Fireball XL5 used a rocket sled, not maglev.

Yeah, 2012 seems a wee bit ambitious. I'd love for it to turn out to be true, of course, but I won't be holding my breath.

It's at the right part of the trip…it's early on, when fuel tanks are full, that the spacecraft takes the most fuel to accelerate. But fuel's not actually the biggest cost in a launch, it's the vehicle itself, the launch site, all the engineers and technicians going over the equipment, and all the paperwork. I would be very surprised if a subsonic maglev launch proved worthwhile. And they go from there to hit pretty much every other unproven launch concept.

Let's look at some numbers. According to the Galactic Suite press release (Barcelona, August 2008) the rocket reaches 1000 km/h in less than 20 seconds. That is at least a modest 1.4 g's over a distance of a 2.8 km. The press release claims the Maglev track will be 3 miles ( 4.8 km) long. But this may be a typo, or a large margin for error. So far so good.

The problem is the motion starts out horizontal, then goes vertical. It changes direction. The Galactic Suite Spaceport illustration shows a very tight curve. With fighter jets it's the turns, not the engine thrust, that create those high g forces.

So let's assume a 0.1 km radius curve taking going from horizontal to vertical. Also assume the rocket has reached 80 percent of liftoff speed, 800 km/h, at the bottom of the curve. Finally, for simplification, let's assume a constant speed within the turn. That would make for an acceleration in the curve of 50 g's for 0.7 seconds. I'm no physiologist, but I'm sure this would kill. For a 0.5 km radius it's 10 g's for 3.5 seconds. This can cause a blackout. For 1 km it's 5 g's for 7 seconds. In comparison, a Soyuz capsule reaches 4.5 g's in a normal decent, ignoring the momentary impact forces of touchdown (1).

If my understanding of Galactic Suite's proposed space launch system is wrong or my assumed numbers are off that is because of a lack of hard information. The three page press release only devotes two paragraphs to the launch system. And the Galactic Suite web site crashed my browser. I see only flashy graphics and a basic high school understanding of physics. This is not enough for a space tourism business.

(1) From Dr. Charles Simonyi's blog entry on centrifuge training at Star City, at his website charlesinspace.com.

Somebody's holding back a lot of information.

If they do it, I'll be impressed.

Space ship one has the idea, launch from up high thus no need for a stage one, as it is a reusuable airplane.

Maybe the new spaceport is to be seen on Google Earth?

I dont like the look of the jump at the end, it seems very sharp, surly should be some sort of curve ski jump sort of thing?

Personally I would rather go on Space Ship 2.(Virgin)

Greetings and thank you for purchasing your room through Galactic Suite. Your itinerary begins with the Galactic Isolation Tank in zero gravity, where you will enjoy an extended period of reflection over the five trillion dollars you just spent on your hotel room. We will include some self-help recordings by Dr. Phil to encourage you toward thinking clearly about the fact that you're in debt up to your eyeballs. After the reality of your situation has sunk in (that is to say, after you are sufficiently convinced that you, your children and your grandchildren will be our indentured servants), we will treat you to a five-minute stationary bike ride in zero gravity. The bike is an artifact that was found in a NASA closet that read,"spare Skylab equipment." You will then be escorted to your room. And we must remind you that your potential heightened sense of melancholy, fear and loathing that you may achieve after paying our hotel bill is not grounds for rude, disorderly or controversial behavior. If you are found to be in violation of these rules, you will be promptly jettisoned into the vacuum of space without advance notice. Thank you for choosing Galactic Suite. A complimentarly anit-depressant capsule has been placed on your pillow for your cruising pleasure.

Well, the general public can tremendously benefit from this company. A lot of new jobs will emerge from this enterprise. And you know that the more people are employed in the spaceflight related market segment, the less can politics neglect it.

The point is not that I don't have the money to spend my niece a $3E6-trip, but that she can make a living in an exciting expanding industry.

Yeah right.

Who was on the technical team for this design? Air breathing engines, scram jets and a high energy kick stage for orbital insertion along with the approach and docking technology. Only a few nations have even developed this level of technology and some of it is still very preliminary.

If this is true, it will rock the world and all of the nations space bodies wil look like cash wasting morons.

gosh, Chris, WELL spotted.
let us remain skeptical….

Let me paraphrase: "The company hopes to make space tourism available to the rich, who have 3 million dollar to spend on vacation."

I agree that the time scale sounds somewhat unrealistic. Anyway, getting normal people up to space is a good idea and with time it will become cheaper and more affordable.

Their budgeting, imo, is way off. It's been done many times before: Find investors, take their money, then tell them you need twice or three times as much… and they'll pay, or else, they'll have to say "goodbye" to the multi-millions they have already invested.

Maxwell: The Maglev rail, according to the brochure, does NOT accelerate the craft to supersonic speed. That'll be the first rocket stage.

The "hotel" is a basic, simplified modular space station.

It looks very feasible to me – the time scale may be too ambitious. We'll see. If they manage to do it, to g et even just the launch vehicle, Maglev rail and rockets ready, they might have a customer straight away: NASA…..

That they won't reveal the name and location of the island bothers me a bit.