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Space Tug to the Moon and Beyond
An anonymous reader writes "Andrews Space and SpaceDev, a contributor to SpaceShipOne, are building a cargo transport called SmallTug to travel to the Lunar L1 point using a Hall Thruster and running off of solar power. The final craft will be capable of attaching to and transporting satellites 85 percent of the way to the Moon for use in interplanetary missions. The launch date is scheduled for 2008 and it is being designed to be quite inexpensive. The Inquirer has more details."
$20 million is pretty darn cheap for the whole thing. I'm a little curious about the methodology for getting the thing into space. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this one of the teams that was competing for the X-Prize, which puts things into "space" but not into an orbital launch? Did the group adapt its developed technologies to a more rugged device that will be able to reach a large distance to the moon, or is the IPS that great at moving things into space?
Man some days I really wish I had would have pursued a degree in rocket science.
Boring in the extreme. Super boring and not funny. Also assumes every reader is a US citizen, insensitive clod.
If we can't spell correctly here, can we at least make English the primary language.
Send cargo on the slow boat, then send people in a faster craft when everything they need has arrived.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
How well could it interface with existing satellites? It's all well and good having a cheap and convenient space cargo ship, but it's pointless if it only attaches properly to a particular proprietary type of craft.
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.