SpaceShipOne was the first private spaceship to carry three people to 100 kilometers altitude, return safely, and repeat the feat with the same craft within two weeks. Two years after it won the $10 million X Prize for this achievement, an unprecedented flurry of private rocket launches are expected later this year. (Courtesy of Scaled Composites.)
An unprecedented number of private launches are planned for this year, showing real progress toward inexpensive space travel.
Last week saw the successful launch of the Space Shuttle, but this week may see something far more relevant to the future of space travel: the launch of a prototype piece of a future orbiting hotel. It comes amid an expected flurry of private launches of small, innovative, and reusable rockets that will make 2006 a watershed year for privately financed rockets.
Taken together, these expected launches could usher in an era of relatively inexpensive space travel. "Even as the shuttle sweeps overhead, we have new items on the real road to practical spaceflight -- private market development -- popping up," says Boston-based aerospace engineer and consultant Charles Lurio.
The first of the new companies to launch this year is developing a potential new destination: a hotel in space. Using a design originally conceived as an add-on module for the International Space Station, Las Vegas hotelier Robert Bigelow is planning his first test flight of a subscale version of an inflatable space station module, scheduled to take place by July 14 at a launch pad in Russia. He hopes to have a full-sized orbiting hotel open for tourism by 2012. While some have been skeptical about Bigelow's plans, partly because of his relative secrecy, Lurio says "by all accounts...this is a serious, technically careful project."
But the Bigelow launch is only the first in a series of expected private launches. Some of the loudest roars will be heard this fall in New Mexico, at the X Prize Cup. That's an exposition to showcase developments in new rocket technology, following the 2004 awarding of the $10 million X Prize for private manned rocket launches that reached suborbital altitudes and returned safely. The X Prize Cup will kick off with multiple launches and takeoffs of rocket-powered vehicles.
The Cup will see at least two launches of prototype vertical takeoff, vertical landing rockets that might evolve into a vehicle that could someday land on the moon. These will be made as part of a NASA-sponsored lunar challenge -- a challenge that includes a $2.5 million prize for demonstrating a rocket's ability to take off and land vertically, and move sideways while aloft. Fifty teams have registered for the contest and two are considered almost certain to compete: Armadillo Aerospace of Texas, which was a competitor for the original X Prize, and startup Masten Space Systems of Mojave, CA.
Meanwhile, Space Exploration Corp., or SpaceX, founded by PayPal founder Elon Musk, this October expects to make a second launch attempt of its Falcon 1 rocket, at the Kwajelein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, after an attempt last spring that failed less than one minute after liftoff (see "Space Tourism or Bust"). When it comes to putting satellites or astronauts into orbit within the next couple of years, as opposed to suborbital flights, SpaceX may be the only real contender.
A SpaceX rocket will be the next U.S. vehicle to travel to the space station after the shuttles retire.
A test-rocket explosion notwithstanding, SpaceX is still forging ahead with a new, low-cost orbital rocket.
In the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, a new generation of rocket-powered launch technologies gets a closer look.
Guest (taxpayer)
Pay $20M to Russians and get aboard their Soyuz. They'll fly you to ISS for a week and back, too. No need to wait for this amateur "rocketry" stuff to come out of pre-K age.
Rockets have been flying into space for almost half a century now.
What's the big fuss about the X Prize? Nothing but some PR for big pockets who failed to get a job at NASA because they dropped out of school too early. OTOH it's kinda like sailboating around the globe, but with more exposure in the media.
Guest (orbital)
The pont which you fail to get is that not everybody has $20M to blow, but far more people have $200k.
Also, the fuss about the x-prize is that it was done with no government money. No seeminly limitless supplies of cash. it was done on a budget and is tuned to turn a profit...something no government space shot could ever do.
Since this "Amature rocketry stuff" is so simple, I guess you will be revealing your cheap commercial orbiter any day now, right?
You clearly have no vision, and thank goodness your not in a position to stop this progress.
Guest (kruelhunter)
The main reason that space exploration, especially near earth, has been so sluggish is that launch systems and payloads have been under government control for too long. The best hope for mankinds future in space industry, and tourism, is it's assumption by private enterprise. Ventures like the Russians are not helpful precisely because of government involvement. Space travel for profit will lead to asteroid mining and other ventures too risky for politicians to become involved with.
Guest (Andy)
With Bigalow using inflatable modules, and a JP Aerospace (http://www.jpaerospace.com/) with a design for using airships to get to orbit. Combine this with solar sails we scould soon have a rush to orbit and beyond that will benefit us all, if it works. I hope so, its very exciting.
Guest (Harold)
Member of the Planetary Society?
Solar Sailing is the way to go.
The Russians have lots of surplus
rockets. Most ventures begin with
failure, but if you fall off the
horse, you get up and try again!
Bigger and better; more, more, more! In Medias Res!
Guest (Harold)
Member of the Planetary Society?
Solar Sailing is the way to go.
The Russians have lots of surplus
rockets. Most ventures begin with
failure, but if you fall off the
horse, you get up and try again!
Bigger and better; more, more, more! In Medias Res!
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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Guest (kitk)
dangerous ventures
well, private developement has worked for almost every other form of technology, but never forget that progress is dangerous, often violent, and uncertain. still, it may carry us into space, and take the monopoly away from an inefficient NASA
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Guest (Dick Jones at OCP)
spacedev.
Spacedev is also working on rockets and powered spaceship one in 2004.
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Guest (Reader)
People worried about danger?
So how much more dangerous is it than rock climbing, skiing, and the hundreds of other dangerous sports people engage in?
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Guest (dan)
umm...
id say its alot more dangerous...
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Guest (Orbital)
risks
If we balk at risks we will never get anything done.
It is all dangerous, just as early flight was, but if we stopped flying at the first barnstorming death aviation would be decades behind where we are. As it is, those brave few paved the way with their lives, conciously making a decision to risk their lives, so that we can have the kind of safe and routine flight we have today.
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