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:
“I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that’s my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again ... the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul.”
—J.G. (James Graham)
“I am not naturally ... “A bag of wind”; yet ... I mean deliberately and decidedly “to cut” in future all my old ideas on this head. I don’t think modesty “pays.” It is a good quality in a family, it is a domestic virtue, it makes a home happy after you have got a home, but it is not potent in getting homes. It is not a money-maker, neither is it lucky in gaining a reputation. I am of the impression that gaseous bodies do better.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.”
—Audre Lorde (1934–1992)