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It seems that Blue Origin would have to amend their Environmental Impact Statement if they changed propellants, but perhaps they'd first develop and validate the LOX/LH2 engine design before doing the EPA paperwork.

Seriously though - how much bigger is this vehicle going to get? The photos of it on the flatbed truck are awe inspiring...yet I can't imagine how much of that must simply be for fuel.

The Environmental Impact Statement they were required to publish last year describing their suborbital vehicle says that the "stacked vehicle would have a roughly conical shape with a base diameter of approximately 7 meters (22 feet) and a height of approximately 15 meters (50 feet)."

Judging from the photograph with the guy standing next to the rocket, the current test article seems to be maybe 6-7 meters tall, so I guess the final thing will be more than twice as tall.

(I've connected some analysis by various people in the space blogosphere, many of whom are current or former aerospace engineers)

Clark Lindsay's RLV News, an (excellent) site for private spaceflight news, has some pretty good analysis of the deal. From his latest post:

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid =2397

* Even though it initially only involves a study into the possibility of Atlas V transport to the Bigelow station, just the fact that one of the largest aerospace companies is taking seriously the prospect of commercial manned spaceflight independent of NASA is going to have a big impact on attitudes towards it by NASA and other mainstream companies.

* The high launch rates depend to some extent on space tourism but Bigelow is currently focusing on plans to convince a lot of the countries that currently do not have manned space capabilities to create their own astronaut programs and to center these programs around utilization of the Bigelow facility. The Lockheed deal should make it easier for Bigelow to convince such countries that the opportunities for space access to the facility are for real.

* NASASpaceflight.com notes the potential impact on the COTS winners - SpaceX and Rocketplane-Kistler. However, if those companies succeed in their development plans, their reusable vehicles should be considerably cheaper to operate than the Atlas V. Also, I doubt that Bigelow would want to be dependent on just one vehicle and would most likely contract with at least one other transport company.

* If this plan goes forward and Lockheed-Martin begins developing a manned version of the Atlas V, it's difficult to believe that NASA could continue with the Ares I/Orion program as currently configured. Arguing that the Orion couldn't possibly be made lighter is not going to be sufficient reason to justify a multi-billion dollar duplication of a launch capability that's available at a much lower price.

From Selenian Boondocks:

http://selenianboondocks.blogspot.com/2006/09/lock heedbigelow-space-tourism-deal.html

* Lockheed has the contract for the Orion capsule, which means that they can probably piggy-back a lot of their space tourism capsule work off of what they're doing for Orion. Also, if they happen to be able to field their Atlas V tourism vehicle before Orion, they might be able to make out like total bandits--netting billions in development funds for something that they can turn around and say "look, we have a cheaper, and better alternative that's already on the market, --go with us, and you could save lots of money". The upshot being even more flights on their Atlas V. I think this is potentially win-win-win for Lockheed.

* As LM has pointed out elsewhere a lot of the price hikes for Atlas V stem from the fact that they're only launching 2-4 of these per year. They have to cover all of their payroll costs, factory maintenance and upkeep costs, pad ops costs, etc but spread out over much fewer launches. At 2-4 flights per year, they're looking at $140M for their barebones Atlas V, while at 6-8 flights per year they were offering it initially for about $70M. At 20 flights per year, maybe they could cut the price down into the $35-50M range. At that point, the costs per person would be in the $5-10M range.

* Bigelow has stated time and again that he's not in the orbital hotel business. He expects to make most of his money off of building space stations for research, manufacturing, providing low-cost space programs to countries not traditionally thought of as having space programs, as well as orbital tourism. A lot of those other markets aren't as sensitive to cost per ticket as they are to reliability of access. 16 flights per year means that you have a ride

His opposition to manned spaceflight and the lunar missions in particular. He was sure that if men traversed the Van Allen Belts, they would become poisoned by radioactivity and die. If he and Jerome Wiesner had their way, there would have been no manned space program, only robot probes.

I think his opposition to NASA's manned space program, such as it was, has been exaggerated over recent years. For example, he is asked here whether Spaceship One has possibilities for space science. His answer was that he could not see how a person on a suborbital flight could do more than automated experiments on an unmanned flight. This was spun by the questioner into the claim that he still resists manned space flight.

My take is that in hindsight, his resistance to NASA's manned space program has been justified. The Saturn rockets, the best vehicles that NASA produced for carrying astronauts, were scuttled long ago and the Shuttle never was not nor never would be properly funded. The International Space Station has turned out to be an extraordinary waste even by NASA standards. And NASA has fumbled and dropped numerous potential replacements for the Shuttle. The only rationalization ever put forth is that somehow these programs expand either our scientific knowledge or test some novel engineering. Needless to say, if that's what you want a manned program for, then you can get the same results for a lot less by going with a far more efficient unmanned program.

Your best bet is Clark Lindsay's RLV and Space Transport News.

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php

You are right that Bigelow Aerospace isn't very press-savvy. But they seem to be remedying that problem slowly.

