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ByJohnAntczak The Associated Press VirginGalacticlaterthis month in Mojave, Califor- nia, is preparing to roll out its new SpaceShipTwo, a vehicle the company hopes will one day take tourists to the edge of space. It comes roughly 15½ months since an earlier incarna- tion was destroyed in a test flight, killing one of the pilots. Despite the set- back, the dream of send- ing tourists to the edge of space and beyond is still alive. Space tourism com- panies are employing de- signs including winged vehicles, vertical rockets with capsules and high-al- titude balloons. A look at projects cur- rently under development: VirginGalactic The most prominent space tourism program, the commercial space line founded by adventurer- business mogul Sir Richard Branson will use a winged rocket plane dubbed Space- ShipTwo, successor to SpaceShipOne, which in 2004 won the $10 million Ansari X Prize that was in- tended to spur the indus- try's development. SpaceShipTwo is de- signed to be flown by two pilots and carry up to six passengers on a suborbital trajectory to altitudes above 62 miles, an internation- ally recognized boundary of space. Like early U.S. X-planes, Virgin Galactic's craft will be carried aloft by another aircraft, called WhiteK- nightTwo, and released at about 50,000 feet before its rocket engine is ignited for a supersonic thrill ride to the fringes of space and a view of the Earth far be- low. The space line says SpaceShipTwo's cabin is roomy enough for passen- gers to float during a few minutes of weightlessness before beginning an un- powered glide to a runway landing. A key feature of the de- sign is the so-called feath- ering system — a term de- rived from the feathers of a badminton projectile. Twin tails extending rearward from the tips of each wing rotate upward as a means to slow and stabilize Space- ShipTwo as it re-enters the atmosphere. The "feathers" then rotate back to their normal position for the rest of the glide and landing. Virgin Galactic's first SpaceShipTwo was de- stroyed on Oct. 31, 2014, when a co-pilot prematurely unlocked the feathers dur- ing a powered test flight and aerodynamic forces broke the craft apart. The co-pilot was killed but the pilot parachuted to safety. The company will roll out its new SpaceShipTwo later this month in Mojave, Cal- ifornia, but the timeline for testing and commercial operation has not been re- leased. Hundreds of people have put down deposits of $250,000 for a chance to fly into space with Virgin Ga- lactic, which plans to oper- ate from Spaceport Amer- ica in New Mexico. Blue Origin Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin project is testing a vertical-take- off rocket topped by a six- passenger capsule for sub- orbital hops. Like Astronaut Alan Shepard's pioneering 1961 flight during Project Mer- cury, the capsule separates from the booster rocket and descends beneath para- chutes without going into orbit around the Earth. The unconventional twist is reusability. Blue Origin recently con- ducted a test launch from Texas in which the rocket dubbed New Shepard per- formed a vertical landing, slowing its descent by re- lighting its engine as it fell back to Earth. In January, the company launched the same rocket and it again landed intact. Blue Origin says that dur- ing flights passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness after the capsule separates from the booster. Passengers will be able to leave their seats and float about the capsule be- fore a signal tells them to be reseated for landing. The company has cho- sen Florida for its base of operations. Details of space tourism operations have not been released. Excor Aerospace The company has spent years developing a rocket plane named Lynx that is in- tended to be capable of mak- ing multiple flights each day with a pilot and one passen- ger aboard. Unlike Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, the Lynx will take off under its own power fromarunway,climbtoward space and then glide back to a runway landing. XCOR also plans flights surpassing an altitude of 62 miles. In December, the com- pany said it reached a mile- stone in development of the Lynx propulsion system by successfully using waste heat to drive essential en- gine parts, eliminating the need for large and heavy tanks of compressed gas. XCOR, now headquar- teredinMidland,Texas,also reported progress late last year in completing struc- tural components of its first Lynx as well as a flight sim- ulator system for pilot train- ing. The company says it has more than 350 clients. The price of booking a seat rose from $100,000 to $150,000 on Jan. 1, but the company has not said when flights will begin. "The fact is