Another Private Space Startup

An anonymous reader writes "Wired has a story about former PayPal owner Elon Musk who has his own rocket company, SpaceX, trying to lower the cost of getting into space. They just tested the rocket engine, and hope to fly a test by the end of the year. Not bad for less than a year's worth of work so far." We mentioned this guy last year.

Comments

Well, it come with two pair of pants.

[inertia187]

By his own admission, Musk is making some grandiose claims -- among them that he will cut the cost of launching up to 1,000 pounds of payload into near-Earth orbit by up to two-thirds, and that he can buck the dismal success rate of space-launch startups.

Wait a second. Grandiose or not, which market is he talking about? The European Space Agency can already lift more for less. So is he talking about taking two-thirds off the American price or the European price?

Heck, for all we know, he's going to take two-thirds off the price Afghanistan would charge you if they had launch capability.

Mirror to the article.

John Carmack

[rmohr02]

In a semi-related note, John Carmack (yes, that John Carmack) is competing to win the X-Prize, which gives $10 million to the first small team to put a man 62.5 miles above the surface of the earth. See http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/10/16/xprize.co ntest/

Nerds in space

[phorm]

I found how many other types of people are actively starting their own "going to space" club. So far the only ones I've heard of on slashdot are IT-industry veterans. Are they the only ones, or is there somebody else out there with the money to pull it off?

Regardless, private space enterprise could be both a good and bad thing. As NASA seems to be flagging in some areas, private funding of exploration could be the big push needed to get us beyond the moon.

That... and whomever develops a working "warp drive" will probably have to be a Star Trek geek...

Obligitory PayPal Reference:

[Drathus]

So, did he get the funding from this from all the disgruntled PayPal users?

http://www.paypalsucks.com

You might not like it, but that's my opinion.

government space?

[KrancHammer]

While I am all for free enterprise, I am not yet convinced that the technology exists to make space travel inexpensive enough for any organization that does not have the capability to spend hundreds of millions without seeing a return (like, say government agencies).
Sure a suborbital flight may be (relatively) cheap, but I am not sure that keeping humans in space for prolonged periods can ever be made safe and cheap.

Re:government space?

[superdan2k]

Can you present some data to back up your "not yet convinced" statement?

Going to space is old-hat and can be made cheap if we can get around a lot of the b.s. bueauracracy that makes government-run space agencies cost what they do. All basic technology goes down in cost once it's gotten widespread adoption -- this is why technology (esp. computer technology) has been moving so quickly in the last twenty years. Because corporations need to continue to make profits they need to keep making new-and-improved technology. The stuff that was horribly expensive when we kicked off manned spaceflight costs pennies now. Honestly, if we replicated the Apollo program using the same technologies, the program would cost PEANUTS. Think about it -- the computer that powered the CM and LEM is dwarfed by stuff as simple as a Palm III. All the exotic alloys they had to spend years researching and experimenting with are now old-hat. We have a great, reliable engine that we can use NOW (the Space Shuttle Main Engine), and another one that was extremely promising before the program was killed (the Aerospike, part of the X-33/VentureStar program). Going back to the moon would be a walk in the park (financially and technologically, but maybe not politically) right now.

As for orbit, well, humanity's already had some good experience with Mir and Skylab, and we're learning from our attempts at the International Space Station. Russia and France have both built extremely reliable, inexpensive throwaway boosters that work like a champ.

If only Bill Gates would

[Milo77]

If only Bill Gates would get a bee in hif bonnet about putting a man on mars in 10 years, I would start purchasing the software put out by his company just to support the endeavor. Maybe I am a sell out...

Re:I've Got a Rocket Company Too

[mnmn]

Well with 1.5 litre pet bottles Ive launched rockets quite high. I never measured how high, but way farther than anyone could throw. We even tried a payload of a parachute that would open, but we gave up on that, with water as propellant, the payload weight can be significant even for small rockets.

I honestly believe rockets can be built with high pressure cylinders pumping out to larger containers of water with a small exhaust. If its made large enough, with the proper materials and pressure locks etc, and made multistage, I think it could reach impressive heights. Still I'd be skeptical about an attempt to reach orbit.