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TransOrbital: The Commercial Race To The Moon
apsmith writes: "Some of the companies that were preparing for a race to commercialize space and return to the moon (like Idealab's "Blastoff.com") have vanished with the stock market meltdown. But TransOrbital, a privately held company, is still plugging away, and claims to be on schedule for launch in the 4th quarter of 2001. The funding model seems to be generating lots of pretty pictures and selling them. Though for just $2500 you can also send your business card to the Moon!" Sounds like they've pushed their schedule a little bit since last mention, but considering the scope of the project, nearly any launch date would still be respectable.
Spacedev at www.spacedev.com is NOT dead. They too have been chugging along alright. A rough summary of this company is that they are a aerospace startup creating far cheaper satellites then NASA, with the long term goal of mining asteroids. Boeing has looked into having Spacedev as a partner in space development, and in the end Spacedev is outliving so many of the dotcoms which has much larger IPOs, etc. I swear I'd own stock, if I wasn't a poor college student. :(
From there May 31, 01 press release. There where just getting applications ready to submit inorder to get approval for launch... None of the other press releases state that they have received approval, or that they have even submitted the applications...
I think they are much further off than 4th Quarter of 2001...
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
Forget these losers. I think JC will beat slick marketing anytime. If anybody is going into orbit first, my money is on him. Check out Carmack's rocket site:
That's nice, but, Transorbital isn't doing the race to orbit - they have thier sights set higher. Instead, they are shooting for the first commercial landing on the moon. I should put the obligatory RTFA comment here, but, instead I'll give ya a quick rundown - instead of trying to put someone in orbit, they are shooting for putting a lander on the moon. Unmanned, and you can do things like get pictures of your business card setting on the moon, plus they are planning on shooting some video, etc. Not what I'd call high-excitement stuff, but, at least someone is doing something with the moon :-)
So, in this case, Carmack isn't competing with them, unlike the $10 million prize...
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
We are, however, signatory to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which does not rule out commercial activity, but doesn't exactly encourage it, either. . .
the private sector can always do things cheaper then the government. NASA is great, but it is limited. if we can get space travel into the private sector then it opens up a lot more broad uses. NASA has the IIS to worry about for the next bunch of years. We need more then just one company getting us into spcae. i smell a microsoft analogy coming! :)
Don't believe me? Go buy your own plot at www.lunarembassy.com !!
q:]
MadCow
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
We're going to orbit TraliBlazer over the poles like Clementine & Prospector did. This doesn't really need any more fuel than an equatorial orbit.
:v)
Vik
Currently, the Electra lander has been pushed back till at least 2002. Our initial mission will be the TrailBlazer lunar imaging probe, designed to return HDTV quality video of the trip, the Earth, and the Moon. We were hoping to launch in December of this year, and have signed agreements with the launch company, but the ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) permit - the export license from the State Department, required for taking any spacecraft out of the country - has taken much longer than necessary.
As for proving that we're actually carrying the biz card, well we'll post pictures of them in the spacecraft prior to launch, and pictures from the spacecraft during the mission. Don't know what more could be done.
Paul Blase