A cursory glance turned up these

http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/elv/public/
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 9.html
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/ksclive/kscv0 3.html
java, not quite streaming.

But since you got real player installed you might enjoy this site.

http://www.unitedspacealliance.com/live/archive/
or http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/

All of these (and more, like European Space Broadcasts) are listed at:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/SpaceCasts/#NASATV

Thanks for asking though, now I got whole set of new bookmarks for launch day. If I don't go to the beach that is.

It wasn't that extreme although the risks tend to get exaggerated to provide a margin of safety. But there's been quite the "Chicken Little" attitude about lately for some reason. Possibly because there's been so much interest focused on private space launches due to the X-prize and such. NASA's official stance has actually been along the lines that the risk was of developing cancer before they died and it was actually quite a bit less for somebody travelling to Mars than for someone who smoked cigarettes. The biggest problem is that until we actually GO there we really won't KNOW and can only SPECULATE about the risks....
Here's a few links with some info:
http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=162 0
http://www.spacefellowship.com/Forum/about1155-0-a sc-60.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/rel eases/2003/03-183.html

I'm pretty bummed out about this, but hopefully they'll figure things out and the next flight will go better. My sentiments are pretty much the same as this commentary from Clark Lindsay:

Well, this is fairly typical for the first launch of a new vehicle. I hope they will figure out the problem soon and be ready for a second attempt not long after. Elon Musk has said he can afford up to three straight failures before he will decide if they should give up or not.

Also, an interesting comment from that page:

According to Astronautix, the Ariane 1 had failures on the 2nd and 5th launches and Aerospatiale spent a lot more than SpaceX.

Both SpaceflightNow and the forum on NasaSpaceFlight are speculating it was an ablative engine failure. If so, I would imagine they'll hold off on any more launches until the regen Merlin 1B is ready. According to an SpaceX update in mid-2005, they should already have a dozen 1Bs by the end of the 2005. Or it could be the turbopump which according to SpaceX engine page is also responsible for roll control. That might explain why it started to roll after launch.

On a more practical note, with the number of competing vendors and the number of technologies in play, it's not a question of if but of how. Will the laser drives beat the chemical boosters but lose out to the space elevator?

Unless the dimwits with the guns and bombs manage to foobar our entire world, somebody's getting systems running in the next fifteen years or so. As an old L5 member I say, it's about damn time!

-Rustin

Without proper funding, the space program can't do a heck of a lot.

The shuttle program has many problems, but a lack of funding isn't one of them. From a recent post by Clark Lindsay's RLV News: ... For example, the paper notes that "conventional wisdom" holds that if NASA had gotten all the funding it wanted and allowed to build one of the original Shuttle designs, which included a fully reusable fly-back first stage, it could have achieved the original Shuttle mission goals of frequent flights (~50 per year) and greatly lower launch costs. Instead, the design was chopped down to fit within the funding limitations set by Nixon and Congress.

The paper notes that it is in fact arguable that a lavishly funded NASA system would have done so well and, regardless, once NASA lowered the system performance it should have lowered expectations. "Instead, in the effort to promote the programme, NASA held policy goals constant to inflate the programme's apparent benefits while the design was compromised.:

Another common belief is that Congress starved NASA of funding during the Shuttle development. Figure 1, however, shows that Congress typically gave NASA more funding that it asked for during the 1971-81 period.

Griffin talks about how he cannot rely on the commercial sector to achieve the goals of the VSE. So Plan A must be a system specified in detail and implemented wholly by NASA as the agency did with the Shuttle and ISS. However, he should look at Table 1, which compares the promise of the Shuttle program and the actual performance. It does not exactly support his great confidence in the agency's ability to fulfill program goals.

In the summary section, the paper suggests that "quick, smaller, and independent" programs are better than a single huge, centralized, long term program like the shuttle. I think this is exactly right, especially if the smaller programs heavily involve or sponsor commercial firms.

There's some pretty good coverage of the supposed Blackstar spaceplane over on Clark Lindsey's RLV News. According to the latest post, the existence of the project as previously described is looking rather dubious. Here's what Lindsey wrote:

Despite the many details provided by AvWeek about the purported Blackstar program, the existence of an "operational" TSTO reusable system seems wildly inconsistent with what has been happening with all the rest of the government space programs since the early 1990s and with what they have planned for the next couple of decades.

- As a reader already commented, NASA's whole approach to space transport is based on the claim that fully reusable space vehicles are not feasible with current technologies.
- DARPA has had programs like Falcon and RASCAL (canceled due to cost overruns) that are intended to provide "responsive space" capability. For the next 5-10 years, this simply means launching microsats on short notice. Why not just use Blackstar or build on its capabilities?
- Why would a system like the Blackstar be "shelved" when it is so far beyond what anyone else is flying and beyond what the rest of the government claims is even feasible?
- The magazine article speculates that the program was run directly or indirectly by an intelligence agency and they managed to kept it secret from even "top military space commanders". So how did they manage to fly this thing to orbit and not have it show up on the military's space tracking system?
- In a government where secrets seem to stay secret only until more than one person knows about them, I find it extremely hard to believe a huge program like this could be kept under wraps for over 10 years. And not just from the public but from most of the military and NASA.

