Council leaders asked if they'll take the Sexbomb to the moon

It's arguably the strangest question Cornwall Council's Conservative Cabinet members have ever been asked – will they be among the first to take the Sexbomb to the moon? It's got nothing to do with Tom Jones and everything to do with a series of space planes being tested at Spaceport Cornwall in Newquay.

Canadian company Space Engine Systems Inc (SES) is developing hypersonic space planes called the Hello series in Cornwall as well as a demonstrator plane called Spacebomb, claiming to be a "trucking company to anywhere in space mainly focused on the Lunar Mission". SES  is already taking orders and selling seats, according to its president Pradeep Dass.

A member of the public asked Cornwall Council's leaders at a meeting on Wednesday, (June 14) if "any Cabinet member will be among the first to fly on the Sexbomb space plane which is currently advertising lunar flights from Newquay in 2025 and if not why not?"

The council's portfolio holder for economy Louis Gardner – who has worked closely with Spaceport Cornwall – verified that the Hello series of space planes were being tested in Cornwall. Without verifying if he or any of his colleagues would be straddling the Sexbomb, Cllr Gardner added: "Any future launch by SES or any other launch operator will be governed by the Civil Aviation Authority at the time."

SES is planning to develop two related space planes – Hello-1 is destined to conduct missions to suborbital altitudes and Hello-2 to any point between low-Earth orbit and the lunar surface. They will be completely reusable, taking off and landing horizontally (which is why they will be able to take off from Spaceport Cornwall's base at Newquay airport). The technology itself needs to be tested, hence the use of a demonstrator plane called Sexbomb.

"The kinetic energy at Mach 5 is very high," Mr Dass told the Futurism website. "It will act like a bomb if it hits anything. It is sexy, so it is a sexbomb."

The company is taking orders for Hello-1 and Hello-2 payloads. "We can clearly claim that we will be the lowest cost to space as we use air breathing engines through most of Earth's atmosphere," SES has stated.

Mr Dass said last year: "We are setting up at Cornwall, UK. It is at Newquay airport. The Cornwall team has been very supportive and is standing by to help us at all levels. We are in the very early stages of discussions with CAA [Civil Aviation Authority] for licensing to launch our various products from the UK. It is exploratory at this time. You never know that we may be the first to launch successfully from UK soil to space. We have an aggressive plan for launch."

SES is planning to launch the Sexbomb in Manitoba, Canada. It would be dropped from a giant balloon at 110,000 feet in the air. The craft will eventually fall at almost twice the speed of sound before turning on its engines and accelerating to speeds of more than 3,700 mph before landing. Subsequent testing will use the self-launching Hello 1 in standard horizontal take-off and landing.