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nothing has prevented private companies from investing in space research/travel in the past 4-5 decades.

Actually, there are documented cases of government obstructionism throughout the past decades. NASA used to launch commercial satellites on Shuttle. How can you field a commercial space launch company in an environment where you have to compete with government for scarce payloads available ?
Beal Aerospace was basically forced out of the market, read their parting statement on the very webpage.
AAS program was basically used to get a couple companies that were pursuing their own markets tied up with fulfilling NASA requirements, then they morphed it into something else and killed the program entirely.
There are lots more examples, if you go and read the history books that arent written by "authorities"

Honestly I don't think this is a bad idea. NASA has lost its focus. Right now it's major scientific project is a space station to give the retiring space shuttle a place to go.

I think we've all been disappointed that the flying cars and weekend trips to mars envisioned by TV and authors in our childhood have not materialized. But the government was never a good way to go about space exploration. It's too risky, and governments are risk averse. A better way to do it is in the private sector. They're more tolerant of risk. The X-Prize has been phenomenally successful, and should be emulated. But government over-regulation, and subsidized competitors has prevented the private sector from flourishing. For a sad read, go over to Beale Aerospace's page.

NASA needs to refocus its effort on science by contracting launch services from the private sector. Congress should rearrange the regulatory atmosphere to allow this to happen (particularly with respect to human spaceflight and liability), and to enable a competitive launch industry rather than the the fat-cat subsidized government contractors we have now.

I want to go to the Moon and Mars too, but no more "flags & footprints". It's long past time we got serious about human spaceflight and did what it takes to make it an everyday occurrence. As long as all human spaceflight is in NASA's hands, nothing will change.

The thing is much bigger than I expected. I would guess with a 2m radius and 4m height. It is quite fat, so I guess they are using spherical or ellipsoidal propellant tanks. The shape reminds me of the Kankoh Maru and the shell seems to be made of composites or plastic. I guess the blunt nose makes sense because the thing is suborbital and they do not have a wide cross range requirement like the Delta Clipper had.

I am not an expert, but the burn looked too clean, I guess it is a pressure fed mono propellant. Perhaps H2O2 (Hydrogen Peroxide) like someone else said. Much like what Carmack tried to do with Armadillo. I counted 3 x 3 = 9 thrust chambers in that setup.

The man requested someone with experience in cryogenic turbopumps. Even mentioned the RS-68 explicitly. So it seems to me he is going for a pump fed LOX/LH2 engine. It makes much more sense to me than the H2O2/Kerosene rumours I heard before. Why risk it all by going for an engine no one has built before? I mean the only rocket engine with that combo I remember is the one in the British Black Arrow rocket from the 70s. Beal killed himself by going with a risky H2O2/Kerosene combo and a filament wound shell.

A LOX/LH2 engine with a variable mixture ratio would do the trick. H2O2 is IMO overrated and finicky. LOX is cheaper than high purity H2O2 and has pretty good density. You have to go for LH2 if you wanna go orbital anyway for the ISP AFAIK (unless you use a lot of stages, which I guess is what they do not want).

The cost of space stuff should concern you, because as a taxpayer you're paying for it. It's not as much money as the military, but the article is trying to say we could get more capable technology for our buck.

Check this out. It basically is an example of a low-cost commercial launch system company going under as a result having to compete with NASA.

I don't know if the company in the link would have actually made a working system, but the link makes the point that private sector space tech would not even be able to get investment capital, because of the uncertainties created from having to compete with NASA-subsidized projects which do not need to make a profit.

OTOH, NASA contractors compete with each other to win the contracts, so it's not really a monopoly. Then again, the project requirements often dictate the complexity and (in)efficiency in $$$. So really, to fixing the "problem" is more a manner of tweaking the way money is counted, rather then eliminating NASA.

But don't take my word for it; listen to what Beal said:

Beal Aerospace closes

NASA aren't in business. Atleast they aren't supposed to be. But not even billionaires seem to be able to get into the launch business due to NASA. Check out what Mr. Beal said when he left the launch platform business. But the competition from the Russians and other players is immense (they can launch for 1/4 the price of NASA), and NASA shows no sign of being able to compete, and are falling behind the price curve at a tremendous rate.

NASA's proportion of the space pie is shrinking- commercial operators, some of them NASA contractors are growing, and NASA can't grow due to it's fixed budget from the government- it's actually part of the government. That's a good thing in fact. Companies are supposed to grow, Governments can only grow by increasing taxation.

NASA should stick to what it's good at, exploration, not commercial launching.

A new design like the X-33 and its leaky tanks?? When the government throws money at the big boys (Boeing and Lockheed) it makes it so no one wants to invest in the little companies with the really good ideas, like Beal.

The Shuttle was, is, and has always been an experimental vehicle. It was the first vehicle of its kind and if they would have "designed it as an airplane" it would have cost many Billions more to develop.

NASA should stick to researching new technologies and then distributing them for free, as per its charter. NASA should not give subsidies to some companies at the expense of others.

The big deal about using hydrogen peroxide as fuel is the simplicity of the engine design. All you have to do is run the peroxide (which is, btw, far, far more concentrated than what you buy at the drugstore) over a platinum mesh, and there is a catalyzed reaction and the stuff goes off.

Combine that with a simple, pressurized fuel tank instead of turbopumps, and you have a rocket engine with the minimum of moving parts. Perfect for a technology demonstrator that's more about the other parts of the system than the rocket itself.