If it was the beginning of April, I would take this whole thing to be a big leg-puller.

If we were still in the 1980s, I would assume AvWeek had been led astray by a disinformation campaign aimed at the Soviets. But the Soviets are gone so I'm not sure why anyone in the Pentagon or the Intelligence agencies would bother to run an elaborate spaceplane ruse other than perhaps to get back at AvWeek for breaking so many stories about secret programs over the past several decades...

A design study program and some prototype tests, maybe, but a secret operational orbital system borders on sci-fi. I like sci-fi and I hope this story is true but I'll wait for independent confirmation before I'll buy it.

SpaceX is not new, but in a speech at Virginia Tech, Musk talked about the company's troubles and its lawsuit against Boeing and Lockheed as he tries to get a slice of the valuable Air Force contracts."

Unfortunately, it looks like the suit against the merger of Boeing & Lockheed's launch operations (effectively creating a launch monopoly) has been dismissed. Some comments from RLV News (a fantastic space news resource, btw):

A judge has dismissed the lawsuit by SpaceX against the Boeing / Lockheed plan to form the United Launch Alliance to provide most all of the large payload launches for the Air Force for the next several years: SpaceX vs. Boeing and Lockheed Lawsuit Dismissed - NasaSpaceFlight.com - Feb.17.06.

From the description of the decision, it sounds like a Catch-22 situation. The judge is saying that you can't sue to stop the formation of a monopoly until you have built your system and proved that it is capable of competing against the monopoly. However, in a monopoly situation, especially in such a capital intensive area as rockets, it can be extremely difficult to raise the money to build your system if potential investors see that you will be kept out of a primary market. Talk about a barrier to entry!

In this case, Elon Musk has said he will build the Falcon 9 regardless, but it's a shame he has to enter a playing field tilted against him from the start.

An additional comment from the Space Law Probe: The court did not address the merits of SpaceX claims. (Nor, by the way, did the judge make note of whether a successful Falcon launch might have made a difference in the analysis or ruling, as some will no doubt wonder.)

There's an interesting post over on Clark Lindsay's RLV and Space Transport News, part of which I've pasted below:

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid =894

* Florida Today points out that "In the past three years, Congress has given the [Shuttle] program $13 billion, and all that money has resulted in just two flights". Sword of Damocles: NASA must safely launch the space shuttles this year, or the program wont survive - Florida Today - Feb.5.06.

To put that into perspective:

* Elon Musk has spent about $100M so far on developing the line of SpaceX Falcon launchers. The first Falcon 9 launch is scheduled for 2007. He hasn't said how much more money it will take to reach that launch but I doubt it could be more than another $100M.

* Kistler says it needs a few hundred million dollars to finish its fully reusable two stage K-1 vehicle.

* T/Space said it can build a CEV system capable of taking crews and cargo to the ISS for around $500M.

* LockMart once promised to build the VentureStar for $6B. If they had a 100% overrun that would still be less than $13B.

you think sending someone into 'space' for a few minutes is the same as going to the moon and taking a survey?

Private spaceflight entails much more than Rutan's suborbital flights:

http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/SpecialTo pics/toSpaceTimeLine.html

Are there private companies working on machines to try to capture these items?

Yes.

2-stage makes it sound like the craft from The Rocket Company. But the wings break that mold. And, if you ask me, are probably a bad idea! Why? Read The Rocket Company. (Just about the best near-term Sci-Fi book about building reusable rockets, but with *tons* of meaty science & engineering factual tidbits!)

After I made the submission, I came across the following bit on Space Politics, which I think gives a better context for the competition:

Since Michael Griffin became NASA administrator a few months ago we have seen a gradual change in the agency's position on the role of commercial entities in carrying out the VSE. Griffin initially said he was open to it, but noted in early May that he did not want to get into a position where the agency had to rely on commercial contracts to carry out the vision: "I cannot put public money at risk depending on a commercial provider to be in my critical path." Last month, Griffin said he wanted to press ahead with commercial ISS resupply services--cargo initially, later extending to crews--to free up resources elsewhere.

Yesterday, though, NASA raised its commitment to commercialization even higher. Speaking at the Return to the Moon conference, NASA's Chris Shank made it very clear: "We've run the budget and we can't afford to do this with a traditional approach." A non-traditional approach, he explained, will put a far greater emphasis on commercialization, including ISS crew and cargo and perhaps other opportunities, such as purchasing launch services for the CEV. Later in the day, NASA's Brant Sponberg unveiled the agency's new Innovative Programs effort, which includes a mix of service procurements, other transaction authority, and prize competitions.

