This Space For Rent - Cheap

A cheap way to send something into space - at least into near space. If all goes as planned, a privately funded rocket will launch a payload into space tomorrow from New Mexico. UP Aerospace is planning the first launch of their SpaceLoft XL rocket from a spaceport near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. The rocket, about the size of a telephone pole, will launch its payload about 70 miles into space. Recovery is supposed to be by parachute at the nearby White Sands Missile Range.

UP Aerospace plans to launch the SpaceLoft XL rocket early on Monday from Spaceport America, a remote desert launch site near the town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

The telephone pole-sized rocket will carry around 50 items of payload — including a Ziploc bag of Cheerios, some cremated remains and several high school science projects — on a brief suborbital flight 70 miles above Earth.

The rocket is not the first privately funded bid to reach for the stars. Two years ago, SpaceShipOne brushed the edge of space with a man on board, scooping up a $10 million prize for its backers.

But Connecticut-based UP Aerospace says the brief 13-minute flight will inaugurate a new era that puts space within reach of large numbers of paying customers.

Chief executive Eric Knight said clients could buy payload space starting at a few hundred dollars for items weighing a few grams, rising to "many tens of thousands of dollars" for larger pieces of cargo.

"This is the first time that a company has allowed direct access to space for the public," Knight told Reuters.

"It's low cost, it can be regularly scheduled, (and) it's the way it's going to be done by the commercial sector in the future," he added.

Although it is only 70 miles, it is considered "space" as it is designated today. The flight is suborbital and nothing in the payload is scheduled to actually reach orbit. But it is a start toward commercialization of space. The UP Aerospace website is here. You too can send a bag of Cheerios into space (what in heck is that all about?).