Once upon a time, the Canadian-American consortium known as PlanetSpace planned to start sending paying passengers on suborbital spaceflights by mid-2007. In recent months, the venture has faded somewhat from the radar screen - but PlanetSpace's millionaire chairman says he's involved in several under-the-radar initiatives that will soon break out into the open.
Chirinjeev Kathuria, the Indian-American physician/entrepreneur who once helped prolong the Mir space station's life and last year joined forces with Canadian rocketeer Geoff Sheerin, told me today that the initiatives are "allowing us to move forward with an orbital crew and cargo vehicle" suitable for resupplying the international space station as well as taking on space tourists.
PlanetSpace |
| An artist's conception shows the Silver Dart spaceship atop a launch vehicle that would use clusters of Canadian Arrow engines modeled after the V-2. |
The vehicle would rely on the propulsive power of Sheerin's Canadian Arrow engines, which are based on tried-and-true V-2 technology. Thirty-two engines would be clustered on boosters, in an arrangement similar to that used on Russia's Soyuz rocket, Kathuria said.
PlanetSpace's proposed Silver Dart spacecraft, which is based on a golden-oldie FDL-7 design, would sit atop the beefed-up Arrow.
The launch system was proposed for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services competition, but when a list of six COTS finalists came to light in May, PlanetSpace wasn't mentioned. Kathuria didn't want to discuss the COTS outcome, but in response to questions, he indicated that he was still having discussions with NASA.
"PlanetSpace is moving forward to sign a Space Act Agreement with one of the space centers," he told me.
He also said "we are meeting with the Canadian Space Agency and the Canadian government" over an arrangement that would allocate 300 acres for an orbital launch facility. Meanwhile, a suborbital spaceport could take shape in the United States, with the Canadian Arrow serving as the initial spaceship, he said. Kathuria also is seeking to get in on the European Space Agency's recently announced commercial spaceflight initiative.
Kathuria admitted that many of the details behind his plans still have to stay under the radar at least a little while longer. "That's how you're able to get the best agreements in place," he said.
Sometimes the plans don't pan out the way they were intended to. That was the case with MirCorp, the venture that was aimed at commercializing Mir in its latter days. Kathuria and the venture's other major financial backer, Walt Anderson, had hoped to turn Mir into a venue for space tourism, reality-TV shows and more - but in the end, the Russians decided to ditch the outpost and place all their bets on the international space station.
Now Mir is gone, and Anderson is in jail on tax-evasion charges (although his friends and colleagues are working for his freedom).
In contrast, Kathuria has been involved with successful business ventures in telecommunications and the health-care industry - and he's even gotten involved in politics as well. But succeeding in the commercial space race is still clearly part of his personal grand plan.
"MirCorp was actually the first company to get involved in this," he said, "and I don't want to fall behind."