The late, lamented Beal Aerospace was building a big booster rocket by scaling up this technology, and with a fair degree of success. (Then NASA stomped them flat by announcing a "civilian space launch initiative" that would have amounted to subsidizing Beal's competitors. Beal closed up shop.) Read the Space Access Society's pages to see what they think of NASA these days.

For more fun with peroxide rockets, see here.

Jon Acheson

NASA's very existence serves as a deterrent to privately funded space travel. Witness the recent demise of Beal Aerospace last October.

also
kistler
and
beal

and they actually have funding (although I'm sure they could use more )

The "space game" isn't heating up, just Slashdot's coverage of it is. I'd given up last year on submitting space stories to be ignored by "News for Computer Nerds", but the change of pace this summer is pretty nice. But frankly, with the progress of past years in mind, the current news is pretty depressing.

Rotary Rocket has been gutted of engineers and CEO, and their current progress is destined to be mothballed unless they find a magic money tree somewhere.

Ok, so they were a long shot. But Kistler was playing it relatively safe with their design (after ditching an initial wacky idea), didn't hit any big technical or political snags, but simply is in limbo now trying to raise the last third of their funding.

Did Timothy not read the last SAS newsletter when it got posted to Slashdot? (Big thanks to whomever did that one, by the way; I'd advise interested readers to check out the archives too). The SAS seems to be the group most interested in low cost access to space, rather than in lobbying for a larger NASA budget. And they hit the mark right on with that last article; it takes a billion dollar initial investment to develop a new launch system, there are only two aerospace companies left who can afford that kind of investment, and they've both got good reason to love the status quo.

Oh, but what about government research? The X-33 is a joke. It was never designed as a simple, cheap launch vehicle, just as a way to be a "technology demonstrator" for as much flashy stuff as necessary to win a NASA contract. Of course, except for the aerospike engine, most of that flashy stuff is looking worse and worse. The lifting body shape may need control fins the size of wings, or ballast (yes, ballast on a spacecraft) to keep the center of gravity ahead of the center of pressure. They've just about given up on a high-tech composite tank after discovering it damaged in tests, and will probably have to use plain old aluminum for their wacky, multilobed design.

And did I mention that they're running years behind schedule, over budget, and despite previous agreements that Lockheed-Martin would pay budget overruns, they may renegotiate or scrap the project anyway?

Sea Launch's success isn't even in the same class as these failures. They're trying to squeeze a few extra pounds onto the usual work-intensive expendable rocket, not to reduce the gross costs of space launch by an order of magnitude.

My last glimmer of hope is Beal Aerospace, not because they have any groundbreaking new ideas in their design, but because they've got a sugar daddy financer who can afford all the capital investment before they get up and running. And even if they get started with tried and true booster technologies, they'll be a profitable new space company with no vested interest in squeezing the largest launch prices out of the government as possible. And that might actually heat things up.

Well, really, you're right but you're also wrong.
The first problem we have to solve, before we can do anything at all useful in space, is getting to orbit efficiently. Until we do that, the best we can do for interplanetary stuff is "photos and footprints", like we did with Apollo.

If you're talking about getting to orbit cheaply, your mass fraction needs to be good enough to lift a worthwhile payload. And obviously the more you can lift, the better off you are.
However the primary cost driver of current launch systems is not the fuel: Liquid O2 (which is most of the propellant mass) is about $.05/lb. That's still $10Ks for a full propellant load, but that's not where the real expenses come into play.
The real expense in current launch systems is in the operational nature of the vehicle. Most launchers are expendable, remember. And most of those vehicles are based on ICBM designs, which sacrificed economic efficiency for the sake of getting every last bit of performance out of the system. This does not make for a cheap vehicle. Beal is tackling the problem from this direction by building an expendable launcher that is designed to be CHEAP. And you know what, they're probably going to succeed (although they may not make much money, because it's not clear that they can break the $600/lb price barrier with this approach).
As far as reusable vehicles go: The Space Shuttle requires practically a full refit between each flight. They have to -- no shit -- deweld parts of the engines in order to replace internal components EVERY TIME they fly. Then they have to put them back together, test them, etc, etc. Something like 30,000 people put their hands on the vehicles between each flight, and thousands more are needed at the actual launch. This is not the way to fly cheaply!
Cheap reusable vehicles are possible with current technology, but they require a level of systems engineering that has not been present in most recent NASA designs (it's certainly not there on the X-33). For various reasons, single stage vehicles would be much cheaper to operate, but making a reusable SSTO launcher requires a very high degree of optimization, and some difficult engineering trades. Throw in the need to please 15 different bureaucrats and politicians, and the job becomes impossible.

Your point about advanced propulsion technologies is well taken: for interplantary work, mass fraction is all-important (because you have to lift not only the vehicle but also all the damn fuel). But most of those systems are not suitable for launch, and those that are, are very far out. We don't need fancy new technologies to make that first step, getting to orbit cheaply. We just need some money (not very much, maybe $100-200M) and a good engineering team.

Yes that is an excellent site, however I personally think that the information here is more relevant to the topic.

Maybe Beal can do it. He seems the closest of any of the commercial projects out there. He's using pressurised fuel tanks, though - no turbo pumps, but its never been done before because the tanks weren't strong enough (or so says my friend from Rocketdyne). Here's the link Beal Aerospace