I also rather liked this bit on Clark Lindsey's RLV News:

Jim Muncy gave a brief but interesting summary yesterday of how he sees the situation with US space policy. He saw Shank's presentation as an indication that the long battle by the entrepreneurial space community to get commercial spaceflight companies welcomed as partners in space development has been won. However, winning a battle can actually mean tougher consequences than losing since now comes the challenge is to fulfill that partnership successfully.

Getting another "big idea" accepted is also making progress. Large scale space settlement must become the primary goal of the space program. No Antarctica-like outposts on the Moon but Las Vegas-es instead. Griffin, in fact, stated in testimony to Congress that human expansion into the solar system is his long term vision for space policy. However, this big idea is still foreign to many at NASA, in Congress, the press and the general public.

Although I somewhat agree with his conclusion, Derbyshire relies on a number of fallacies to get there. The following sites all do a fairly good job of pointing out the errors in Derbyshire's information and logic:

Curmudgeons Corner
RLV News
Transterrestrial Musings: Derb's Rant

http://www.hobbyspace.com/NearSpace/index.html#Roc koons

I think you're thinking of these. They do work, it's just that you have to deal with the time and danger involved with a baloon ride before firing the rocket, while going up in a powered aircraft like a plane gives you more control.

A blimp like thing (lighter than air, powered and with a lifting body profile) that might be nice. That's a whole nother aerospace engineering project in itself.

Whatever happened to launching from lighter-than-air platforms? With conventional rockets, so much weight goes into fuel to move the fuel you'll burn later to move the fuel that comes even later. Surely someone's doing something with a straightforward idea like this?

That's pretty much what JP Aerospace is doing, "airship to orbit." RLV News has some additional info and news items on them.

So what? Griffin restates the VSE goals at an Air Show in Paris.

NASA downselect for CEV was indeed announced Monday, as the article says could happen.

Photos of t-space testing a new Air Launch method for rockets.

On the other hand, NERVA was considered to be possible and was canned over cost. We could do the necessary job with chemical rockets and that was good enough... But basically, the theory is that if you build a few of them to offset development costs somewhat, a fleet of reusable very heavy lift vehicles that can bring useful masses into orbit could be built and you could take them off from and land back in the middle of B.F. nowhere at the end of a serious (meaning solidly built) road in the middle of a wasteland, where they would be serviced.

Anyway smarter people than myself (I'm at least no dummy) think that it could work fairly reliably because it's a simple design, and that it would be sufficiently clean. And, it doesn't involve blowing stuff up.

I still think we should be expending as much effort as is useful on space elevator development. Right now that means materials science. However, you don't build this thing from the ground up. We need a fairly significant mass at the other end of the tether, and we have to be able to move the thing around, so you're talking about fairly serious facilities. We also want to be bringing approximately as much mass down as we are sending up, and in order to do that we need to be able to have something to bring down. To me that implies asteroid mining, which requires a lot of heavy equipment... Regardless, a very heavy lift vehicle is something of a mandatory step in any major space-related endeavor.

From what I understand, Orion's output involves a lot of EMP spread out all over the atmosphere. I imagine that might have somewhat severe repercussions where weather is concerned. Even the cleanest bombs available would be unacceptable for one reason or another, at least if you were planning to do it more than once.

Why do you find that amazing. Money by itself is really not fun in any way. If all it's doing is sitting in your broker's account it does nothing more for you than your everquest currency.

IMnotveryHO, the *ENTIRE* purpose of money is to exchange it for things you'd rather have than money.

For some kinda-rich people that's rocket-ship startup companies -- for even richer people, it's entire countries

I like Bigelow as well. Some have compared him to Delos D. Harriman from the Robert Heinlein classic THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON.

According to the Popular Science article, Bigelow wanted to develop space from the time he was a young man. He studied business in college with the specific goal of earning enough money to fund space expansion.

For a similar vision of a viable business plane for space, read The Rocket Company

I tried submitting a story on SpaceX a couple of weeks ago, but it was sadly rejected. Here's the text of the submission, along with some other interesting info:

Spaceflight Now has an article on SpaceX, a low-cost space launch company started by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk (he is no longer with PayPal). The article describes SpaceX's small-size Falcon I rocket, scheduled to launch a military imaging satellite on its maiden flight in March, and their medium-size Falcon V rocket, scheduled to lift a prototype Bigelow inflatable space habitat next year. Interestingly, the Falcon V has enough capacity to lift a Gemini-style capsule with 5-6 people to orbit. Both rockets have per-pound launch costs approximately one-fifth that of comparable rockets. Long-term plans call for evolving the basic design to heavy-lift and super-heavy lift rockets, assuming SpaceX survives its legal battles with defense giants like Northrup Grumman. Musk believes that ultimately a launch cost of '$500 per pound or less is very achievable' (compared to $10,000 per pound for the Space Shuttle). Elon Musk is a member of the Mars Society, and started SpaceX after he realized that current launch costs would be a large barrier to his plans for a philanthropic mission to put an experimental greenhouse with food crops on Mars.

This radio interview with Elon Musk from 2001 is pretty neat, and has some information I haven't seen elsewhere.

