Slashdot Mirror
What's Next in the New Private Space Industry?
Cesaro asks: "I'm as thrilled as every other geek out there with the success of SpaceShipOne. But what are realistic expectations of our next steps into this new industry? The Economist clearly thinks the next step is high paying 'space tourism' at a whopping $200k+ per trip. That is all well and good, but what do *we* think the goals and schedule should look like?"
"How about travel? A flight to Australia will currently take me 20+ hours. How long down the road until I can take off from the US and land SpaceShipOne in Australia where another White Knight is waiting to ferry it back into the air again? (Anyone know how fast I could get there?) I only get 10 days of vacation a year and spending two of them in a metal cylinder is not such a good deal. How many years until we can start carrying cargo and DHL/UPS/FedEx can promise around the globe next day delivery? So I ask Slashdot: What should be the next steps and what is a realistic expectation of when those steps could occur?"
Tonight on Discovery Channel you can check you Black Sky. The documentary on SpaceShipOne and the Ansari X Prize. Be sure to check it out. It's simply amazing!
According to RLV News (one of the more popular space news sites), there's a huge pent-up demand for cheap suborbital science experiments.
... Now that such performance has in fact been proven by the SpaceShipOne, these kinds of knee-jerk rejections will gradually be replaced by enthusiasm for the new vehicles. Substantially lower costs, rapid re-flight opportunities, safe return of payloads, and nearby operator monitoring will make them irresistible. Researchers working with sounding rockets in areas such as atmospheric sciences, magnetospherics, astronomy, microgravity, and remote sensing will want to use them. Also, those developing sensors and other equipment for orbital and deep space vehicles will want to carry out suborbital flight tests."
From the report: "One space scientist, who puts experiments on sounding rockets, responded to my specification of a one week turnaround and a $200k price tag with "I don't believe these numbers (either the turnaround or the cost). Similar promises were made about the space shuttle 30 years ago, and they turned out to be grossly overoptimistic."
Rutan has received several offers from scientists and organizations who want to fly experiments on SpaceShipOne. He's turned them down, however, as he wants to focus on using SpaceShipOne as a development platform to perfect his next-generation space vehicle, which will be sold not only to Virgin Galactic, but to four or five other unannounced companies.
Interestingly, according to the BBC article: "Once its flight life is over, SpaceShipOne will be joining other notable ships of exploration at the Air and Space museum. Except for one piece. Rutan plans to pack up to 100g of SpaceShipOne to fly on the New Horizons' mission to Pluto - the first non-governmental launch into deep space."