Brian Feeney returned as the guest for this Space Show program. Mr. Feeney, as team leader for the da Vinci Project, discussed with us their new partnership with DreamSpace and their push to develop their new suborbital tourist spaceships, the XF2 and XF3 with the XF1 serving as their technology demonstrator. You can see photos of their vehicle and obtain technical specifications by visiting either www.dreamspacegroup.net or www.davinciproject.com. Brian answered many listener questions about the vehicle including technical questions about mass ratio, reentry profile, heat shielding, g force acceleration in the extreme model and the regular passenger model and much more. We talked about the balloon that would be used to take the vehicle to about 70,000 before the rocket engines are fired. Mr. Feeney discussed the Canadian system for launching and developing spaceports and compared it to the system in place and regulated by the AST. One listener asked Mr. Feeney why he compared his vehicle to the one being built by Virgin Galactic and not one of the many other vehicles being built by New Space companies. His answer to this question is most interesting. Mr. Feeney discussed his plan to have two classes for the passengers for the XF3 and having a flight attendant onboard all flights. We talked about space tourism in general, both orbital and suborbital and you will want to hear Brian's assessment of the market potential for space tourism. We spoke about his rocket engines and various fuel considerations, the weight of the vehicle and much more. He also discussed his spacesuit plans for XF2 and XF3 passengers and crew. If you have additional questions or comments for Brian Feeney, please send him your emails at bfeeney@davinciproject.com.
Guest
The Space Show
