TAAS Company Presents New Orbital Space Plane

RobGoldsmith writes "The TAAS Company have released details on their new Orbital Space Plane. The new design has many attributes to set it apart from its rivals. One highlight is the integrated Safety System; this is where an escape vehicle can eject from the main body of the craft then fly home safely. They claim: 'With the system's performance capability, economical first stage tow and independence from ground launch facilities, it can offer the lowest price. It also offers the safest flight.' Could this spaceship rival Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo?" Reader wooferhound points out related news from XCOR Aerospace (which we've discussed previously), that they're beginning to take orders for seats on their own suborbital flights, with test runs planned for 2010. Seats will be going for around $95,000 each, less than half the cost of the first tickets for SpaceShipTwo.

Comments

Re:This proposal is irritating

[Free the Cowards]

I work on the Shuttle External Tank, so I see every day how demanding, how difficult and precise manned space flight has to be.

Not to diminish your work in any way, but what you see every day is how demanding, how difficult, and how precise manned space flight has to be when done by NASA.

The Russian program shows that a "big dumb" approach with much less focus on precision and "failure is not an option" can achieve similar results, or at the very least a similar safety record.

The Shuttle is just a poor design for a space vehicle. It's essentially a test vehicle which NASA attempts to use as an operational vehicle. It was designed for a much bigger budget than it actually got, and NASA has been paying the price for that shortfall for nearly three decades now.