Slashdot Mirror
Tito Good To Go, Rotary Spirals Downward
MousePotato writes: "Space.com is reporting that former NASA scientist turned Wall Street guru Dennis Tito has apparently gotten final approval (paid in full I guess is all you really need) for launch aboard a Soyuz by the end of April. Destination: ISS. Tito was originally slated to be one of the first tourists aboard the rapidly declining MIR space station. No specific figures are available on the site as to how much for the mircograv vacation but the rumor mill is placing the cost of the trip at $20 million USD. This may be just a few dollars more than buying your own rotary rocket company at auction but might just give the space tourism industry the kick it needs..."
Personally, I always thought the project was a poorly conceived.
They planned to make a rocket that could go to GEO that was man controlled. The reliability for that kind of craft is exceeding difficult to create and relatively impossible for low cost. If they had gone unmanned, then maybe...but they also wanted to sell rides.
For low cost launch vehicles, I thought Universal Space Wares or Kistler would have fielded a good candidate by now.
...just build a tunnel to the ISS?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Speaking of lighting a fire under the ass of the space industry, I'm writing a novel right now that is based on the single premise:
"In space, you can grow whatever you want, and deliver it pretty darn easily to anywhere on the planet"
Heh.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
A possible solution for dealing with NASA budget cuts.
The ISS is a dump heap for those members of the studio audience who would have the $$$ and the hubris for such an ostentatious trip.
The ISS is cramped, already smells like astro-sweat, and has very loud air conditioners (I mean so loud you can barely hear yourself talk)
If I had 20 million dollars I would invest it in myself so I could get the skills and training needed to go into space and do something USEFUL, like piloting the craft or conducting scientific experiments. I would not sit up there bearing the sneers of the crew who is so top notch they get PAID to be up there (hazard pay).
Goat sex free since 2001
I don't know that the recent round of inexpensive space probes are anything to be proud of. How do you convert meters to feet again? Oops, splattered another better, faster, cheaper space probe into Mars.
How's that joke go? "You can have better, faster, or cheaper. Choose two."
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
And there is no third choice. Not yet.
Tito wants to dance, so he's paying the only piper who'll take his money.
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
Ummmm... the CRV will be man-rated; it has to be, since it will carry crew. Live crew, in fact... ;)
It's already been noted that the CRV or some derivative thereof would make a fine low-cost mini-shuttle. ESA (the European Space Agency) is has been spending money on that, and are even working on their own version of the landing parafoil (ESA is providing funds and hardware for the X-38 program anyway). The Japanese are also rumored to be interested.
Matter of fact, I've seen some preliminary design work on the ESA ideas for this, at JSC in Houston (but don't quote me on that...).
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
Damn shame, but true. Texas...
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Politics is about making compromises. Religion isn't. --Michael Horton
Oops, splattered another better, faster, cheaper space probe into Mars.
Keep in mind, "cheaper" generally means "a tenth the price of Viking. We can afford the expense of losing a couple. I don't know if NASA can afford the negative PR of it, though.
the tip you would have to give the pilot? :P Let's see...15% of $20,000,000...
How Jaded Are You?
I hope this causes folks with money to sit up & take notice, and start investing in getting the masses into space.
Why would anybody pay to launch dead Yugoslav dictators into space? Oh, wait...
"Oh Bother", said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
Despite the fact that I usually maintain a *very* liberal bent, one of the things I *won't* miss about a democratic presidency/legislative majority is the fact that the dems have very, very rough on publicly funded science and space exploration.
While this can be good, in the fact that it makes scientists look for better, cheaper ways to do things, as in the various relatively inexpensive space probes we've been launching, it's murder on the sheer amount of real innovation and scientific advance. The only science that has gotten anywhere in the last 10 years has been bio-tech, and this is because profit is close at hand for the corporate world.
If you don't think this is the case, just ask any of the physicists who used to live in Texas. When Clinton was elected.. *BAMF*... there went the SSC.
From a purely nerd-boy point of view, It's nice to see big money being spent, even on a personal, wasteful basis, on space, when so little has gone into it over the last few years. Hopefully it will inspire more public and government confidence in space exploration.
Remember that early exploration of the Americas was costly in terms of money and human life, but without those early pioneers who knew that money was not coming easy or soon, we wouldn't have the industrial powerhouses of the western hemisphere cranking out computer hardware and cheap internet access today.
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how much would they be willing to pay for the return trip?
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Last I heard, Roton had paid Kern County off (see http://www.bakersfield.com/local/Story/264980p-248 599c.html). Then there was a small matter of an additional $775 servicing fee or somesuch, which got tacked on to the bill. As soon as they were told of this, Roton coughed up that too.
:v)
So it looks like it's not going down just yet, but the US government will soon launch phase 2 of the "let's keep space a government place" campaign by going after the 2001 taxes. Pricks.
The $150M Roton need to continue wouldn't even pay for the shuttle toilets. At this rate, the first private, reusable spacecraft is going to have cyrillic script on the side.
