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X-Prize Overview: To The Edge Of Space, Cheap
_randy_64 writes "The X-Prize competition has gotten a lot of coverage on Slashdot - either because it's cool and geeky or because John Carmack is involved. The Baltimore Sun has a decent background/overview article on the contest in Sunday's edition."
Well, the article says 15,000 people/year would pay $100,000 for a 15-minute trip by 2021. Personally, I'd want more than 15 minutes in space for $100k, but there you go.
That doesn't seem like a bad growth rate for an industry--from 0 to 1.5 billion per year in only 20 years. Of course, the PC industry puts that to shame, but I don't think a whole lot of industries have matched that growth rate.
Matt
In the article, the author makes the comment:
On May 20, 1927, the day Lindbergh's plane took off from New York, the young Boeing Corp. rolled out the Boeing 40-A, a simple plane used primarily to carry mail. By 1933, after thousands of flights and incremental improvements, that plane evolved into the Boeing 247, the first modern passenger airliner.
Looking at the Model 40-A (Boeing.com), you can see a fabric covered single engined biplane. Jumping to the 247 (Boeing.com), they are comparing to a dual engine, all metal monoplane with retractable landing gear.
I guess that you could say that the difference in the aircraft were a result of thousands of "incremental changes", but I would think that the difference is primarily the result of thousands of people being excited by the prospect of air travel - the incremental changes came later.
This should be the point of the X-Prize, rather than establishing a starting point for space travel, it should be an example of how low cost space flight could be achieved and then ignite the passions of many people with the result of space travel on a par with today's air travel.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
The first time there is a safety problem with any of the spacecraft, all hell will ensue.
The public will become fearful of visiting space on a private tourist craft, and the governments of many western nations will undoubtedly begin passing laws to regulate the industry.
Space tourism has a future, but I'm not so sure it's as lucrative as the foundation would have us believe.
Across the world, how many people ride motorcross bikes? Jump out of planes? Go rock-climbing? Or, if you're arguing that the people that like those kinds of activities can't afford $100,000 to go to space, how many rich dilettantes like to race Porsches - an activity that can easily chew up well over $100,000 in a single season.
I would argue that there are plenty of rich people who will view the risks phlegmatically enough to keep a space tourism operation expanding for a while.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
At least that what this comment reads like. Hmm Everest has been climbed, why climb it again?
Tourists are even happy to pay for trips to Antartica to get covered in penguin shit. And some tourists are daft enough to try crossing the Australian desert in summer. The only thing that seems to slow them down is fear of something less likely to kill them than a car accident back home. Something = anything from SARS, bombing, snake bite, shark bite, lightning strike etc. They don't usually think of death by thirst, jellyfish stingers, crocodiles, or wombat/roo/donkey/camel/sheep/sandhill/washout car accidents).
I just hope that successful space trips don't give corporates a new excuse to continue trashing the only planet we've got.
That's my rant for the day...
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
"Seriously, though, once one group has succeeded, what is the immediate benefit to other groups who may succeed afterwards? No $$ usually leads to seriously reduced efforts."
:)
I doesn't matter. Industry doesn't work like that. Just think of the flights around the globe or Linburg's flight across the atlantic.
Thing is, is that nobody knows how is the best way to get up into space is yet. Obviously tossing rockets up in the air only to watch them self destruct in order to do it is a very bad thing.
So once people figure out how to do it in a feasable way then that's once the $$ comes in. If it still remains unknown then there are just to many questions and nobody resposible to stockholders is willing to throw away his client's retirement money and his company's future on something that flimsy.
But that's how capitalism works, it's up to individuals to take the risks, not society. It's a risk, if a person fails he is a loser, so he has to try to find more money and try again. But once a person succeeds he has the right to profit from his efforts.
Beleive it or not the majority of rich people did it on their own. Most business owners fail miserably over and over again before they get it right and then have a chance to become rich. bankrupcy after bankrupcy, even jail time, then one day the risk taking pays off and they have a successful business and can provide jobs and livelyhoods for hundreds of other people not willing to take the risks.
That's why the X-prize exists. After completing the prize your going to be strapped for cash, time, and resources to say the least, if it wasn't for the x-prize you'd probably loose everything. If you win the prize it will keep you solvent long enough to sell the technology and you then have a chance to live out your dreams a rich man with access to space flight.
Of course this doesn't realy work to well for people like Camrak, but not everyone trying is already rich, but being wealthy has little to do with having good ideas about space flight or other new technologies.