It's interesting to note that the Chinese made cheap, disposable wooden heatshields. It's certainly not the most glamorous thing around, but it gets the job done.

From the link:

The Chinese had developed another novel but usable "low tech" solution. They glued up wooden blocks, appropriately contoured, with the end grain facing the reentry air stream. The wooden heat shield would char and ablate during reentry, just like the caulk material on the Apollo capsules. The fact that you could build a serviceable heat shield for reentry from space out of wood certainly showed that the basic problem was not insurmountably difficult, so Tom had always regarded this too as a rather straight-forward challenge. ... Wood can't withstand directly the temperatures of reentry, but for that relatively short time, it can resist those temperatures by gradually eroding. ... As the wood heated, a carbon ceramic char formed on the outer surface, and the volatiles, or fluids, in the wood behind the char flowed up through cracks in the char. Heat was radiated away from the charred surface, and the interior was kept cool by the outward movement of the cooler heat-absorbing volatiles flowing towards the hot side.

I've mentioned it elsewhere in this discussion, but a couple years ago HobbySpace's RLV News had a very good interview with Elon Musk.

Here's a quote:

HS: Private rocket development by startup companies in the post-Apollo era includes projects such as Truax's Volksrocket in the late 70s, Conestoga I and AMROC in the 80s, Beal Aerospace and several other ELV and RLV companies in the 1990s. They all came up short of space and many see their history as nothing but a tale of woe and failure. To me, though, they each appear to build on what was learned before them and to provide significant advancements in the technical and strategic knowledge needed to develop a rocket business from scratch.

It looks like SpaceX will be the startup company that finally makes it to orbit. When you studied prior efforts, what were some of the lessons [you] learned on what to do and, perhaps most importantly, what not to do?

Musk: Well, I have tried to learn as much as possible from prior attempts. If nothing else, we are committed to failing in a new way :)

The ones I'm familiar with failed on one or more of the following:

1. Lacked a critical mass of technical skill.
2. Insufficient capital to reach the finish line, particularly if an unexpected setback occurred.
3. Success was reliant on a series of technology breakthroughs that did not happen.

The above modes can obviously cross-feed one another.

HS: John Carmack has said something to the effect that the gap between what could be done versus what is being done is bigger in aerospace than in any other industry. Gary Hudson said that he was "amazed by how much easier the job of getting to orbit is today than even a few years go"..."Software, avionics and manufacturing technology have all improved measurably" and drastically reduced the number of people needed to design a launcher.

Now that you've gone through the rocket vehicle design phase and are well into construction, does your experience support their views or has the Falcon development perhaps been more difficult than you initially expected?

Musk: Well, hard and easy are somewhat nebulous terms. I think I have high standards and would classify getting Falcon to orbit as quite difficult. Overall though, I think we have had quite a smooth development so far, which is a credit to the hard work of the SpaceX engineering team.

The design tools, such as solid modeling and finite element analysis software are substantially more powerful than ten years ago, so that's a clear advantage. Obviously, most electronics have improved a lot too, except gyroscopes and flight termination systems.

I've mentioned it elsewhere in this discussion, but a couple years ago HobbySpace's RLV News had a very good interview with Elon Musk.

Here's a quote:

HS: Private rocket development by startup companies in the post-Apollo era includes projects such as Truax's Volksrocket in the late 70s, Conestoga I and AMROC in the 80s, Beal Aerospace and several other ELV and RLV companies in the 1990s. They all came up short of space and many see their history as nothing but a tale of woe and failure. To me, though, they each appear to build on what was learned before them and to provide significant advancements in the technical and strategic knowledge needed to develop a rocket business from scratch.

It looks like SpaceX will be the startup company that finally makes it to orbit. When you studied prior efforts, what were some of the lessons [you] learned on what to do and, perhaps most importantly, what not to do?

Musk: Well, I have tried to learn as much as possible from prior attempts. If nothing else, we are committed to failing in a new way :)

The ones I'm familiar with failed on one or more of the following:

1. Lacked a critical mass of technical skill.
2. Insufficient capital to reach the finish line, particularly if an unexpected setback occurred.
3. Success was reliant on a series of technology breakthroughs that did not happen.

The above modes can obviously cross-feed one another.

HS: John Carmack has said something to the effect that the gap between what could be done versus what is being done is bigger in aerospace than in any other industry. Gary Hudson said that he was "amazed by how much easier the job of getting to orbit is today than even a few years go"..."Software, avionics and manufacturing technology have all improved measurably" and drastically reduced the number of people needed to design a launcher.

Now that you've gone through the rocket vehicle design phase and are well into construction, does your experience support their views or has the Falcon development perhaps been more difficult than you initially expected?

Musk: Well, hard and easy are somewhat nebulous terms. I think I have high standards and would classify getting Falcon to orbit as quite difficult. Overall though, I think we have had quite a smooth development so far, which is a credit to the hard work of the SpaceX engineering team.

