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An EADS Atrium aircraft, which will enable space tourists to experience weightlessness briefly outside the earth's atmosphere. The Airbus Space and Defence SpacePlane, also called EADS Astrium TBN according to some sources, is a suborbital spaceplane concept for carrying space tourists, proposed by EADS Astrium, the space subsidiary of the European consortium EADS. It is a rocket plane with a large wingspan, straight rearwards wing and a pair of canards. Propulsion is ensured by classical turbofan jet engines for the atmospheric phase and a methane-oxygen rocket engine for the space tourism phase. It can carry a pilot and four passengers. The dimensions and looks are somewhat similar to those of a business jet. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/EADS Atrium/Marc Newson Ltd)
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