First Private Manned Orbital Flight Announced

Miroslav Ambrus-Kis wrote in to tell us that Inter-orbital Systems has announced that Nebojsa Stanojevic and Miroslav Ambrus-Kis will be the astronauts aboard the first completely private orbital flight. This is part of their bid for the Google Lunar X-Prize.

Comments

and NASA

[cosm]

dies a little on the inside...

Re:and NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

fta:

Two Interorbital Systems test pilots---Nebojsa Stanojevic, a 'Tweeting' Serbian, and Miroslav Ambrus-Kis, [vid], a 'Tweeting' Croatian

I think we all just died a little on the inside.

Re:and NASA

[sunking2]

Until the first mishap. Private enterprise and investors can't survive the impact of things going wrong. Look at the numbers and you'll see an awefull lot of private satellite launchers go belly up shortly after a bad launch. The profit margins are just too thin to weather the downturn.

Re:and NASA

[Forge]

True. Just like in the old days it was tough to stay in the shipping business after your ship sank.

Understand that once you start the countdown on a rocket most of the money has already been spent (90% to 99% in my estimation) If that blows up without delivering the results that get you payed (satellite in orbit etc...) your business is dead and your creditors crying. That's life.

What is a real problem is that NASA got to be so large and wealthy a bureaucracy that they were able to under employ most of the best rocket scientists for over a generation. Then put their ideas throgh such rigorous scrutiny that nothing new got built. Until finally rickety old space trucks (Challenger etc...) blew up and took people with them.

Re:and NASA

[agentgonzo]

Then put their ideas throgh such rigorous scrutiny that nothing new got built. Until finally rickety old space trucks (Challenger etc...) blew up and took people with them.

I am trying to fathom how you can lambaste Nasa for being too rigourous with their safety scrutiny in one sentence, then complain that they blew up (insinuating that they weren't rigourous enough) in the following one.

Re:and NASA

[hachete]

Hating NASA is like a religion these days. Anything NASA does is bad. No matter. Kinda makes you look a fool, though, when you start letting it warp your logic.

Re:and NASA

[Patch86]

He is implying that, by vetoing all new ideas by way of ridiculously over-optimistic design standards, they've been stuck using ancient technology for far longer than is safe, economic, or reasonable.

The irony of the situation shouldn't be lost on anyone.

Re:and NASA

[EdZ]

The point was that NASA continued to use the Shuttle far beyond it's intended service life because it was a nice safe tried-and-tested system, rather than developing new and untested (and thus 'risky') launch systems to replace it. And nowit;s bitten them in the ass with the Shuttle feet becoming unmaintainable in it's old age (a bolt recently got stuck between two window panels. This may permanently ground that shuttle as they have no way to replace or repair the windows if they prove unable to remove the bolt or if too much damage has occurred already) and with nothing sufficient to replace it.

Re:and NASA

[agentgonzo]

I fail to see how the Challenger disaster can be attributed to using the shuttle far beyond its intended service life when it was merely 3 years old... As for the bolt, the shuttle in question is Atlantis. The bolt has already been removed and the window certified safe for flight. But good work with the uninformed hysteria.

Re:and NASA

[CraftyJack]

Private enterprise and investors can't survive the impact of things going wrong.

I agree with you, but I've been very impressed with SpaceX's persistence. I think that most of the private launchers will fail, but the lucky/persistent ones might actually pull it off. Presumably, each of them is convinced that they're the lucky ones.

Re:and NASA

[RockyPersaud]

That's right. Businesses have never killed people in the pursuit of profit.

Re:and NASA

[CraftyJack]

If that blows up without delivering the results that get you payed (satellite in orbit etc...) your business is dead and your creditors crying. That's life.

That's life if you're a private company. If Inter-orbital has some catastrophic failure that sinks the whole company, it's not that big a deal in the big picture. Failure is an option for a private company - it's just not a very attractive option.

Re:and NASA

[sunking2]

When the business is the people who are paying you it's not a very good business practice to kill them off. Collateral damage/killing is completely different.

