SpaceCub was a design project for a homebuilt rocket. Between 1993 and 1994,

Geoffrey A. Landis Geoffrey Alan Landis (; born May 28, 1955) is an American aerospace engineer and author, working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on planetary exploration, interstellar propulsion, solar power and photovoltaics. He ...

proposed that a vehicle designed to launch to the edge of space might be a feasible project for a "personal" spaceship, the equivalent of a

Piper Cub The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1938 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low-speed handling properties and short-field performance. The Cub is P ...

for space. The insight was that a flight to "only" 100 km would reach the officially defined edge of space, and even though this is much easier a challenge than an

orbital flight An orbital spaceflight (or orbital flight) is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, it must be on a free trajectory which has an altit ...

, such a

suborbital flight A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it will not complete one orbital re ...

would be of excitement to the public, and the pilot would be officially qualified as an

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

. A small group of rocket enthusiasts, computer hobbyists, and science-fiction writers gathered together to do a preliminary design, with the ultimate goal of moving on to building a prototype, with (then) physics student David Burkhead leading the technical effort. The vehicle design was discussed in many venues, and presentations on the design progress were given in several conferences, such as the 1995 NSSbr>International Space Development Conference
where it attracted considerable popular attention. The design was featured in print in places including the December 1994

Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation o ...

, and the Brazilian popular magazine

Istoé ''Istoé'' (Portuguese for 'This is'; often stylized ''ISTOÉ'' or ''IstoÉ'') is a weekly news magazine in Portuguese published in Brazil, roughly the equivalent of the American magazines ''Time'' or ''Newsweek''. History The magazine was esta ...

. Although a full-scale prototype of the SpaceCub was never built, the design (and the publicity surrounding the project) brought public attention to the concept that a small vehicle to fly a private pilot into space might be possible, and in that way served to stimulate the X Prize, which adopted the SpaceCub's goal of a 100-km flight altitude as a target for a competition. In its way, the SpaceCub vehicle is a predecessor to many of today's concepts for

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

External links

*David Burkhead'
SpaceCub
page

essay by Geoffrey Landis *SpaceCu

from Island One Private spaceflight Rocket-powered aircraft Space access