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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.
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:
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/
The project logs are immensely entertaining reading!
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If they are really trying for a 4th Qtr, 2001 luanch date, seems like the lander would have to be built already. All I see are CGI mockups of it. All of the literature says about the lander is that it 'will be' this, and 'will have' that. Sounds like these folks are perhaps selling pretty pictures already?
It seems that they already have one prospective customer that wants to send more than a postcard. The Foundation for the International Non-government Development of Space (FINDS) made an agreement with transorbital last year to return scientific data, to test the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) constellation at lunar distances to learn if it is possible to utilize GPS for navigation during a lunar trajectory or in lunar orbit.
Now, if there only was a market for earthlings sending postcards *home* from the lunar surface, space exploration would be a much more interesting place.
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
Technically, one could claim that the first commercial or private lunar mission was the Asiasat-3 flyby (although it is pushing it a bit, since there was no science involved)
The story is that the rocket launching the communication satellite had a problem, and left the payload in a lower, usless orbit. But, by using the satellite's own, limited fuel reserves the ground controllers were able to swing it around the moon and back into a semi-useful orbit.
Some more details are here and here
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
I think TransOrbital is missing the very important point that there is _life_ in the ocean. They say they want to do for the moon what Jacques Coutsteau did for marine exploration, but I really can't see it happening. How many pictures of grey rocks and craters do they expect to sell? How do you do a documentary on grey rocks and craters?
Seriously, commercial companies will not reach the moon in 2001. I honestly can't see any commercial prospects even appearing much before 2010. (Sorry, Mr. Clarke, you were just too optimistic.)
On the other hand, I can very easily see rocket geeks reaching at least orbit in the next year or two, and perhaps the moon in the next four or five. As economic and social pressures build against any kind of shared-resource society, I fully expect actual geek R&D to accelerate.
Ironically, I can very easily see enthusiasts from a wide-range of technical "hobbies" to achieve what NASA and these vaporware companies only dream of... Because they may have to. As much as I detest comparisons with over-romanticised historical events, I can see rocket enthusiasts reaching for the stars as latter-day Pilgrims, escaping increasing hostility from the established society.
Unlike Jon Katz, though, I don't see geeks as the victims of a cruel world - we can leave any time we choose to pool the necessary resources together. Every year spent on Earth, subject to the whims of beurocrats, questionable legislation and business practices far more insidious than all the religious peasents in the world could ever be, is a year spent on Earth by choice.
Current world events may tip the balance. Does anyone seriously believe model rocketry will escape the current crackdowns unscathed? Does anyone seriously believe that, should model rockets be further restricted or banned outright, that enthusiasts won't build them anyway? Just with a lot more incentive to get into orbit & beyond than they've ever had before.
Something that is poorly understood, but only too true - necessity is the mother of all inventions, with conflict the grandmother. Open Source may soon become illegal, and hobbies of alll kinds are being squelched by absurdities like the DMCA. Rocketry is a very plausable next target. We have the conflict, we are approaching the necessity, the only conclusion I can see is we'll soon have the technology. That's the way things work.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)