The tycoons of cyberspace are looking to bankroll America's resurgence in outer space, reviving "Star Trek" dreams that first interested them in science.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen made the latest step Tuesday, unveiling plans for a new commercial spaceship that, instead of blasting off a launch pad, would be carried high into the atmosphere by the widest plane ever built before it fires its rockets.
He is joined by Silicon Valley powerhouses Elon Musk of PayPal and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc. in a new private space race. Musk, whose Space Exploration Technologies will send its Dragon capsule to dock with the International Space Station in February, will provide the capsule and booster rocket for Allen's venture, which is called Stratolaunch. Bezos is building a rival private spaceship.
Allen is working with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, who collaborated with the tycoon in 2004 to win a $10 million prize for the first flight of a private spaceship that went into space but not orbit.
Allen says his enormous airplane and spaceship system will go to "the next big step: a private orbital space platform business.
The plane will have a 380-foot wingspan — longer than a football field and wider than the biggest aircraft ever. It will launch a space capsule equipped with a booster rocket, which will send the spacecraft into orbit. This method saves money by not using rocket fuel to get off the ground. The spaceship may hold as many as six people.
Allen is not alone in having such dreams, and the money to gamble on making them come true. Bezos set up the secretive private space company Blue Origin, which has received $3.7 million in NASA startup funds to develop a rocket to carry astronauts. Its August flight test ended in failure.
Peter Diamandis, who created the space prize, helped found a company that sends tourists to space for at least $25 million a ride, and seven of the eight rides involved high-tech executives living out their space dreams. Simonyi paid at least $20 million a piece for two rides into orbit and attended Allen's Tuesday news conference, saying he wouldn't mind a third flight.
Space experts welcome the burst of high-tech interest in a technology that 50 years ago spurred the development of computers. NASA, in a statement, welcomed Allen to the space business, saying his plan "has the potential to make future access to low-Earth orbit more competitive, timely, and less expensive."
Unlike its competitors, Allen's company isn't relying on startup
money from NASA, which is encouraging private companies to take the load of hauling cargo and astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. The space agency, which retired the space shuttle fleet earlier this year, plans to leave that more routine work to private companies and concentrate on deep space human exploration of an asteroid, the moon and even Mars.
Allen's company is looking at making money from tourists and launching small communications satellites, as well as from NASA and the Defense Department.
Allen and Rutan collaborated on 2004's SpaceShipOne, which was also launched in the air from a special aircraft in back-to-back flights. Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic licensed the technology and is developing SpaceShipTwo to carry tourists to space. But Allen's first efforts were more a hobby, while this would be more a business.
SpaceShipOne cost $28 million, but this will cost much more, officials said.