The design tools, such as solid modeling and finite element analysis software are substantially more powerful than ten years ago, so that's a clear advantage. Obviously, most electronics have improved a lot too, except gyroscopes and flight termination systems.

First, read this article.

Right now, launch costs are the biggest barrier to having lots of cool things (orbital hotels, factories, lunar bases, etc.) zipping around in space. According to this interview, Musk was previously planning on self-funding a mission to put an experimental greenhouse on Mars, but decided to start SpaceX when he realized that the overall mission cost would be dominated by the launch price.

SpaceX's Falcon I is designed to compete with the Pegasus rocket, which currently dominates the "low-cost" launch market. The Pegasus costs around $20 million to launch 375kg into space. The Falcon I will cost $6 million to launch 670kg into space. Stated differently, the Pegasus costs around $53,000 per kg, while the Falcon I will cost around $9000 per kg.

Things change even more with SpaceX's larger Falcon V rocket, scheduled for a launch this November. This will compete directly with the Delta IV Medium, which costs $90 million to lift 8600kg to LEO. The Falcon V will cost $12 million to lift 6020kg to LEO. That's around $10000 per kg for the Delta IV Medium and around $2000 per kg for the Falcon V.

One of SpaceX's goals is to reuse as much in terms of engines, components, and software as they build larger and larger rocket. As they benefit from economies of scale and build larger rockets, the costs will only drop.

The problem is that most or all of these have failed to produce a working spacecraft even though they were bank rolled by millionaires.

A recent HobbySpace interview with Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX after his financial success with Paypal, explores some of the reasons behind why these prior companies failed. Here's the relevant quote:

HS: Private rocket development by startup companies in the post-Apollo era includes projects such as Truax's Volksrocket in the late 70s, Conestoga I and AMROC in the 80s, Beal Aerospace and several other ELV and RLV companies in the 1990s. They all came up short of space and many see their history as nothing but a tale of woe and failure. To me, though, they each appear to build on what was learned before them and to provide significant advancements in the technical and strategic knowledge needed to develop a rocket business from scratch.

It looks like SpaceX will be the startup company that finally makes it to orbit. When you studied prior efforts, what were some of the lessons [you] learned on what to do and, perhaps most importantly, what not to do?

Musk: Well, I have tried to learn as much as possible from prior attempts. If nothing else, we are committed to failing in a new way :)

The ones I'm familiar with failed on one or more of the following:

1. Lacked a critical mass of technical skill.
2. Insufficient capital to reach the finish line, particularly if an unexpected setback occurred.
3. Success was reliant on a series of technology breakthroughs that did not happen.

The above modes can obviously cross-feed one another.

I enjoy some blogs, although I have to admit that the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty bad. Here's a few which I personally find interesting and read regularly. I'm a neuro, space, and robotics geek, so the list is biased as such.

* Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) News: The most thorough spaceflight blog around, focusing on reusable systems.
* NASA Watch: A well-known site with regular critiques of NASA.
* Free Republic: Like slashdot, but for ultra-conservatives. I sometimes like to go there to get a better understanding of what goes through the heads of people who think differently from me.
* Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log: "Quantum fluctuations in space, science, and exploration"
* Democratic Underground: The extreme left's version of Free Republic.
* Instapundit: The slashdot-equivalent of political weblogging, with a somewhat libertarian slant. Known for causing "Instalanches" on innocent web servers, analogous to "Slashdottings."
* Daily Kos: Probably the most influential liberal blog.
* Transterrestrial Musings: a libertarian space analyst who helped me understand why it's possible to be intelligent and support the war in Iraq at the same time. He sometimes posts some fantastic satires.
* theferrett's livejournal: sometimes writes some very insightful and well-composed essays
* spacexploration livejournal community: Space-related miscellany and discussion.
* politicsforum livejournal community: Sometimes has some pretty intelligent political discussion.
* robots.net: Robotics news
* Space Politics: "Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway"
* Rocket Man Blog: Rarely updated, but has very insightful and informed analysis of spaceflight and rocketry.
* Howard Lovy's NanoBot: Nanotechnology news and commentary

It's possible to lift a significant payload and launch vehicle over a 100,000 feet using a powered airship technology.

I'm not sure if you already know about them, but JP Aerospace is working on airships which go to orbit.

But there's certainly visionairies with money out there, and I suspect they'll be doing great things in the near future. For example, before he was "distracted" by starting up SpaceX, PayPal founder Elon Musk was engaged in plans to launch an experimental greenhouse to place on the surface of Mars. I suspect he'll get back to that later on, once companies like SpaceX succeed in dramatically lowering launch costs.

Back in September, NASA selected 11 companies to conduct preliminary concept studies for human lunar exploration and the development of the NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle. Many of these are your typical aerospace dinosaurs, but a notable exception is t/Space, a new company which includes people like Burt Rutan (of Scaled Composites and SpaceShipOne), Elon Musk (of SpaceX), Red Whittaker (of the Red Team, which constructed an autonomous vehicle which competed in DARPA's Grand Challenge), and several of the new companies in the budding private space industry.

