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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.
If you had to ask me (which, of course you don't) these are more impressive at least someone can break into a house with one, in say, New Jersey.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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!
Like my comments? Try my podcast: http://www.baldmove.com
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?
...transorbital just hired a guy with about a dozen TV movie-of-the-week credits as their marketing director!!! And with the success that those made-for-tv-miniseries-pieces-of-crap generate, is it really any wonder that TransOrbital is selling "product" as well as they are? I mean come on, if the guy can push "Runaway Father" on a generally mindless tv-viewing public, then he can sell ANYTHING!!!
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. :(
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
Yes, someday the moon-men will know that Bob Jones was the executive vice-president of marketing for razorfish. and they'll care. deeply.
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
Business Cards
Mementos
Personal Messages
Hm... I thought there was already an international treaty against putting commercial messages on the Moon.
"Each standard 8.5 x 11 inch page will be etched onto a metal disk."
Yeah, and then, because it's copy protected, it'll nuke the first alien computer they try to view it in...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I like this part about sending your personal relics to the moon:
The rate to transport relics to the moon is $2500 per gram. Note: due to the velocity at which the 2001 TrailBlazer spacecraft will impact at the end of the mission, as well as the unknown nature of the lunar surface at the point of impact, no guarantee can be made as to the state of the payload following its arrival on the surface.
I guess that you can't expect them to promise not to break stuff. Anyone want to pitch in on getting a stuffed penguin in the likeness of Tux sent to the moon? (perhaps make one out of aerogel or something really light.) It'd be great if it was big enough to see from the ground with a good telescope.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
from transorbital's web page:
45 kg (100 lbs) dry mass including payload
200 kg (440 lbs) fueled.
over 75% of the launch mass is fuel. why haven't any companies looked to interesting technology such as high-altitude magnetic rail launches, etc, instead of our low altitude (read: heavy atmosphere) extended burn launches?
-sam
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
I want to get enough folks established off planet before we turn it into a billiard ball.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
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 suppose you could grow some plants hydroponically... How many seeds are in a gram? Do they charge you based on weight on takeoff, or weight upon landing? Or is it the average of the two...hmm. The mind boggles.
On the other hand, what are the chances of your payload actually returning intact? Reminds me of Homer and the floating potato chips. Spacemunchies, anyone?
Free music from Jack Merlot.
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. . .
What kind of nutcase think's it's a good idea to pay $2500 to throw litter on the moon?
The US and Russian governments perhaps? Golf balls, a rover, a flag, a plaque, and various spacecrafts/probes amongst other things.
Moon-men would probably deny humans ever landed on the Moon if we didn't act in character.
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?
at $2500 pr. gram, It would be something like $350M to send Steve Balmer up there on a one way ticket. Maybe we should all throw in a buck or two ?
play ManagerSim - free online soccer manager
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.
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)
Just what the poor, poor martians need, a whole high tech garbage bag full of poems that read like bad Robert Smith songs and buisness cards for sales reps in case the martians ever reveal themselves and need to market themselves in the global, uh, intergalactic economy.
What I don't understand is that a business card is $2,500, but 8.5 x 11 inch pages are "expected to be under $50 per page?" I don't have a business card, so I have't been paying attention to their evolution, but I hadn't realized that they had evolved to chest size placards. A much better waste of money would be on the equally idiotic residensea.
Just what we need to do... start a lunar landfill with all our junk.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Not because I really know, of course, but because the possibilities of it being anything else are miniscule. The reason these people haven't 'gone under' with the other dot-coms is because they're not a dot-com!
It's a web-site maintained by a couple of kooks. Kook-maintained web-sites don't require a tone of overhead last I checked.
**>>BELCH
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.
And you propose we leave earth how?
I suppose death works, but that leaves the destination a little uncertain.
Chemical rockets are not a viable way of migrating from Earth for Joe Geek, as the cost per person will be many, many times even a successful geek's yearly salary.
Ion and plasma rockets are not a vaible way of migrating from earth, as there is no way in heck you can get them giving 1 G of thrust.
Magnetic launch or "supergun" style gas-launchers are not a viable way of migrating from earth, unless you don't mind being squashed to jelly. The acceleration path *has* to be at least a thousand kilometres long (about 600 miles) or preferably more, if acceleration is to be something that humans can withstand. That means a self-propelled craft. A thousand-kilometre tube on the ground would send you through far too much atmosphere on the way out. A tube that turns up at the end squashes you to jelly from centripetal acceleration.