that we are in a process in which you just can't rush things," Lynx test pilot Harry van Hulten said in press release last fall. World view The Arizona company plans to loft passengers to altitudes above 100,000 feet in a capsule suspended be- low a "parawing" and a he- lium balloon. The trip some 19 miles high would be to "near space" but would give a sub- stantial view of the Earth far below while avoiding the stress of G forces endured during rocket flight. Compared to flights on rocket-powered space tour- ism vehicles offering a few minutes at the top of a sub- orbital trajectory, World View envisions spending two hours at the maximum altitude, with amenities such as a lavatory. The two-member crew then begins the landing process by venting helium until the capsule descends to 50,000 feet. The balloon is then released and the parawing allows the capsule to glide to a landing spot. The company announced last month that it plans to conduct launches from Spaceport Tucson. SCIENCE SpacetourismprojectsexploredinCalifornia BLUEORIGIN This image shows an illustration of the capsule that will be used to take tourist into space. Space tourism companies are employing designs including winged vehicles, vertical rockets with capsules and high-altitude balloons. BLUE ORIGIN This image shows an illustration of a rocket taking off from a launch pad. JAVIER GALEANO — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE A farmer drives his tractor in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. By Michael Weissenstein The Associated Press HAVANA The Obama ad- ministration has approved the first U.S. factory in Cuba in more than half a cen- tury, allowing a two-man company from Alabama to build a plant assembling as many as 1,000 small trac- tors a year for sale to pri- vate farmers in Cuba. The Treasury Depart- ment last week notified partners Horace Clemmons and Saul Berenthal that they can legally build trac- tors and other heavy equip- ment in a special economic zone started by the Cuban government to attract for- eign investment. Cuban officials already have publicly and enthusi- astically endorsed the proj- ect. The partners said they expect to be building trac- tors in Cuba by the first quarter of 2017. "Everybody wants to go to Cuba to sell something and that's not what we're trying to do. We're looking at the problem and how do we help Cuba solve the problems that they con- sider are the most impor- tant problems for them to solve," Clemmons said. "It's our belief that in the long run we both win if we do things that are beneficial to both countries." The $5 million to $10 million plant would be the first significant U.S. busi- ness investment on Cuban soil since Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and nation- alized billions of dollars of U.S. corporate and private property. That confiscation provoked a U.S. embargo on Cuba that prohibited virtu- ally all forms of commerce and fined non-U.S. compa- nies millions of dollars for doing business with the is- land. Letting an American tractor company operate inside a Cuban govern- ment facility would have been unimaginable before Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro declared on Dec. 17, 2014, that they would restore diplomatic re- lations and move to normal- ize trade, travel and other aspects of the long-broken bilateral relationship. Since then, Obama has been carving exceptions into the embargo through a series of executive actions, and his administration now says they allow U.S. manu- facturing at the Mariel port and special economic zone about 30 miles west of Ha- vana. One exception allows U.S. companies to export products that benefit pri- vate and cooperative farm- ers in Cuba. Berenthal and Clemmons say they will sell only to the private sector. Cuba announced late last month that it would more than double the number of public Wi-Fi access spots to more than 100 across the country this year and bring broadband Internet to a small number of Cu- ban homes, where it is cur- rently illegal. Obama said in 2014 that Castro had prom- ised to increase Cubans' ac- cess to the Internet as part of detente. On Tuesday, Cuba's Transport Minister and the U.S. Secretary of Transpor- tation will sign a deal au- thorizing the first regu- larly scheduled commercial flights between the U.S. and Cuba since shortly after the 1959 revolution. The Oggun tractor plant, named after a god in Cuba's syncretic Santeria religion, will assemble commercially available components into a durable and easy-to-main- tain 25-horsepower trac- tor selling for less than $10,000, Clemmons and Berenthal said. US approves first factory in Cuba since revolution TRACTORS | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2016 8 A