According to their page: Our core mission requirement is to enable prompt, affordable, safe and sustainable lunar exploration and development by the largest possible number of Americans, both in person and via telepresence.

Under our approach, government incentives focus exclusively on top-level goals, with technology and operational choices left to the private sector. The government incentives will be matched to specific top-level needs, but the "invisible hand" of market forces will shape choices as they flow down multiple supplier chains. Incentives will be structured so that several companies in each major area have an opportunity to win this support. With this competitive industrial base, two major processes become possible:

* Market forces will continually launch new products that replace established goods and services (the "creative destruction" that Joseph Schumpeter [Austrian economist 1883-1950] identified as the key element of capitalism). Poorly performing systems will be killed off quickly via competition rather than via burdensome NASA reviews or Congressional intervention.
* Capability gap analyses will be performed by dozens and ultimately hundreds of companies on a continuous basis. As happens now in all competitive industries, the successful companies will be those who listen closely to their customers and accurately predict their future needs - in other words, capability gap analysis by multiple independent profit-seekers.

Commercial firms will create and own infrastructure that offers services that overlap in many cases. The overlaps found in a competitive private space economy will provide the resiliency now lacking in single-string solutions such as the Space Shuttle and Space Station, for which there are no ready alternatives. While functional overlaps are viewed as inefficiencies in centrally-planned systems, in a market-based system they drive costs lower (by reducing monopoly power and spurring innovation) and accelerate schedules (by eliminating single-point bottlenecks among suppliers and spurring competition).

If I understand correctly, tSpace's plan is to design an overall space architecture, and have companies compete for different components, whether they be launch vehicles, space station life support modules, or lunar landers. Many of these components will also be available commercially, keeping the price down and the reliability high. I suspect it's going to be difficult to keep from being eaten alive by the huge aerospace companies (Boeing, Lockheed, etc.), but I have a hope that they'll somehow end up getting the contract and end up completely reforming our approach to space.

I highly recommend reading through their presentation. The things they discuss are quite insightful, and they have some incredible ideas. Here's a few of their points:

Safety results from design choices, not oversight
* Attempting to produce safety by inspection, quality control,

JP Aerospace has proposed using an ion drive to take a special purpose blimp orbital.

What is interesting about this approach is the high ISP might make space fairly cheap. Personally, I find the fact that travel using this means is slow somewhat interesting. Humanity might benefit by having some "wide open spaces". Communications inside the solar system would be rapid in any event. Slow transportation might act to help discourage things like rash, interplanetary wars.

Here's a nice story how to achieve that.

It's fiction but the facts are solid. NASA remains clueless and SS1 is really just a toy. The Rocket Company story gives you robust design and even a business plan to start with. Some billionaire should make this into reality (and in the process himself/herself into world's first trillionaire!).

This reminds me of JP Aerospace's plans and ideas for high altitude platforms to launch airships into orbit. Looks pretty nifty.

According to RLV News (one of the more popular space news sites), there's a huge pent-up demand for cheap suborbital science experiments.

From the report: "One space scientist, who puts experiments on sounding rockets, responded to my specification of a one week turnaround and a $200k price tag with "I don't believe these numbers (either the turnaround or the cost). Similar promises were made about the space shuttle 30 years ago, and they turned out to be grossly overoptimistic." ... Now that such performance has in fact been proven by the SpaceShipOne, these kinds of knee-jerk rejections will gradually be replaced by enthusiasm for the new vehicles. Substantially lower costs, rapid re-flight opportunities, safe return of payloads, and nearby operator monitoring will make them irresistible. Researchers working with sounding rockets in areas such as atmospheric sciences, magnetospherics, astronomy, microgravity, and remote sensing will want to use them. Also, those developing sensors and other equipment for orbital and deep space vehicles will want to carry out suborbital flight tests."

Rutan has received several offers from scientists and organizations who want to fly experiments on SpaceShipOne. He's turned them down, however, as he wants to focus on using SpaceShipOne as a development platform to perfect his next-generation space vehicle, which will be sold not only to Virgin Galactic, but to four or five other unannounced companies.

Interestingly, according to the BBC article: "Once its flight life is over, SpaceShipOne will be joining other notable ships of exploration at the Air and Space museum. Except for one piece. Rutan plans to pack up to 100g of SpaceShipOne to fly on the New Horizons' mission to Pluto - the first non-governmental launch into deep space."

As seen on Transterrestrial Musings, spacepolitics.com, and RLV News:

Just got this message Jeff Greason of XCOR Aerospace that the current legislation to assist the development of the suborbital spaceflight industry has been distorted by Senate staffers into something that will instead smother the industry in the cradle:

There is a last-minute move by some staffers in the Senate to heavily amend HR 3752. The amendments would completely change the charter of the office of commercial space transportation (AST), placing the safety of the crew and passengers on equal footing with the safety of the uninvolved public. Since that is well beyond present technology, it would effectively stop development of the industry in the U.S.. It is too late to fix the bill before the session adjourns, but not too late to stop it. If you or people you know have connections to any Senator, please ask them to put a "hold" on HR 3752. That prevents it from passing by unanimous consent. We may have less than 24 hours.

