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Well, there are five teams who have scheduled launches. A Japanese team and an Indian team are riding up on the same Indian rocket. A team from the US is working with Rocket Lab USA. An Israeli team is working with SpaceX and an international team is working with Interorbital Systems.

So, if SpaceX has to delay launching the Israeli's for 6 months, all the other teams have to call their launch providers and say, "Hey, can you hold off on our payload for six months?"

At this point, I'd extend it only if it looks like no one will make the deadline.

any fuel that is spent beyond Earth orbit doesn't need to be launched from Earth

Very few rockets need to go beyond Earth orbit. Except for some research on other planets, there's nothing out there.

No rockets "need to" go anywhere. The only things that "need to" happen (in an absolute sense) are those things which are required by the laws of physics or the laws of logic. A millenium ago, very few ships needed to cross oceans. That doesn't mean that there wasn't great benefit to be had from trying to cross them anyway. With time, the need developed. The need did not preceed the development. Today, very few rockets "can go" beyond Earth orbit. With a fuel depot in orbit, that would change. It's possible (i'd say likely) that as we develop our space exploration technologies, we'll see increasing returns from our efforts, until a time when it is evident that "we need" spaceflight much like "we need" transoceanic shipping today.

Regarding your other claim, well, I couldn't disagree more. Except for nearly everything in the entire observable universe, there's nothing out there. Indeed, the volume encosed by the set of all possible LEOs accounts for a negligible proportion of the observable universe. Virtually everything is out there, and we've barely snuck a peek yet. It seems quite presumptuous to make claims about that which we know so very little about. Back in the day, you'd have been the one complaining about how Columbus was wasting the crown's resources on his foolish high-seas adventures. As the human race has come to dominate this world thanks to the spirit of explorers, I invite you to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

Obviously this poses a problem for vertically staged rocket designs, but not others

Are there other types in use ?

Of course!
Well, there's the family of SSTO launchers (of which none have been built), including the Skylon spaceplane. Granted, none of those are "in use".
There's also all the horizontally-staged rockets. The "Space Shuttle" was probably one of the more recognizable of these systems. There's the IOS rockets that will be launching all the TubeSat things. Neither of these are currently "in use" either, but there have been a variety in the past and I'm assuming that other launchers of this design type are still flying.

Sorry, no. Prices have come down a lot since I last checked.

The price per kilogram to Low Earth Orbit varies from $4,000 to $12,500 per kilogram

-- http://www.interorbital.com/in...

That's why I'd go for a TubeSat instead. Launch costs are within what mere mortals might spend on a hobby at $8kUS.

Having been on a team that has built and launched two cubesats, I consider myself somewhat of an expert in the area. I'll answer this question to the best of my knowledge, I've been to the cubesat conference for several years now (it's mostly academics but most of the launch companies are there.) The first couple of years as a student I would get all excited whenever companies like this would start up. I noticed quickly that the same company never came around to the conference more than a few years, why? Because they couldn't get the funding, a launch requires some where in the range of 10$ million. There are plenty of companies that start up and claim that they will launch a rocket with a 50-100 (or so cubesats) and that will cover there costs, the problem is they have to find that many people to fill the spots. No one has done that yet. Cubesats were designed as a containerized system to mitigate the testing and integration launch costs. Everything that goes to space has to be thoroughly tested, when you have to do this on a case by case basis, it takes a lot of time (=money). So if you already know your payload will fit in a 10cm x 10cm x 10cm (1U) and has a ~1kg weight then that saves a lot of testing. Another benefit of the container is NASA can slap them all over their rockets and launch 10's of them (currently) at a time. Since every rocket has tons of payload margin (you want to ensure your payload reaches space you size its mass several percent smaller than what the rocket can handle to ensure delivery) and some payloads are in the tons, throwing on a few cubsats won't really do a thing to your mass budget. Now NASA has a program for this: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/smallsats/elana/index.html this has been successful. As far as launching your own, I wouldn't count on it in the near future. Launching a satellite is not trivial, you have to make sure its not going to break apart, or damage other payloads on the way out of its container. Look up ISBN: 047075012X . You have to make sure its not going to outgass because volatile compounds evaporate and can cause problems. You have to use materials that can withstand the rigors of space, atomic oxygen and radiation can be rough on most materials. Plus some materials like PVC will evaporate in a vacuum. Another problem is ensuring you have enough battery and solar power to support your payload. You have to make sure you payload will not shake apart on the way up (rockets are very very bumpy rides). The satellite should have an attributed and control system to make sure it can orient itself in the right direction (for your solar cells and radio). And last but not least is the radio and comm system. A ground station is needed and the appropriate radio frequencies used (if you want anything fast you have to get a license from the gov, this is very difficult). The satellite itself needs to have a good antenna (if you have any nulls in your antenna pattern then you won't be able to communicate with it when the null is pointed at you. Oh, and if you put a camera on it the NOAA has to know about it and approve of your data (really stupid, but that's the way the government is). Anyway I could go on for a long time... Building a satellite requires people from many different disciplines to pull it off. Unless you are going for insanely simple you would have to have a group of people to accomplish the task. If there is available access and launch costs come down I could see a few hobbyists groups pulling it off in 10 or so years if they can clear all of the governmental hoops. I won't believe any commercial venture claiming that they will launch cubesats (or tubesats http://interorbital.com/TubeSat_1.htm) until they actually do.

