BSC "Spaceship"

[Dr Mordrid]

Pics showing Benson Aerospace/SpaceDev's suborbital civilian spaceflight entry, "Spaceship" (creative, eh?).

These are the same folks building the Dream Chaser spaceplane that's to ride Lockheed's Atlas V to orbit.

Has a Flash Gordon/When Worlds Collide look to it.

The new BSC Spaceship design is lighter and sleeker, resulting in less drag and requiring less propulsion than the earlier design (they were going to use Dream Chaser for orbit and suborbital). The vehicle, powered by safe hybrid rocket motors, will launch vertically and glide to a landing at the launch site. A safer carefree reentry, after achieving an altitude of at least 65 miles, will subject passengers to minimal G-forces, compared to other designs. It will also have many large, well-placed windows for ideal passenger views of the Earth and space.
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Benson Space is currently considering a variety of potential launch sites,
including the Mojave Spaceport in California, the Kennedy Space Center and Titusville's Space Coast in Florida, the Southwest Regional Spaceport in New Mexico, the Maryland and Virginia Mid Atlantic Regional Spaceport near NASA Wallops, and Nevada.

[Evildead666]

Looks a lot like one of the original Flash Gordon Ships...

[Dr Mordrid]

Yup, but more like the Ark from "When Worlds Collide". It's a ringer for it.

Interesting is the re-entry; nose first with 4 large aerobrakes that fan out from the rear.

[Evildead666]

A Frontal Re-entry, with all those port holes, would be amazing to watch from the inside.

[Elie]

sheeesh, that thing will become an oven and everyone inside will bake like muffins on re-entry!

Either that or the whole thing will melt like an icecream bar in a desert at noon time.

Looks fancy though

[Dr Mordrid]

Actually the re-entry temps on the nose shouldn't be any higher than they were for SpaceShipOne, which was also made of composites. No melting, no cooked passengers, no nothing.

Remember these suborbital flights re-enter at only (?!) Mach 5-7, not at orbital velocities, though they can pull similar G loads both up and down and they'll be going up to 100-150 miles.

One helluva ride no matter how you cut it.

One difference between BSC and SpaceShipTwo is the launch; BSC launches nose-up off a launch pad while SS2 is like SS1 - air drop from a mothership.