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Space Race 2.0 has Begun
An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC has a story about a second company starting up to compete with Virgin Galactic. Both are planning on operating passenger sub-orbital flights. Will this new Space Race usher in more new technologies into our daily lives, like the previous one? Will the competition to go higher/faster lead to orbital tourism?" From the article: "The company that helped put three millionaires into orbit has teamed up with Russia's Federal Space Agency and the financial backers of the $10 million Ansari X Prize to develop a new breed of suborbital passenger spaceship. Thursday's announcement by Virginia-based Space Adventures herald the entry of new international players in the commercial space race -- a race that is expected to enter a critical phase in the next year or two."
Yay, space race 2!
Except this time the US isn't competing.
...the MOON is out there!
Would it be possible to use suborbital craft such as this as a means to provide rapid transportation between distant terrestrial locations?
If I recall correctly, ICBMs take suborbital, not orbital trajectories, and they are quite time savers when you want to wipe out a city, so could the same approach be applied to less malevolent projects?
New York to Tokyo in 30 minutes, anyone?
It's really about time that a suborbital travel in space becomes "engineering challenge" rather than "explorations".
It's never easy; but it should no longer be impossible for a private entity to venture into a suborbital flight business.
I'm surprised that so far all of the buzz has been about passenger transport and ignores other applications. The science fiction writer Michael Flynn's future history starting with Firestar has FedEx as one of the first industries signing on to the new convenient space flight. Think about how much of an edge on its competition a company would have if it could deliver a package anywhere on Earth in just a couple of hours.
http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/16640_a erospace.html
Let's go for Space Race 3.0!!!
...is can you make it safe, fast, and cost-effective? Blasting off into space is cool, but will 2 hours + a lot of money + a good chance of blowing up outweigh a 12 hour, reasonbly priced and safe trip?
Don't get me wrong, this is cool. But suborbital travel will need to deal with these issues lest they go the way of the Concorde.
Beauty is just a light switch away.
At least, the first two paragraphs. Then the wonderful MSN formatting puts all the text BEHIND the links panel... Is it only me that this happnes? And it happens on EVERY MSN Article!
Suborbital flights strike me just like the space ride at the carnival. Lots of flash and a souvenir pin, but they don't actually push the envelope in technology. There is a huge difference between going up and coming down again compared to true orbital flight where you go up and dont come down.
Maybe this will even delay humanity's push into space by deluding people into thinking they have contributed in some way to that goal.
Just saw the "2.0" and assumed AJAX is somehow involved.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
Sorry, but I think I missed the technologies that changed my daily life from the previous race? Or am I supposed to believe I need to be grateful to NASA for teflon - "PTFE is sometimes said to be a spin-off from the US space program with more down-to-earth applications; this is an urban legend, as teflon cooking pans were commonplace before Yuri Gagarin's flight in 1961." according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teflon
Being a big fan of the space anime PlanetES, which opens with a super-high-altitude aircraft exploding due to a tiny screw blasting right through it, my immediate reaction was "What about space debris?".
Then again, the summary says "sub-orbital", implying that the altitude is below that of orbiting obstacles. Does anyone know if this is correct?
Private/corporate space travel of any kind is pretty gosh darn unlikely any time in the next 30 years. Space travel is so capital intensive that any sort of return on investment far beyond the types of horizons that motivate companies. Consider that most companies view 5 years as a "long term" investment. I don't understand why they are offering a $10 million prize for the design when if they were serious they would have a paid engineering staff design one. I think this is more proof these companies aren't serious at all.
YES!
For instance, hardened ceramic roofs, bomb shelters, "incoming meteor" early warning systems, and the like.
Pretty much all the technologies that make it possible to survive the fledgling space-ships disintegrating in the outer atmosphere, left and right. Pretty much all the same things you'd want if "flying cars" or "jet packs" for the average person became a reality.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Will this new Space Race usher in more new technologies into our daily lives, like the previous one?
No. The last space race performed a wide array of scientific research while in space. This race will be focused on getting passengers up as cheaply as possible.
I'm not saying that there won't be breakthroughs, but nothing near the number of breakthroughs in industries as varied as what NASA affected.
Screw that,I'm going for MARS, dude.
Who in his right mind would spend millions of green guys for a half-hour ride around the globe to get a glimpse of china. I've already SEEN china, you twats. Buy an Atlas.
Blasting off into space is cool, but will 2 hours + a lot of money + a good chance of blowing up outweigh a 12 hour, reasonbly priced and safe trip?
