14 DAY TRIAL // A Tampa Bay, Florida-based enterprise, freshly opened for business on May 1, is offering would-be space tourists all the training they need for suborbital flights, in what the owners have termed a “space camp on steroids.” Aurora Aerospace offers customers a complete training regimen at its facility in the Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport. Among the most notable features that the new endeavor makes available for customers, its managers enumerate enhanced gravity and microgravity flight training, as well as a host of other similar programs, taken directly from NASA's plans.
Up to this point, about 12 clients have sampled a taste of the training program, but no one has signed up for a full course just yet. Aurora's founder, president and chief executive, Howard Chipman, said on May 27 at the Space Investment Summit 6 conference, that he was confident the future would see many new “recruits” in the training program, which might even be good enough to qualify astronauts for orbital flights as well. In addition to the ground-based facilities, the company also has in its possession an L-39 trainer aircraft.
The wonderful plane, which is the same model used by RosCosmos astronauts to train before their Soyuz missions, is able to perform fairly complex air maneuvers, and can subject its pilot to very high G forces. Built in the Czech Republic, the two-seater is also a part of the Aurora Aerospace training program, and participants will learn how to pilot the craft themselves during the courses. “A fantastic aircraft – it's easy to fly, but not too easy. I've never had anyone pass out on me. I can fly as smooth as an airliner or I can make you pass out,” said Chipman of the L-39.
In addition to this plane, the former medical doctor and certified pilot also owns a twin-engine propeller, which is able to provide its passengers with up to 15 seconds of complete weightlessness in mid air. The cabin of this craft is large enough to float in, and the founder of Aurora said that people traveling in it would experience some of the best moments of their lives. A full course costs about $8,000, but cheaper versions are also available. For instance, you could pay $5,000 for everything, minus the L-39 flight, which admittedly is the best of all, Space reports.