Re:and NASA

[damburger]

Trust me on this, NASA is dying laughing on the inside. 'Interorbital Systems' are a joke amongst serious minds in the space industry; they are constantly making grandiose claims yet have never fielded any hardware that couldn't simply be bought off the shelf. They are always a short amount of time from some 'amazing' breakthrough - but to put this in perspective, their nominated 'first teenager in space' is now in his twenties.

The idea that private enteprise is simply 'better' - an idea rubbished by experiences with healthcare, banking, transport, energy supply, and many other things - is blinding you to how clearly absurd these people are.

Re:and NASA

[Forge]

Thank you.

I was going to respond but you cleared it up better than I ever could.

Space travel is inherently dangerous. (Do I have to spell out why on Slashdot?). By trying to force enginears to eliminate rather thasn mitigate the danger NASA has taken far longer than it should to design an improved replacement for the shuttle.

By Improved I mean:
0. lower Construction cost
1. lower cost for throwaway components (boosters etc...)
2. Lower fuel consumption per payload/passenger pound.
3. Lower cost of serviceing between missions.
4. Shorter prep time for flight.
5. Larger cargo bay.
6. Less likely to blow up under stress. etc...

It's not that nobody came up with anything better than the existing shuttle in those years. It's just that none of the improved models met NASA's upgraded standards. Put another way, You are stuck driving an old Corolla because the best replacement anyone has proposed is Camry and your bosses want nothing less than an Armored Roles Royce Limousine that runs on solar and has a self driving AI.

Re:and NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

GOOD. The sooner the AmeriKKKans are out of space, the better. Let civilized countries take over.

Re:and NASA

[Runaway1956]

Stuff happens. The first automobile wrecks may have delayed what we see today by a few years. The first trucking companies to experience disastrous wrecks may have slowed things down - a few months? The wrecked aircraft of yesteryear caused government to get involved in licensing and so forth. But, stuff happens.

I am thrilled that people are actually doing something that should ultimately prove useful. NASA is a dinosaur that failed to live up to it's expectations. Let's move forward.

Re:and NASA

[Sancho]

Similar to the reason that we don't see many new power plants these days. Old plants were grandfathered in after safety and environmental laws were enacted. New plants are held to much higher standards.

So we just have to get by on the old and busted plants which spew tons of junk in the air.

Re:and NASA

[Kjella]

It works both ways though - the harder it is to make it happen, the bigger are usually the payoffs when you make it because competitors can't copy you easily. It's after all a big cost/benefit decision under uncertainty.

Re:and NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

Croatia is the epitome of civilized.

Re:and NASA

[lwsimon]

While I'm not going to address you argument about the private space endeavors - they were and are a bit grandiose in their claims - but the industries you chose as examples of private enterprise are probably four of the most regulated industries in the US economy. Saying that the results of these industries is representative of a free market is laughable.

FWIW, I work in transportation, and it is becoming less regulated over time - and it is more stable than any of the other three.

Re:and NASA

[Carbaholic]

NASA usually contracts private contractors to do their work.

They don't design or build much of anything themselves.

Re:and NASA

[LWATCDR]

Yes I fear this has all the validity of the Moller flying car. I am not saying that private enterprise can not do it better and cheaper than NASA but this is at best a pipe dream.
Maybe we need a new saying for the 21st century. Renderings are cheap, hardware is real.
SpaceX is far more interesting. They have flown the Falcon I to orbit and seem to have an optimistic but well thought out test program for the Dragon/Falcon 9.

Re:and NASA

[Daniel Dvorkin]

When the business is the people who are paying you it's not a very good business practice to kill them off.

Um ... tobacco? Alcohol? Fast food? Automobiles? The corporate world has never shown any aversion to killing its customers if it thinks it can get new ones to replace the ones who've died.

Re:and NASA

[Z1NG]

iirc isn't it recommended that moderation be primarily positive and disagreeing with a comment isn't grounds for modding it Flamebait. Sometimes I see a comment modded like this and realize that it must be a sad little power trip for someone.

