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Amazon's Jeff Bezos Sets His Sights on the Stars
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo News is reporting that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is looking to open a 'rocket-ship complex' for his new startup Blue Origin early next year. From the article: 'Blue Origin has released few details about the project. But a Texas newspaper editor who interviewed Bezos earlier this year said the billionaire talked [about] sending a spaceship into orbit that launches and lands vertically, like a rocket, and eventually building spaceships that can orbit the Earth -- possibly leading to permanent colonies in space.'"
I guess all his money is really disappearing into thin air.
the billionaire talked [about] sending a spaceship into orbit that launches and lands vertically ...With just a single click.
With all of the talk lately about civilian space travel, I was wondering if anyone knew specifically how far national borders extend vertically. Obviously satellites orbit over foreign territories all the time, but if the goal is space colonization like everyone thinks, would an American colony be bound by law to be in a geosynchronous orbit over the U.S at all times?
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I like this as an example of privately funded space exploration technology development. All of the participants in this adventure, from fund providers to astronauts, will be associated with the project on a voluntary basis. In the alternative model of publicly funded space exploration, taxpayers are coerced into funding the project and yet they do not exercise any real influence or control over the bureacracy that runs the program. The private model is based on voluntary association. The public model requires coerced association. Therefore, I conclude that the private model has a higher moral foundation.
I don't know about Amazon... I think that Google will put up a better launch vehicle.
If you're interested, you can find more info on the topic at this web.
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Well, first of all, helicopters can do a vertical landing without power (though that is not what is being looked at here). Take off can take no energy at all (using a balloon, for instance), it only requires a force, not energy.
That said, the real problem with your post is that most of the energy is used up accellerating to >7 km/s. When landing, all of that energy goes into the atmosphere, so vertical/horizontal landing really doesn't change the energy requirements really. Detailed analysis is inconclusive as to which one is better - wings for horizontal landing tend to weigh the same as rocket fuel for vertical landing - and there are many other variables that could go either way, ie: reentry sheilding of wings is hard, but better reentry wings may not need as much shielding, etc.
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Frankly, I believe space exploration is far too important to be left to private companies.
I disagree. Air transporation and food production are also quite important, and yet we seem to be doing fine with them being handled by private industry. Of course, there's government interference in those industries, but whether or not such interference is necessary is an argument for another day.
You, like many others, also seem to be making an assumption that all private groups are also for-profit, which is false. Non-profit groups engage in research and exploration as well, and I hope we'll see them engage in more space exploration as launch prices decrease.
For example, AMSAT has launched a number of amateur radio satellites. The Planetary Society (attempted) to launch the first solar sail, funded by member donations. Elon Musk started up a self-funded project to put an experimental greenhouse on Mars, but decided it would be better for now to focus on reducing launch costs via his SpaceX company -- hopefully he'll pursue the greenhouse project again in the future.
If there was a privtely owned space station in orbit instead of the ISS, would they be doing science, or giving trips to rich tourists?
That depends on whoever owns the space station. If it's owned by Richard Branson, it'll probably be for tourism. If it's owned by the Howard Hughes Institute, they'll probably be doing medical research. In the past, Bigelow Aerospace has stated that they'll sell their space station modules to pretty much whoever for $100 million each, and they should be up and running in the next few years.
I wonder if Jeff besoz is a fan of John Carmack.
e launch-conference.html
Considering that Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace and Bezos's Blue Origin are both operating in Texas and are both developing suborbital reusable VTOL spacecraft, I wouldn't be surprised to see them engage in some sort of collaboration.
Carmack's been having hardware issues, but being Carmack, probably has top-notch software. I'm betting he would benefit greatly from collaborating with Blue Origin's rocket engineers, and Blue Origin would benefit from his programming godhood.
Bezos has apparently met with SpaceX's Elon Musk, who's built (and is preparing to launch) a private orbital rocket. Here's a quote from a recent press conference with Musk:
http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2005/11/spacex-pr
On Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' space program
Musk: "I met with Jeff Bezos a couple of times and had dinner. His motivations in doing Blue origin are identical to mine in forming spacex. There's a good chance we'll work collaboratively at some point."
--Update-- (presumably elaborating on motivations)
Musk: The expansion of life on earth to other places is arguably the most important thing to happen to life on earth, if it happens. Life has the duty to expand. And we're the representatives of life with the ability to do so.
In a bigger scope of things, I see IT and dot com zilionaires investing in Space. I wonder if in, say, 100 years, this will be seen as the turning point where space exploration really got into motion. The heroes of the past are NASA, Armstrong, Gagarin and the like. These new rich, raised with SF, want to be the heroes of the future. They cannot be stooped by anything but their ego and the limit of their pocket, which is seemlingly endless. They will compete. They must have limited expectations of return of investment (?) It seems a good thing.
Setting down into the white-hot exhaust of a burning rocket engine sure looks cool in the movies, but is it really safe? I mean, the kickback of the exhaust can cause all sorts of heat related problems on the underside of the craft, plus the control mechanism requires extra hardware, plus you have to carry a lot of extra propellant -- adding unnecessary weight and complexity.
Parachutes, on the other hand, are lighter, much cheaper and a lot safer.
Keep it simple.
And we havent even figured out how to get enough energy into a single stage ship to get to orbit.
e pt_and_its_unique_operations.shtml
Yes we have. Remember the Roton project?
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/the_roton_conc
Why not parachutes? I'm guessing, but I'd guess control. A VTOL rocket in the Delta Clipper mold can park itself inside a one-and-a-half diameter chalk circle. A 'chute can probably be guaranteed to hit the right county. They're a recovery mechanism best suited to big government projects that can afford to recover astronauts from large amorphous targets such as deserts, oceans etc. Not suited to eg: intercontinental commuters landing at a spaceport with a schedule to keep.
Plus, even a VTOL design can use 'chutes to drop most of its speed, before using retro-rockets to coast in for a controlled landing.
Let me first say that I completely agree that nuclear rockets are the way to go, and that putting them in use is long overdue. I also wanted to personally bitch-slap each and every one of the moronic "stop Cassini" protesters.
Concern over the use of nuclear energy isn't inherently stupid, though. I have to object every time I hear someone call it "clean". The waste is extremely nasty, but can contain it rather than (barring accidents) spewing it out into the environment. I still haven't seen any convincing solution dealing with nuclear waste in the long term. I'd say nuclear engergy as a solution to energy production here on earth is problematic, but still better than most of the currently available alternatives. The problem is that people tend to declare themselves either "pro nuclear" or "anti nuclear" without being very rational about it. They pick one standpoint and "believe" in it like it was a religion.
Storage of waste products is not, however, an issue when using nuclear energy for spaceflight. Chucking the waste into space seems to be pretty much the best way I can think of for getting rid of it.
> The only issue with these engines when they _were running_ back in the 70's
> were material issues.
Those weren't gas core nuclear engines, though, but solid-core, which really aren't all that interesting. Gas core looks the way to go, but they're still only drawing-board designs. To my knowledge, no gas core nuclear engine has ever been actually constructed, even for experimental use.