Vik
I say, let Tito run NASA from space, and send Goldin to swab space fungus from the walls of Mir in preparation for deboost.
They aren't going to see any serious revenue until their launch vehicle reachs orbit, and even by their optimistic development cost estimates, that's going to take more than the 5 figure sum they owe in taxes, it's going to take another 8 figures of capital. Granted, there's always the chance that some wacky billionaire will cut a check (and Mr. Gates, if you're reading this: here is how to get geeks to forgive you for Windows) but I wouldn't bet on it.
In other words, if Rotary has paid their taxes, it doesn't mean anything besides a few more months of their aero test unit sitting in mothballs and their remaining staff (Gary Hudson, the man behind the whole thing, has left, and I don't know how many people survived their layoffs) praying for new investors.
Damn shame, too. Even Beal's out of the running now. I don't know how Kistler is doing now, but if they don't make orbit we can pretty much kiss serious space development goodbye for another couple decades.
I was even born in Evanston and thought about going to Northwestern, but I just can't go back there knowing how many Rotarians I'll find.
"Watch these suckers jump when I get root." - l33t j03
Reference, please? I know that Maryland's Democratic congresscritters are reasonably good on space and science (for the usual pork barrel reasons, not any high principle - we have Goddard, NIH, NIST, APL, and the Space Telescope Science Institute).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Where do you think that 20 million dollars goes? Besides the fact that the ISS is being paid for as it's being assembled. That 100 billion dollars is spread out over several years and comes out of NASA's allowance they get from you paying taxes to the federal government all year. NASA is not a private organization, they are a branch of the government and appropriated funds generated from the taxation of citizens. What part don't you understand about this concept? It costs ~2 million dollars to lift a human into space abaord the space shuttle, if you add in operational costs and whatnot you start to figure out where that 20 million is going. No one is going to pay for people to get a free ride anywhere, especially an anywhere thats worth 100 billion dollars and millions of man-hours. There might be a small profit left over from that 20E6 that NASA gets to pocket until POLICY CHANGES (hint) the federal government keeps that profit and redistributes it throughout the entire body of government (as opposed to NASA getting to add it to their operational funding).
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Boo for Rotary. Every time I have seen anything involving those guys the founder has come off as a complete jackass. Now they are blaming their failure on "fundamental flaws in the industry" which is some jackass not wanting to take responsibility for having a shitty business plan. The Roton at best is a luke warm idea, orbital vehicles have enough complexities in more traditional configurations without rotors; why would you want to add more complexity (read: things to go horribly fucking wrong and turn you into a short bright flare)? They attempted to design and build a prototype for their contraption (an prohibitively expensive proposition) with a very limited cash flow. Had they hired a smart CEO with business savvy they might have merely kept themselves are a research and development firm for their space vehicle and sold their idea to anyone interested in shouldering the cost of prototyping and deployment. Shooting evolved monkeys into space will be profitable in a few years when a market opens for such a business. First build a market and then capitalize on it; don't be a jackass and try to capitalize on a market that isn't even around.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Well when I talked to one of the people from Rotary trying to sell the concept, that is what they stated. Maybe they didn't know themselves?
Tito recently provided SpaceRef with an in-depth interview which makes for good reading.
Of course this is all being paid for out ot Tito's pocket and has nothing at all to do with you. Grow up and stuff.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I think it would make me very nervous to invest a lot of money in Russia right now. Between the governmental problems (they can't even afford to pay their military) and the mafia who control EVERYTHING... I think someone with 20 mil could find a better place to put it.
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
One would think slashdotters more than anyone would see the advantages of breaking the monopoly of a single agency over something with as much potential as space.
Ñ'
Something that article doesn't mention is that Rotary Rocket claims to have wired the money this week to cover the back taxes. Kern County officials say that they'll hold the auction unless they can verify funds being in receipt. So the auction might be cancelled, it's hard to tell. If it isn't I'm gonna be there.
This is so sad, Rotary Rocket has such a cool cool concept for a re-usable manned SSTO that could have serviced the International Space Station. Iridium's failure is to blame for Rotary's problems. If Iridium hadn't failed, the launcher market wouldn't have dropped out from under companies like Rotary, Kistler and Beal.
When Tito goes up this year, there is going to be a lot of attention unless MirCorp screws it up. NASA is very pissed off about him going to the ISS because they're worried that people will start realizing that "hey, normal people can survive a trip into space and why the HELL haven't you boys at NASA made space flight anywhere near as safe and cheap as the Russians yet?"
A space shuttle launch costs $500 million or so, $1 billion if you amortize the whole development into the cost. A Soyuz launch (most reliable manned spacecraft in the world) costs as low as $10 million and possibly as high as $50 million, depending on who you talk to. NASA needs to put some beef into man-rating the X-38 derivative CRV and certifying it for launch aboard an ELV (like a Delta) so that we can have a cheap way to put people in orbit.