After Burt Rutan wins the X-Prize this summer, then what?

Burt Rutan picks up the 10 million-dollar check
this summer for winning the X-Prize, what happens next?

THE ANSWER: That's easy, space tourism takes off.
Who wants to go?
Are you ready to pay 50,000 dollars for a suborbital flight?
Or is that too much for your bank account?
How about 10,000 dollars for a suborbital flight?

50,000 is too much for me at the moment. So is 10k really...

I'll give it 5 to 10 years when it's in the 3k to 5k ticket price range.

As long as I know... Scaled DOES NOT have a license to accept paying passengers.
For almost all xprize teams, the vehicles that may put paying passengers 100km above earth.. will be the vehicle AFTER the one developed for the xprize. For a lot of teams, you may call it "research vehicles".

scaled won't get a passenger license for SS1, but there's nothing to say they won't sell it to other companies that will get licenses. of all the x-prize vehicles, it's probably the only one really safe enough to have passengers. not that the others aren't good too, but safety wise i think armadillo, davinci, and the rest still need to do another design before they can consistently carry people in the way required by a commercial operation.

After the XPRIZE is won, the XPRIZE Cup will provide the venue for companies which are serious about taking paying passengers into space.

I don't have the 50,000 smakkers yet. But give me 2 years.

Please don't say "I can't afford it". Say "How can I afford it". Once you decide to afford the 50K - 100K, then maybe you will start that business as you always wanted. I did.

That $50,000 pricetag will probably come down pretty quickly too, as the market develops and more people buy tickets. If, of course, regulatory issues don't kill space tourism in its infancy. I doubt that will happen though, because of the number of countries that are getting involved.

In other words if the FAA one day requires that suborbital spacecraft be certified (which (I don't think will happen do to recent legislation), then it might well kill the industry in america. That will just open up the market for the Russians, Canadians, Romanians, Argentinans etc.

I agree with Sigurd.

By the way! Isn't the British entrant
to the X-Prize, Starchaser Inc., ALREADY
planning to take up passengers on a regular basis
after the X-Prize is history? Perhaps starting next year?

As far as I recall, the X-Prize was instituted
to encourage the start up of a manned sub-orbital
space-tourist business.

Cheers.

Starchaser is currently developing it's STARCHASER 5 / THUNDERSTAR RLV.

THUNDERSTAR is a 3-man capsule complete with a Launch Escape System (which is currently under construction); STARCHASER 5 is a single stage booster powered by 2x CHRUCHILL Mk3 (15 tonne bi liquid) rocket engines (currently under construction). The RLV is being designed to compete in X PRIZE competitions

After a series of unmanned flights the STASRCHASER 5 / THUNDERSTAR RLV will conduct two manned flights. After further qualification Starchaser intend to meet the demand for sub-orbital flights.

Starchaser have a long-term business plan to develop safe, reliable, reusable and affordable access to space. X PRIZE competitions complement Starchaser's direction and Starchaser recognise the role the X PRIZE foundation and the other leading X PRIZE teams are playing in the birth of a whole new industry.

What happens next? How about sending Paul Allen a thank you card for making a viable X-Prize entrant happen before the deadline passed.

What should come after the X-prize is won, and manned civilian spacecraft
have topped 100 kilometers [62.4 miles up] is?....
GO HIGHER STILL!
Not just 100 kilometers, but over 160 kilometers [100 miles up]...
"Welcome to the 100 mile high club."

And - don't - stop - there!

How about 200 kilometers [125 miles] up?...
That's higher than Alan Shepard first flew America's first manned spacecraft.

All of those goals are DOABLE by today's x-prize contestants, if they should
start getting more funding.

And then there's LEO....Anywhere from a couple of orbits to maybe 3-days orbiting earth in a compact spacecraft; longer [perhaps a week] in an inflatable "space station".
Admittedly, I don't see private civilian groups
obtaining the funds to do it within the next ten years, maybe 20.

Personally, when it becomes available, I will sell my organs to get a ride. Always wanted to go to space. Who needs kidneys anyway? =)

[joking: I won't sell my organs. But I will re-finance my house, sell my car, get a 2nd job, etc;)]

Forrest, that is desperately irrisponsible of you. It is illegal to sell your own organs on t'internet. That is why you use a mutually beneficial broker to effect a fair exchange of "goods", i.e. a ticket for SS1 for a kidney and an alternator for a Ford focus for example . On a serious note, what kind of health criteria can we be expected to fulfill to qualify for a flight? I wear contact lenses, are they any good at moderate G forces or micro-gravity? They were enough to stop my dreams of joining the RAF.

i doubt they have any trouble in any of those circumstances, and even if so, you could just wear glasses for the flight.