As somebody who's recently entered the scene of the "upper middle-class", certain aspects of economics start to make more sense.
For example, the company plane. Sounds like a waste, huh?
An executive earning $100,000/year has a market net worth of about $50/hour. To make baseline 6 figures, he/she represents a compensation (and thus, net worth to society) of about that rate. So, a 'Company plane' makes sense when it saves more time (at $50+ per hour) than it costs.
Now, a typical short-midrange flight entails 1-2 hours in the airport at both ends, and can be quite inconvenient, in that commercial flights worth mentioning only fly out of major airports. A 6-seat plane starts at around $75,000, so the monthly payment on that would be around $750, or about what your average middle-class family pays for 2 new-ish cars.
So, a company plane, in order to pay for itself, has to save $750/$50 hours of executive downtime, or 15 hours of $100,000 executive time per month. A SINGLE FLIGHT taken by three executives in the plane can often save 4-6 hours apiece in time for each of those exectives, easily meeting the minimum standard for compensation. Any flights taken after that are pure profit for the company! Thus, planes can make financial sense in this economic situation.
And, that's assuming your exeutives are only making $100,000 per year - if they're good, they're usually worth quite a bit more than that.
So, I have to ask you, how much do those 10 hours of time savings cost in your example? If your "lot of money" ticket adds in the neighborhood of $500 each way, it's already quite profitable for the buyer, as well as very convenient!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Does this new version fix bugs like the cockpit randomly catching fire?
Yes I know it was politically incorrect and potentially unfunny because of it.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
i think we've got this one down pat. but wait until private industry says it will send someone to the moon. then i bet you will see nasa snap into action
OK, it's news for nerds, but this is even too nerdy for me. The pain! The agony! Please stop giving version numbers to real life stuff. Real life is not CVS, thank you. I don't call my second wife Wife 2.0 either, neither do I refer to McDonald's latest offering as 0.9 beta. Snap out of it!
cold war 2.0????
Space Adventures isn't a "new" start-up to compete with Virgin Galactic. Space Adventures has been around since 1998, and was one of the first companies (in the modern era, anyway; not talking about old space sweepstakes from decades ago) to actually plan on sending tourists into space. It is Virgin Galactic that is the "new" start-up, competeing with the likes of Space Adventures.
That having been said, right now Space Adventures is little more than a middle man. They've been working with various other private companies (like Scaled Composites, SpaceX, Armadillo, etc.) to essentially use whatever suborbital rocket THEY build, to ferry passangers who reserve flights now with Space Adventures. Right now there are a few hundred people who've plunked down $100,000 or so for a reservation; I assume Space Adventures is just making money off of investments while waiting for a private company to finally actually produce a sub-orbital ship.
I should also point out the Space Adventures has been "anticipating" this first flight to take place as early as 2000, and have delayed it every year since then. Who knows if any spacecraft maker will ever actually complete a project such that Space Adventures reservations get filled. Virgin Galactic, on the other hand, has already locked up a deal with Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites, so it would seem unlikely that SpaceShipTwo would be available to take Space Adventures' reservations, unless Virgin Galactic buys out the contracts. And since Burt Rutan is currently the only guy who has demosntrated any success in this field so far, things don't look good for SA.
But that's just my opinion.
Bruce
PS - SA has managed to get a "finder's fee" for hooking up three private space tourists for trips to the ISS via the Russians, for $20M a pop. Frankly, I don't know HOW they managed that; seems to me I can phone up Rosaviacosmos directly. But maybe Russia prefers dealing exclusively through SA for potential private clients.
Teflon 2.0- Now so slippery that only iron-rich foods can be cooked in Teflon frying pans, held in place by the magnetic base.
Write Upside Down Ballpoint Pens 2.0- Now write Inside Out as well!
Tang 2.0- Now tastes sort of like real fruitjuice (mostly if you haven't ever actually tasted real juice...)
I'm in IT, and when I look at the IT these space wonders use, I have to hold back a laugh. Is it any different in other fields ?
I keep hearing about all those technologies that trickled down from NASA to us regular guys. Since this couldn't possibly come from the NASA spin machine, would anyone care to enlighten me about which technologies are alluded to here ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
it wants it's "2.0" bullshit back.
This sort of thing is going to have as much impact and relevance to society at large as the Americas Cup does. Pretty toys, a few specialist firms involved in one-off designs, and technology not really germane to anything beyond its own sandbox of reality.
