EADS Astrium vs. Virgin Galactic
Last week, EADS Astrium unveiled a spaceplane which will compete with Virgin Galactic. Its commercial launch has been scheduled for 2012 and the ride will cost up to €200,000, or about $265,000.
The following are Marc Newson’s remarks, who is featured inside the plane’s cabin that he designed (left picture):
“Designing for the aerospace industry is incredibly challenging in terms of the level of technology and maze of regulatory issues”.
“Everywhere you turn, there’s a regulation telling you to go back again. You’re always being challenged to find new ways of doing things. That experience helped me to get my head around the spaceplane”.
EADS Astrium Promotional Video:
Virgin Galactic Promotional Video:
José de Francisco Lopez 
Chicago, 20 June 07
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This blog’s Long Tail:
- Project Ergofuturo
- Sony’s Flexible OLED
- Visual futurist
- The city of the future
- Minority Report’s GUI
- Sci-Fi based scenarios
- Design concepts: future cars
- QoE: immersive scenarios and experiential marketing
- CNN’s Future Summit
- Corporations present at SecondLife
- IBM: 5 innovations for the next 5 years
References:
- The technical challenge of making space travel easy by Alice Rawsthorn, IHT
- Europe unveils space plane for tourist market by Peter B. de Selding, Space.com
Picture Credits:
The spacecraft looks impressive, however, can it compare to the practicality of the X Prize winning design that has actually completed trips to and from space?
Ross
March 31, 2009 at 10:47 pm