SPACE AGE

The STARCHASER CAMPAIGN

Starchaser and the Ansari X-Prize

STARCHASER is Britain's leading entry in the international 10 million dollar Ansari X-Prize competition and our most advanced stake in the private passenger spaceflight industry of the future.

Starchaser 4 Courtesy Starchaser Industries Ltd.

As of early 2004, there are 27 teams worldwide officially competing for the Ansari X-Prize. 18 of these are based in the U.S.A., 2 in Canada, 3 in the U.K., and one in each of Argentina, Israel, Romania and Russia. (Surprisingly, there are none from any of the major continental Western European nations, or Japan.) The object is to fly a crew of three to the edge of space (100 km altitude) and back, and to repeat the flight using the same spaceship within a fortnight.

Led by engineer and entrepreneur Steve Bennett, Starchaser Industries is a company based near Manchester which is currently funded by sponsorship and donations. Yet it has the potential to unlock a major new industry flying ordinary passengers into space and back. It is the leading U.K. team in the competition, and the only one which is actually building and flying hardware for the space tourism industry.

Everyone can help Britain live up to its enterprising history of exploration and invention -- and claim a share of the 10 million dollar prize money! -- by joining the Starchaser supporters' club.

Please support this project by joining the Starchaser supporters' club
through the Starchaser website!

Please read on to see how you can help attract others to support Britain in space!

The Goal ...

Thunderstar/Starchaser 5 -- the kind of reusable passenger rocket which is under construction now in Starchaser's workshop in Hyde, Cheshire. Courtesy Starchaser Industries Ltd. The image actually shows an earlier design known as Thunderbird.

The Campaign

This campaign is to be carried forward by leafleting and media interviews, with the object of encouraging the public to join the Starchaser supporters' club. Different leaflet designs are being used for different situations.

We need manpower to hand these out in city centres and at airshows and similar events over the summer of 2004. Please volunteer to Stephen Ashworth, sa@astronist.demon.co.uk -- Thank you.

Space tourist voyages are an essential part of the optimistic future which we all seek. They could --

• Create new high-tech jobs for Britain, replacing those low-tech jobs now being lost from this country to developing countries around the world
• Develop the skills we need for long-term sustainable energy from space
• Increase environmental awareness as more and more people see Mother Earth from space with their own eyes -- remember that photo of Earth taken from the Moon by the Apollo 8 astronauts? --

• Inspire younger generations with a vision of the creative possibilities in front of them and the wonders of the universe yet to be discovered
• Promote world peace by providing a creative outlet for the energies of the military-industrial sector of the largest developed countries, and by fostering a sense of global citizenship to counteract the destructive aspects of nationalism and religionism
• Ultimately secure our civilisation's long-term survival against all kinds of possible global disasters, both man-made (war, pollution) and natural (natural climate change, asteroid impact) in origin, by diversifying in space from one world to many

Starchaser, together with the other innovative space ventures being pioneered in this country, is heir to the tradition of great British engineering projects of the last two centuries -- the Stephenson railways, the great ocean liners such as the Great Britain, the Oceanic and the Mauretania, the world's first commercial jet airliner and of course, together with France, the amazing Concorde.

We need to keep this tradition alive, for it embodies the best of our talents and our hopes for a peaceful, creative and prosperous future.