Future
The program name "Tier One" raises the question of what Tier Two will be.
In The Space Review on June 21, 2004 (the day of Tier One's first spaceflight), Rutan was quoted as stating "The spaceship is model number 316 and the White Knight is model number 318. I will be making a presentation very quick of a model number 346.". Whether this refers to a prototype orbital craft, a suborbital tour bus, or some other concept remains to be seen.
In 2004 Rutan suggested that a ten-passenger suborbital spacecraft would make a profitable tour bus. On September 27, 2004, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson announced a deal with Mojave Aerospace Ventures to carry paying passengers on suborbital tourist flights, using a scaled-up version of SpaceShipOne, possibly beginning service in 2008. That same year, Burt Rutan also said "we're heading for orbit sooner than you think".
During an interview in the documentary Black Sky: The Race For Space, Rutan stated that Tier One will cover suborbital flights, Tier Two will cover orbital flights, and Tier Three will cover flights beyond Earth's orbit (including flights to the moon and other planets). In the same documentary he displayed designs for an orbital craft based on SpaceShipOne, which had a rocket roughly twice SpaceShipOne's length mounted to the ship's rear.
Read more about this topic: Scaled Composites Tier One
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“... the loss of belief in future states is politically, though certainly not spiritually, the most significant distinction between our present period and the centuries before. And this loss is definite. For no matter how religious our world may turn again, or how much authentic faith still exists in it, or how deeply our moral values may be rooted in our religious systems, the fear of hell is no longer among the motives which would prevent or stimulate the actions of a majority.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)
“Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)