Russia to develop spacecraft for commercial space travel
05 May 2008
Mumbai: Reports in the Russian media say that a private Russian company has ordered the development of a vehicle for space travel. The report did not mention the name of the company.
According to the report, the spacecraft would piggy-back aboard another aircraft and be flown to an altitude of several kilometres, where it would detached from the plane and fly still higher, eventually reaching an altitude of around 100 kilometres.
Passengers aboard the spacecraft, designed to carry around 14 passengers and two pilots, would experience zero gravity.
Documentation and a draft project of the spacecraft is being prepared by the Experimental Engineering Plant named after Myasishchev, who was the creator of strategic bomber jet M4 and the Soviet space shuttle Buran.
