News
Adventure Tourists Could Soon Travel to Space from Southern Ontario

Dec.17, 2007, Hamilton, Ont. – A Toronto-based entrepreneur who's been striving to
put people in space for the past decade is looking to build and
launch a $20-million tourist-friendly space craft, which could be
based in southern Ontario.

Brian Feeney says he is considering locations in Hamilton,
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Pickering, North Bay as well as several other
locations across the country.

He says he expects to select the final location by the end of
2008.

Feeney is planning to launch two-hour-long jaunts into
sub-orbital space that will take adventurous tourists 140-kilometres
above sea level for $50,000 to $100,000 a person.

He plans to do all this by 2011.

Feeney says his hope is to use an airplane to take the spacecraft
up and then launch it from the plane.

If business takes off, Feeney says people will be able to clearly
see the Earth's curves.

“It's the view that you can see from the space station,'' he
said.

Doug Welch, a professor of physics and astronomy at McMaster
University, says while space tourism is within reach, Feeney may
have to adjust his timeline.

“2011 sounds very unrealistic to me,'' Welch said. “I'd be
surprised if it would be before 2015, and if I had to put my own $20
on it, I'd say 2020.''

Feeney was a runner-up in the 2004 Ansari X Prize, a competition
that awarded $10 million to the first team to put three people into
space twice within two weeks.