas springing forth. Add this one to that single-passenger micro-spacecraft we showed you last week, SpaceX's private space flight, and Richard Branson's SpaceShipTwo, and one day soon, space tourism will be commonplace.
Armadillo Aerospace, via New Scientist
By Commodity trading Accounts at 4:29 PM ON 10/27/08
Looks pretty cool, but insecure i think
By ReeyferMadness at 5:08 PM ON 10/27/08
Space tourism is nice and all, but how about something more than a gimmick? How about someone actually gets to mining the fusion fuels on the moon, or looking to the asteroid belt for its great mineral resources? How about someone actually makes a new space drive rather than relying on the same old puttering rockets that barely even escape the atmosphere? It's not like we don't have plenty of theoretical ways to do that, and it's not like we don't have an excellent history of turning theory into reality. It's just that noone cares, except for a few techies. The general public isn't aware of the enormous mineral and resource wealth which lies beyond our planet's surface. They're too narrow sighted to see anything but what's right in front of them.
Yeah, space tourism is a nice gimmick. I'll be more impressed when someone's talking about you making your morning commute through the void, however.
By DrChubby at 12:07 AM ON 10/28/08
Geez Reefer: You'd think that when people were first building cars that someone came to them and said "why are you building this gimmicky stuff. We need something in the mines that can transport tons of material. This doesn't impress me. You want to impress me? build a flying machine that transports 500 people at once!"
Baby steps...There is plenty of grand visionary stuff going on but you know...you have to get out of orbit first...then you have to get out of orbit on a routine basis etc etc
By Unique Gift Ideas at 2:06 PM ON 10/29/08
Definitely an interesting idea. And once people get interested in ideas such as space tourism, etc and see it as a reality, whole new windows will be opened up, such as the ideas that madness was speaking of, since there will be public backing.
By lee at 10:44 PM ON 10/29/08
Those pesky chimpanzees from the 50s weren't known for coughing up $100,000 to be the subjects of space testing. So, space agencies have turned to next half-witted animal available - the tourist. And what do you know, they'll pay $100,000. Just don't write anything about 'testing' on the brochure.
By Reality Futurist at 12:37 PM ON 10/30/08
Forget about the idea of making this a space ship -- They should affix this permanently to the side of the space station. It would be the observation deck where visitors in it, would be floating and overcome by the sensation that they are space walking (since the glass would be invisible). If I were up there, I would want to end each day with about 20 minutes up there.....
By obo at 3:42 PM ON 11/03/08
It won't have to survive re-entry because suborbital fights never exit the atmosphere. They go up in an arc/parabola, achieve weightlessness, then fall back.
By Skipweasel at 5:02 PM ON 11/03/08
Isn't it upside down? Or at least turned on its side. Surely you'd want to be able to see the Earth, not have to peer past the tanks to see bits fo it?
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Isn't it upside down? Or at least turned on its side. Surely you'd want to be able to see the Earth, not have to pe...More »