Laser launchers are almost certainly not a viable way of migrating from earth, because your launch path must be steep, and you run out of atmosphere after a few tens of kilometres. Acceleration required is far too great for humans to withstand. And powering the lasers is very expensive (efficiency is horrible).
Fisson rockets won't work, because they just heat a working fluid to chemical rocket temperatures, which means your mass efficiency is no better than chemical rockets.
Fusion rockets will most likely have acceleration characteristics comparable to ion and plasma rockets - far too low acceleration to be useful for ground-to-orbit. And fusion has been 20 years off for the past 50 years.
We're not going to be able to move large numbers of people off-planet for a long time. We'd need free power (for a laser launcher), or much better materials and free construction (for a really huge launch cannon with a muzzle outside the atmosphere), or both (for building a space elevator). Don't hold your breath.
Oh yes - there's also the little problem of bringing our troubles with us. The ills of society are a direct result of human nature. Geeks are human. Their kids will be human. Thus, any utopia you establish away from normal society will soon be fraught with all of the troubles it tried to escape. Examples of this on small scales and large are all around us.
But the technical argument was more fun than just pointing this out.
The approval has been submitted, but certain aspects of the craft weren't to the regulatory body's liking. In particular, the inflatable sub-satellite was apparently construed as an untethered ICBM decoy.
:v)
Bureacracy is even dumber than you think!
Vik
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
And unleash the first Space Dance Monkey?? Is this some kind of devious plan to conquer other planets by bringing them MS-brand funk?
It would be neat to have a commercial craft on the moon, but let's keep things in perspective.
Why does one want to go to the moon?
Why aren't we there today?
The primary reason why the Apollo missions failed to spawn a continuous succession of future missions was the complete lack of infrastructure left behind for future scientific projects (including unprecedented experiments due to low lunar seismic noise, critical for gravity wave detection; and optical and radio astronomy), which is why we should be there in the first place.
Repeat this mantra : "It's the science, stupid." We're not going to the moon to put business cards on it.
The cost of any lunar mission is extraordinary, and moreover, the cost of providing good infrastructure for important missions is even larger. Ultimately, and certainly until we have some sort of permanent base there, I think there is no good business plan which can justify that infrastructre. Even the relatively few space applications which one can possible imagine (semiconductors, pharmaceuticals) could be achieved in Earth orbit for much, much less money.
The revenues gained by any lunar project simply pale in comparison to what is needed to achieve the important goals discussed above.
So what are these folks doing? Little more than medieval item worship. Putting messages, items, and business cards on the moon? Sure, it's a start, but a LONG, LONG ways from achieving the goal of why we should be there.
And I, for one, question whether any short-term business strategy can supply the needed infrastructure to provide those goals. It will ultimately require at least partial government support.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
A few years ago, Artemis started a committee called the Microlander Committee to investigate what the smallest possible lander that could be put on the moon was. I know 'cos I asked the original question.
:v)
After much work, notably by Paul Blase, this committee acquired considerable aerospace know-how and transformed into TransOribtal.
As an aside, amongst the board members is Dr Richard Van Allen, he who the Van Allen belts are named after and who ran the Pioneer missions for NASA. This ain't no hoax.
Vik
If things had kept on their original track, we might have been living on Mars. Although Apollo was a great achievement - and TransOrbital's planned missions certainly would not be possible without NASA's technological developments - Apollo mucked up the works so far as an orderly progress into space is concerned. The original concepts, as noted by Von Braun and others, was to incrementally work from sub-orbital, to orbital, to space station, to Moon, to Mars. Apollo sunk a lot of money into getting to the Moon without building any infrastructure to enable us to keep going there: SSTO's, long duration space stations, lunar shuttles, etc.
"Vibrate" on a MICROSCOPIC scale. The moon isn't made of jello. As a parallel, the Earth's crust continuously reverberates with tiny slips of the continental plates, volcanic erruptions, and the tug of tidal forces. Structures and people aren't collapsing.
The private sector can launch rockets more cheaply than government because 1) they can focus their business plans on things that actually pay (tourism), unlike the guv's work, which is general purpose space science, and 2) the guv did all the research heavy lifting at taxpayer's expense. Including the education of the rocket scientists by paying for both their education and the research projects they work on.
It's easy to be small and cheap when someone else gives you 60+ years of research for free.