Space Dreams

Dayton Beach, Fla. – March 23, 2007 – Ben Riecken wants to fly to suborbital space on SpaceShipTwo, but he can’t afford the $200,000 price tag. So the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University flight instructor came up with an interesting way to raise the money — by selling pixels on his website, mytripinspace.com/, for $1 each. He’s not trying to make a million dollars, just enough to pay for his $200,000 ticket on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo. So what do advertisers get from the deal? A chance to generate traffic to their website, he writes. Riecken became interested in space travel watching pilot Mike Melvill take the Burt Rutan-designed SpaceShipOne to suborbital space in 2004, followed by Brian Binnie about two weeks later. But Riecken became hooked on space travel when he traveled to Mojave to meet with Binnie and fly the SpaceShipOne simulator. Riecken writes about the experience on his website diary. “I was at 50,000 feet under the belly of the White Knight mother ship ready for launch. Binnie flipped the switch and here I was dropping from the sky. Seconds later, the rocket motor was armed and fired. I was on for a wild ride… “As I rocketed towards space, it became increasingly necessary to use the trim and push the flight controls to their limits to keep SpaceShipOne under control. I watched the altimeter closely as the rocket stopped. SpaceShipOne’s inertia kept it climbing. The altimeter started to slow down. I fell short by a good 20,000 feet of the required 328,000 feet! I wasn’t to be an astronaut that day!” But Riecken is hoping to become one of the first civilian astronauts soon aboard SpaceShipTwo, which will carry six passengers and two pilots into suborbital space. The spacecraft’s flight tests should start in 2007. Riecken isn’t the first to try to sell pixels on the Internet in an effort to make money. British entrepreneur Alex Tew made $1 million on his homepage. "I am not trying to be a millionaire like Alex Tew,” Riecken told AeroNews Network. “I just want to have a ticket in space and share my experience with everyone who dream to go in space and believe it is impossible for them to achieve this goal.” Riecken, who holds an aviation record flying into all 105 airports in the state of Florida in less then 48 hours, also took one of his students on the ultimate flying lesson by crossing the North Atlantic onboard a twin engine aircraft in 2006.

Ben Riecken at the entrance to Scaled Composites, home of SpaceShipOne. Ben is hoping to raise enough money to take a flight into space on SpaceShipTwo. Ben with Brian Binnie (left) one of the first civilian astronauts. Binnie, like fellow astronaut Mike Melvill, piloted SpaceShipOne into the history books in 2004 For More Information Ben’s web site Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne SpaceShipTwo Virgin Galactic

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