I always assumed that CubeSats and TubeSats would just fall and burn up since they don't have propulsion to keep them up and moving.

IOS says cubesats will fall and burn up after several weeks. http://interorbital.com/CubeSat_1.htm

Though I suppose they could be ejected at greater distances.

I know this is a problem, and I imagine smart people are trying to figure something out.

That said, I can't help but marvel at the shrinking cost-to-LEO. Just a year ago I was talking to someone at a company that does tubeSat launches for $8,000. That's the launch and the satellite. And I heard that SpaceX does CubeSat launches on their Falcon 9 rockets.

Now I don't know if the cost reductions would translate directly to that kind of mission, but if they can get the cost down to anywhere near 1/100, putting a satellite up will be easily within reach for an individual tinkerer. To me, that's just amazing... that you can put your own little satellite in space (for a short time), and not even be crushed if something goes wrong.

Found the $8k one...
http://interorbital.com/TubeSat_1.htm

You know, it's kind of funny. Lately with all the hub-ub regarding the closure of the shuttle program, the small launch companies have been getting a ton of publicity. We have companies like SpaceX and Orbital working their way into the medium and heavy lift rocket arenas. We have Blue Origin, Masten, Armadillo, and a half-dozen other small rocket/sounding rocket/propulsion companies developing launch platforms for low gravity environments (moon, Mars) and suborbital flights. One thing that I can't seem to find a lot of, however, is small, commercial payload companies. There are definitely a few. Companies like Clyde Space for instance are starting to offer available payloads on cubesat buses. There are also companies like Interorbital Sciences that are trying to push the small payload/tubesat architecture. And, of course, there are dozens of startups competing for the rover portion of the GLXP. Nonetheless, I would like to see more small satellite companies start cropping up. It seems like there would be a market for a company that could develop a common, reliable, small payload bus (about 250 - 500 kg) that could guarantee a mission life of XX many years and a power base of XX many kW that customers could mount scientific payloads on to test technologies, gather a bit of data, whatever.

I guess that I am surprised to see commercial launch companies getting so much publicity, while the market for commercial satellite buses remains so small. It would be cool to see a company do to satellites what SpaceX is trying to do the launch market. Surely some science communities out there would pay to gather 0 g data for some field or another...

And if you check out their sponsor page, they seem to be funded by the technomystics. Not that that necessarily means anything, but come on. If they have a serious business plan they shouldn't have to result to such quackery.

Posted AC because im working to get into the industry and parents boilerplate scared me :D

Ya know, it seems to be a common occurrence to find space projects with horrid web sites. Consider:

http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/
http://www.interorbital.com/

Both real groups doing real hardware right now, with websites that look like scams.

You mean it won't be Crew Module 6 (CM-6) by Interorbital Systems Corporation?
But how will they make that first private orbital flight by 2011 then?

Will they have to cut corners to make it in time?
Like making parts of the module out of cardboard?

They are selling lunar samples from their missions to moon starting 2012 ...

http://www.interorbital.com/Lunar%20Sample%20Return_1.htm

From the Interorbital Systems site, it says, "Storable, high-density white fuming nitric acid (WFNA) and Hydrocarbon-X (HX) are the rocket's primary propellants." I'd presume "Hydrocarbon-X" is some sort of kerosene-like blend of petroleum distillates.

Or for $288,000, you can own 72% of the spaceship. Seems shady to me. http://interorbital.com/StorePage1.htm

Interorbital Systems (IOS) is already aiming at that goal. Now I can't base my comment on anything but their website and the X-Prize site, but it seems that their Neptune rocket will be capable of doing the things specified. They plan to launch their Nano SLV in 2005 (testing and further development is in progress) It being the first privately developed launch vehicle capable of putting sattelites into LEO. Their site states that theyr aim is having the Neptune ready for space tourism by 2006. A wee bit optimistic maybe, but - still - they may have a head start.

Their X-Prize page and their (WARNING! all .jpg page) home page.