And You Think F1 Is Expensive!

The really big budget F1 teams, Ferrari and Toyota in particular, spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on their programs (with various degrees of success). As mind blowing as those amounts are, at least F1 cars are limited to screaming across the Earth's surface. Those budgets will probably be dwarfed by those involved in the newly founded Rocket Racing League. The money and brains behind the RRL comes from X-Prize founder Dr. Peter H. Diamandis and Granger Whitelaw, "two-time Indianapolis 500 champion team partner." Today's press release describes the concept:

Rocket races will operate much like auto races, with the exception that the "track" is up in the sky. Courses are expected to be approximately two miles long, one mile wide, and about 5,000 feet high, running perpendicularly to spectators. The rocket planes, called X-Racers, will take off from a runway both in a staggered fashion and side-by side and fly a course based on the design of a Grand Prix competition, with long straight-aways, vertical ascents, and deep banks. Each pilot will follow his or her own virtual "tunnel" or "track" of space through which to fly, safely separated from their competitors by a few hundred feet.

Seems to me like a two-mile course might be a little short for "rocket races," but what do I know?