The Step-By-Step DIY Approach To The X-Prize

HobbySpacer writes "According to this article, John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace team is making steady progress towards a X PRIZE rocket vehicle. Playing the tortoise to Burt Rutan's hare , the Texas team just might win the race to 100km altitude. At least if some of the other teams don't get there first."

Comments

Re:NASA/ESA are just not the right guys

[adeyadey]

Well you can take normal air-flight as an example. The Military (Air force) did a lot to improve designs, but it took private companies and innovators to open up the skys to all. Sure there are problems - regulatory bodies have to ensure fair trade practices, but its still better than none at all.

It could be the same with space - and Cheap Access To Space (CATS) is a critical step for so many other things we want to do up there, manned and unmanned. At the moment it costs way too much to shift payload into LEO - the Shuttle isnt even flying - $3 billion/year for 0 payload - and I am not convinced that NASA/Shuttle-2 will give us true CATS either.

The US should stop wasting money on the Shuttle tomorrow - graceful retire the old hardware & put in in a museum with other 60's/70's vintage hardware. NASA could then build a simple Soyuz type capsule to fit on one of the best available/reliable commercial rockets for now, and set up X-Prize style competitions to generate true cheap re-usable vehicles.