FORKS — In hot pursuit of a coveted $10 million prize, two commercial aerospace engineers are working overtime in a Forks Industrial Park warehouse to forge their way toward space technology that could one day blast tourists into space.
Space Transport Corp. President Philip Storm and Vice President Eric Meier are perfecting their second three-stage rocket, which they hope to launch Thursday, weather permitting, from a site near Forks.
The partners are welding the frame to a space capsule — or “suborbital tourism vehicle” — that is ultimately intended to carry three astronauts to the heavens and back to Earth.
The company’s spacecraft will initially carry only one astronaut and two ballast “dummies” for test launches in competition for the $10 million “X Prize,” said Meier.
The X Prize is the aerospace industry’s primary forum for developing private entrepreneurial ventures.
Winner of the competition must be the first team to privately build and fly a manned spacecraft capable of carrying three people to a 62.5-mile altitude twice in a two-week period.
The vehicle also has to be 90 percent reusable in the designated time period.
—————-
The rest of the story appears in the Monday Peninsula Daily News.