... significant. It's just symptomatic of a point in industrilized society where we have a buttload of disposable income and a lot of wealthy people. Which is fine, no prob, wish i was one, but technical breakthrough? Not in any meaningful way.
.max
There ain't no breakthroughs to be had! Space flight with rockets is fabu $$$, period. Schmancy IRBMs with inflight entertainment isn't
Seriously: "space tourism" relates to manned space flight the way the heavies do it (US, Russia and now China) similarly to the way the old Seawolf submarine ride at Disneyland compares to the Jimmuh (SSN23, as Seawolf submarine in its own right). Possibly we could substitute the Disneyland sub with one of those excursion toys you sometimes see in the carribean -- but still, not an innovator, just a cool toy.
Why would a civilian go to space?
The ultimate thrill ride?
Certainly not for "tourist" reasons, there's nothing to tour up there.
Kubrick's wheel is not up there and the ISS doesn't have the room or time
to put up with camera wielding geeks.
There's no moon motels or other stop overs up there.
There's just simply no where to go except up, around and back down.
And how long will these "tourists" stay strapped in a chair for their $250,000 ride? 20 minutes? 1 hour? 3 days? Really now.. Think about it.
What's it take to orbit the earth, 90 minutes I think, CMIIW. So maybe you get
to make one orbit and back home. All for a cool quarter mil. Nice..
Will you be allowed to take your own photos or will you be required to leave your
cameras on earth and buy your photos from the gift shop at the launch/landing site?
And lastly, who will plot the course of these ships, through the millions of tons of space debris? NASA? I think NORAD keeps track of ALL space debris and coordinates data with NASA to plot flight paths.
Is NORAD going to allow these private enterprises access to this same data or are they going to "use the force Luke" to navigate the debris fields??
Man, this whole thing about space tourism is just silly. We're a good 50-100 years from any realistic scenario, if at all. Until Kubrick's wheel goes up and until we have civilian Moon motels and civilian Mars motels up there, there's just no good reason for civilians to be in space.
I'll just save my money and stay on the ground, where I belong, thanks very much.
And BTW, I'm a strong supporter of NASA and science and space exploration.
I believe it in 101% all the way. But this civilian stuff is just silly.
After a few civilians get killed this half baked idea will go away very quickly.
You would think that common sense would rule here, what after seeing two shuttles blow up and how many Russians killed in their own problems.
Space travel is extremely dangerous. It's best left to the experts.
We still have a very long way to go before it's perfected.
One thing I've thought of that these things would be useful for would be as "couriers" for important documents that can't be sent electronically. Contracts, etc. Possibly, donor organs. Other small packages that currently get rushed on aircraft, but would be better yet if they arrived with almost the speed of an email.
That seems like the next step up after there-and-back-again tourist flights.
By reading articles on MSNBC, you're supporting a company that hurts the IT industry anyway. So the formatting issues are just another reason to find the same story on another news site.
I hope they don't have the same problem as the stinking Virgin trains in the UK. These things are puke-worthy. To think you have to pay to travel in a mobile sewer.
It's always 2.0 now.... it was cute the first 0x088 times, but now.... it's just -1, Redundant. How about
Space Race II: This Time It's Personal!
I quote others only in order the better to express myself. -- Michel de Montaigne
Space Adventures has been shopping this craft around for something like five years - routinely announcing a new set of partners and that a first flight is expected 'soon'. Pretty much like anyone else associated with the Russian space program, their main business seems to be not flying - but generating press releases and power points about thier Brave New Future.
Space Adventures has been around years before Xprize was awarded. They are the forefront leaders in suborbital flights. Sorry people but this is truely old news.
\
In relativity, an "inertial frame" is very nearly identical to a "gravitic frame". An inertial dampener would also be an antigravity device. "But wait", you say, "that's science fiction and very implausible in any near future!" Yes, exactly.
When people invent antigravity (or generated gravity, or most anything to do with controlling gravity) then you'll have your inertial dampener right there - as well as quite a nifty flight drive and possibly the makings of an Alcubierre warp drive.
We should have launched an Orion, at least once.
Will this new Space Race usher in more new technologies into our daily lives, like the previous one?
By all means, as long as DebtMart can charge 28% revolving interest to unemployed customers on them.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
2.0 is the best the space industry could manage after all these decades and billions of dollars?
;-)
Heck, Gillette and Schick managed to take us all into 4.0 just by themselves
I'm not sure about the per mile figures, but the rule of thumb for rocket travel is that your launch vehical will fail (often catestrophically) ~2% of the time. Do you total your car ~2% of the time you drive?