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A Riot of Rockets

Continued from page 1

By David Chandler

Monday, July 10, 2006

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If the Falcon 1 launch works as expected, the company plans to begin test firings of a much bigger craft, the Falcon 9, as early as this November. Using nine rocket motors identical to the single motor in Falcon 1, the huge rocket could deliver payloads and humans to the International Space Station (ISS), or anywhere else in low Earth orbit. The tests slated for this fall would be static firings -- engine tests while strapped to the launch pad -- but after a series of tests next year, actual commercial flights could begin in 2008, Musk said.

Finally, Virgin Galactic, a partnership between Sir Richard Branson and Burt Rutan -- founder of Scaled Composites, whose SpaceShipOne won the X Prize in 2004 -- is getting close to test flights of a suborbital tourist spaceplane (although Rutan never announces a schedule for his test flights until they happen).

Still more rockets may be soaring soon under a NASA project called COTS, for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, which represents "really a sea-change for NASA," says Musk of SpaceX. Several companies, including SpaceX, have been competing under COTS for contracts to develop alternative ways to get astronauts to the ISS once the space shuttle is retired (see "NASA's Bold Plan for Private Spaceflight").

While this may be a record year for liftoffs by independent rocket-powered vehicles, it's just the start, according to X Prize Foundation spokesman Ian Murphy. "I think you're going to see a new record every year" for private space launches, he predicts.

Comments

  • 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
    Rate this comment: 12345
    Guest (kitk)
    07/10/2006
    Posts:1
    • spacedev.
      Spacedev is also working on rockets and powered spaceship one in 2004.
      Rate this comment: 12345
      Guest (Dick Jones at OCP)
      07/10/2006
      Posts:1
    • 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?
      Rate this comment: 12345
      Guest (Reader)
      07/10/2006
      Posts:1
      • umm...
        id say its alot more dangerous...
        Rate this comment: 12345
        Guest (dan)
        07/10/2006
        Posts:1
      • 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.
        Rate this comment: 12345
        Guest (Orbital)
        07/11/2006
        Posts:1
  • Space tourism? Old news...
    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.
    Rate this comment: 12345
    Guest (taxpayer)
    07/11/2006
    Posts:1
    • affordable
      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.
      Rate this comment: 12345
      Guest (orbital)
      07/11/2006
      Posts:1
    • Sucking at the gummint teat
      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.
      Rate this comment: 12345
      Guest (kruelhunter)
      07/15/2006
      Posts:1
  • Inflatable Future?
    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.
    Rate this comment: 12345
    Guest (Andy)
    07/11/2006
    Posts:1
    • Inflaable Future?
      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!
      Rate this comment: 12345
      Guest (Harold)
      08/09/2006
      Posts:1
    • Inflaable Future?
      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!
      Rate this comment: 12345
      Guest (Harold)
      08/09/2006
      Posts:1

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