(Page 2 of 2)
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.
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.
Our list of the 50 most innovative companies, including the following:
On Twitter
Become a Fan on Facebook
Subscribe to the Feed
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
Reply
Guest (Dick Jones at OCP)
spacedev.
Spacedev is also working on rockets and powered spaceship one in 2004.
Reply
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?
Reply
Guest (dan)
umm...
id say its alot more dangerous...
Reply
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.
Reply