If the bill is "held" there may be opportunity to fix it in a post-election session -- but if not, we would still rather the bill die than pass with these poison-pill amendments.

If your Senator is on the Commerce Committee, that's even better: http://commerce.senate.gov/about/membership.html

Personally, I'm in favor of having the AST in charge of the safety of the uninvolved public on the ground, as the bill was originally worded. However, I think that the last-minute changes to have the same agency regulate the safety of crew and passengers (and require the corresponding mountains of paperwork) would be an excellent way to kill off the budding US space tourism industry.

MSNBC has a more in-depth article on this.

As reported on several space-related news sites, including RLV News and Transterrestrial musings:

There is a last-minute move by some staffers in the Senate to heavily amend HR 3752. The amendments would completely change the charter of the office of commercial space transportation (AST), placing the safety of the crew and passengers on equal footing with the safety of the uninvolved public. Since that is well beyond present technology, it would effectively stop development of the industry in the U.S.. It is too late to fix the bill before the session adjourns, but not too late to stop it. If you or people you know have connections to any Senator, please ask them to put a "hold" on HR 3752. That prevents it from passing by unanimous consent. We may have less than 24 hours.

If the bill is "held" there may be opportunity to fix it in a post-election session -- but if not, we would still rather the bill die than pass with these poison-pill amendments.

Scaled itself makes the case-throat-nozzle structure, which consists of an "inner layer of silica phenolic insulator and an outer graphite epoxy structural case." Burn-throughs of the insulator occurred in five firings but did not reach the sensor layer of fiber-optic cable between the insulator and case. They want to do a test in which they fire the engine until a burn-through reaches the sensor layer and it triggers a shutdown.

You are probably thinking Brian "RocketGuy" Walker.
He hasnt made much of a progress as of late, due to personal life interfering.
You can follow all of those developments on HobbySpace RLV News and Space Log

You are probably thinking Brian "RocketGuy" Walker.
He hasnt made much of a progress as of late, due to personal life interfering.
You can follow all of those developments on HobbySpace RLV News and Space Log

Please note that they have not actually reached space yet. Until they do, this is just PR and speculation. And I wouldn't be too sure that this is the first amateur vehicle to reach space, either. JP Aerospace has sent up balloons to 100,000 feet, which is the height that this group is trying to reach. Just because it's not a rocket doesn't mean it's not a space vehicle.

You also may want to check out some of the other really cool stuff they've been doing. They're currently working on a climp that would reach LEO over the course of a few days using ion propulsion. Details are a little sketchy on the aerodynamics and propulsion method, but it would be an extremely cheap and elegant solution to space access if they succeeded.

There are some images on RLV News . And there is also a story on space.com. Everybody in mojave must have seen and heard this.

I enjoyed it.
Another book, with a more technical bent is "The Rocket Company" which is presently being serialized at Hobby Space

New Dennis Titos and Mark Shuttleworths are lining up as we speak.

http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archive/News/2004 /News-2004-03.html#Mar.29.04

If rocketry will evolve anything like computing industry did after first Apples and PCs i can buy a ticket to orbit in ten years.
BTW, John Carmack is going to do a hover test of their full-scale X-Prize vehicle next week. Yay !

While direct reception of Spirit and Opportunity is probably beyond the capabilities of single-amateur equipment, reception of a continuous wave (unmodulated carrier) beacon transmitted by the Mars Relay Radio System aboard the Mars Global Surveyor on the way to Mars was achieved by amateurs in 1996. At the time, the 1.3 Watt transmitter was approximately 5 million km away from Earth.

The Mars Express probe that launched the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander, and the Mars Orbiter in orbit around Mars, were both detected by this station in November last year, although it stretches the definition of "amateur" quite a bit; also by these guys with much more modest equipment.

For a real challenge, the New Horizons spacecraft, scheduled for launch in 2006 to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt beyond, will employ beacon cruise mode, in which it will send a fixed tone (see page 42), designed for easier reception by amateurs, while cruising in deep space.

Additional information on amateur deep space reception is available here.

The most comprehensive collection of info on ISAS RVT. There are links to videos of previous flight test campaigns. BTW, japanese heavy industrustry giant IHI ( best known as a turbomachinery manufacturer, yeah, thats superchargers for you ) has been contributing to this project. With Japanese industry giants involved, it might not be long before you can take to the skies with Toyota Spacecruiser.

Clark Lindsey at HobbySpace has some detailed suggestions for how NASA's shuttle budget could be re-tooled to promote the growth of private space industry, and still accomplish NASA"s human spaceflight goals. He advocates sending the remaining shuttles to museums, purchasing launch services first from the Russians, at least through 2004 when new commercial launchers should be available, and investing in the suborbital RLV industry mentioned in this space review article.

Good ideas there... any chance of it happening?