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Space Race 2.0 has Begun

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the waiting-for-an-elevator dept.

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."

9 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Oh hear me my children... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...the MOON is out there!

  2. Forgive me if this is a stupid question... by Y-Crate · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Forgive me if this is a stupid question... by Soft · · Score: 3, Informative
      Would it be possible to use suborbital craft such as this as a means to provide rapid transportation between distant terrestrial locations?

      Yes and no. It is quite possible, but you'd need quite a lot bigger vehicles, more like current rockets.

      To see this, you have to understand that the biggest obstacle is speed: to just reach 100 km altitude, as these spacecraft do, you need to launch at a speed of about 1 km/s. Orbital speed (low Earth orbit) is 8 km/s. Unfortunately, it's not a question of eight times more fuel, it's exponential; if your propulsion system is such that for each ton of payload you must expend another ton of propellant, total mass 2 tons, then you need 2^8-1=255 tons of propellant to go to orbit.

      Now, an intercontinental journey is easier than going to orbit, but according to calculations I had made some time ago, it's not that easy, maybe 3-4 km/s to cross several thousand kilometers. SpaceShipOne definitely couldn't make it.

      So, yes, this is possible and perhaps interesting--if you don't mind the acceleration, as another poster said--but it is significantly harder than what is currently being done by private spaceflight companies. Which does not mean it's forever impossible, of course, nor that private companies won't make orbit or beyond eventually...

    2. Re:Forgive me if this is a stupid question... by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Informative

      They go up about 800-1200 km, then come back down on the other side of the planet or within 6,000-plus miles of thier launch site. An ICBM is going approximately 15,000 mph (Mach 23 or 24,000 kph) at burnout.

      http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/lgm-30_3 -specs.htm

      Since we're on suborbitals, Sprint was a pretty cool system for missile interception. Sprint was a marvel of aeronautics and space technology reaching a speed of Mach 10 in 5 seconds. Built by Martin Marietta, it was designed to operate at hypersonic speeds in the earth's atmosphere; at its top speed, the missile's skin became hotter than the interior of its rocket motor and glowed incandescently. To make the launch as quick as possible, the cover was blown off the silo by explosive charges; Then the missile was ejected by an explosive-driven piston. As the missile cleared the silo, the first stage fired and the missile was tilted toward its target. The first stage was of very short, almost explosive, duration. The second stage fired within 1 - 2 seconds of launch. Interception at an altitude of 1500m to 30000m took at most 15 seconds. The electronic components of the Sprint were designed to withstand accelerations of 100 times gravity. The missile was 27 feet long, consisted of two stages, and used solid fuel. Sprint carried an ER nuclear warhead of a few KT.

  3. It's really about time by helioquake · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. What about shipping packages? by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. The real challenge... by Darth+Liberus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...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.
  6. Stop the versioning! by PietjeJantje · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  7. Article submitter got it wrong... by SirBruce · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.