'We've already sold tickets for our first flight to space'

For someone at the cutting edge of the UK's space travel industry, Steve Bennett's life couldn't be further away from the likes of Elon Musk. Having just celebrated his 60th birthday, the CEO of Starchaser Industries told the M.E.N he spent it 'chilling out' on his narrowboat in Nantwich.

Starchaser Industries is an aerospace company based in Hyde started by Steve in 1992. A company born from his boyhood fascination of space travel which started with the Apollo moon landing in 1969.

"I didn't actually watch it because I was five and my mother wouldn't let me," Steve laughed. "It was about three o'clock in the morning. I asked her 'can I stay up and watch it?' and she said no, it's past your bedtime but there will be another one."

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Since then he admits to having been 'extremely drawn towards space exploration'. But his own trajectory towards the stars hasn't taken a conventional route, if there ever was one for a lad from Dukinfield.

He spent his youth building a chemistry lab, and launching homemade rockets to the amazement of his family and friends. After leaving school he worked as a lab technician before joining the Army in 1983.

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Working his way up to Lance Corporal he trained as a petroleum operator. Following his time in the forces, he went back to work as a lab tech and then later a physics lecturer at Salford University.

But it wasn't until he was in his 30s with a family of his own, that he decided to follow his dream of becoming a space travel pioneer, creating Starchaser Industries. Much of the company's early ambitions were focused on winning the X Prize – a competition with a 10 million dollar prize for the first non-government organisation to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.

It was eventually won in 2004 by Mojave Aerospace Ventures for their SpaceShipOne. The winning technology was later licensed by Richard Branson to create Virgin Galactic – a British-American spaceflight company. It was a sobering moment for Steve who had been working for years with a comparatively meagre budget.

"When I was working on the X Prize, I'd raised several million pounds and I thought we were well on our way. But that design that won the X Prize won because they spent 25 million dollars to win a 10 million dollar prize. That's the kind of money you have to put into it.

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"If you look at the money Elon Musk (SpaceX) is putting in and Jeff Bezos (founder of shopping giant Amazon and aerospace company Blue Origin) it's a colossal amount of money. I'm not saying that's bad, it's just very sobering. I thought I could do it on about £10 million and there's absolutely no way because there's such a lot to it," he said.

While Starchaser has never had anything like the budget of those with deep pockets like Branson, Musk and Bezos, they have arrived relatively late to the party compared to Steve, who began launching his rockets from Morecambe Bay and Ministry Of Defence (MOD) sites in the 1990s and 2000s. In contrast, he has had to fundraise and tour schools, he says, to help 'keep the lights on'.

It's been a constant source of frustration, not helped by what he sees as a lack of ambition by the UK government. "We've had no support from the government at all, which is really annoying," he said.

"You've got the UK Space Agency and they've got a significant budget. They do make funding available but they carve it up into such small chunks and there's so many caveats we just can't qualify for it. It's very, very frustrating."

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Another hurdle he says is the lack of help when it comes to finding a suitable launch site for Starchaser's latest rocket, Astra-X – a nine metre fully reusable rocket weighing around 800kg. The rocket has been ready to launch for 18 months but Steve says they can't find anywhere to launch it from.

Previously he's been able to launch his rockets from MOD sites, but he says the current tensions surrounding the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have meant booked launches have been cancelled last minute. Another once productive launch site was Morecambe Bay, but since the last successful launch there in 2000, he laments the 'hierarchy has changed'. This, he says, has resulted in the Astra-X launch being shelved until a suitable launch site can be found.

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But, regardless of the hurdles put in his way, it's the same sense of childhood wonder at the moon landings that still gets Steve up in the morning to continue his work. And his Hyde-based space travel company still has big ambitions.

"One thing that's always driven me is I've always wanted to take a trip into space. From a completely personal and selfish point of view," he says.

"I've got the technology to do it, I just need the backing to finish this project off. That's what I want to do and I want to bring people with me. We've already sold tickets on the first flight but I just want to share this with as many people as possible.

"We're doing stuff in Manchester and we're actually making progress. We're physically making this kit and testing it but it's very difficult to get funding or investors.

"I've come up with a new sort of concept for launching rockets and I need to get funding for that. Basically it's electric propulsion to get the rocket up there.

"Imagine a totally reusable rocket using electricity instead of chemicals." This technology, Steve says, would be reusable, extremely safe and reliable, which would mean costs would come down. He hopes to get universities and some bright post-graduates involved in his potential all-electric rocket launch system to eventually build a workable prototype to test.

So, while Starchaser's current space travel ambitions surround launching Astra-X and developing innovative launch technologies, what predictions does he see happening in regards to space travel in 25 years time? "It's anybody's game really, it really is," Steve says.

"The space industry is going to be massive. At the moment you've got SpaceX dominating the market with what they're doing – rockets you can launch a dozen times or more.

"But I think the space frontier is going to open up. It's going to develop in ways we can't envisage right now. There's going to be loads of money to be made.

"People are going to be able to take holidays in space, and I'm not just talking putting a space suit on and going up on a short hop into space. There are going to be space hotels, like cruise liners.

"You know like you go for a cruise around the Caribbean, in 25 years I can see people taking cruise liner ships in space going around the Earth, or to the moon and back. The technology to do this has been around for 50 years, it just requires someone to bring it all together."

Perhaps someone like Steve, despite his company and its ambitions being something of a 'square peg in a round hole' according to the space entrepreneur.

Or perhaps someone like Elon Musk, who seems to have both the ambition and the finances to push the frontiers of space travel. "I met Elon Musk a couple of times," Steve says. The first when he was seated next to him at an X Prize fundraising dinner in New York around 2003.

"The next time I met him was about a year later, at a 'brainstorming' event in New Mexico, where the New Mexico government wanted to hear from space industry experts about ideas for developing their up-and-coming spaceport. Again, I found myself sitting next to Elon for the duration."

Despite finding the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to be 'a bit of an odd character,' Steve believes 'he's doing fantastic stuff.' Adding: "I can't speak more highly of him. He's very innovative."

Currently Steve and Starchaser are desperately looking for a launch site for Astra-X, and are asking for owners with private land to get in touch. "If we can get landowners' permission we can get Civil Aviation Authority permission - and we can launch this rocket," he said.

They're also relaunching their Space4school's programme, he says to inspire the current and future generations of schoolchildren. Motorists are often stunned to see Steve driving one of his own rockets on the back of a lorry, going to-and-from school visits.

This part of Starchaser's work, he believes, is incredibly important. Not just helping fund his company's own ambitions and 'keep the lights on', but to inspire the next generation of space travel innovators.

More information on Starchaser's Astra-X and Space4schools projects can be found on their website.