Re:and NASA

[tmosley]

And thus the strong survive to propagate their superior technology and business model.

I don't see a problem here. This is exactly the model that we need to use to get into space reliably. Not the "Well, we had a few launches fail catastrophically, so let's keep doing the same thing just spending more money, and never actually improve anything, oh and by the way your funding is cut" that we get with the involvement of government funded space agencies.

Re:and NASA

[tmosley]

They have made the perfect the enemy of the good to such an extend that they were stuck with the worst, and people died because of it.

Re:and NASA

[tmosley]

To be fair, neither has the government. Indeed, the acts of our own government would be called genocide had they been carried out by private corporations. Think Vietnam or Iraq here.

Re:and NASA

[tmosley]

Everything you said is absolutely true. That's why the Soviets won the Cold War, and why Cuba and North Korea have the highest standards of living in the world.

Wait a second...

Re:and NASA

[falconwolf]

And thus the strong survive to propagate their superior technology and business model.

Business model yes but not necessarily the superior technology.

Falcon

Re:and NASA

[smoker2]

How much of an ignorant wanker do you have to be to take words out of context, make up your own meaning then flame the OP ?

NASA has failed "to live up to expectations". Maybe your expectations are just a lot lower than the people who were alive and paying attention back when those expectations were raised.
Also, (Let's move forward) !eq (Interorbital are going to move forward).
NASA had plenty of good ideas in the 70s, manned Mars missions and the like. Have they achieved those aims ?

Oh, they haven't. Better let you get on with equivocating then. Don't forget to mention how companies like Boeing actually build most of NASAs hardware, thereby annihilating your private enterprise jibe.

It's really quite simple. NASA does not stand for National Aeronautical and Space Vehicle Manufacturers. They are supposed to be Administrating, not running the whole shebang. Let them work out orbits, telemetry, landing sites, launch windows and such like. Let others build the craft without interference from the fucking PHBs.

Re:and NASA

[khallow]

The idea that private enteprise is simply 'better' - an idea rubbished by experiences with healthcare, banking, transport, energy supply, and many other things - is blinding you to how clearly absurd these people are.

Indeed. Government snake oil has long been shown to be far more efficacious than it's grievously inferior private counterparts.

Re:and NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had known how much trouble it would cause, I would not have done it.

Re:and NASA

[LWATCDR]

Okay I will bite.

By Improved I mean:
0. lower Construction cost
Not really all that important. We build so few space craft that the cost of construction is actually only a very small part of the life cost of the system.
1. lower cost for throwaway components (boosters etc...)
Yes very important.
2. Lower fuel consumption per payload/passenger pound.
I am not sure that is all that important in the over all cost.
3. Lower cost of servicing between missions.
This is huge. And yes very important.
4. Shorter prep time for flight.
Really is the same thing as number 3.
5. Larger cargo bay.
Also not really needed. The shuttle's cargo bay is actually larger than is needed for most of it's missions. I higher lift weight would be nice but a true heavy lift launch system is the real solution to putting big payloads into orbit.
6. Less likely to blow up under stress. etc...
Always a plus.

I would love see a new shuttle with the same payload but with increased safety and lower cost as goals. Even the current shuttles could be made cheaper to operate with some upgrades.
Replace the apus with a new all electric system,
Fly back boosters.

Re:and NASA

[Teancum]

I would beg to differ on this point. An awful lot of private satellite launchers simply go belly up because the cost margins have been kept incredibly thin and they usually lack sufficient capital reserves to carry them forward beyond one or two launches. Yeah, the attrition rate for launchers is high, but it comes mainly from under capitalization... a chronic problem for all new start-up companies in almost every industry.

I'm curious... what companies are you referring to here that have seemed to be financially stable companies producing a launcher that seems to be performing quite well and then a mishap has shut them down? I can only think of a handful of companies that have even successfully put something into space at all, much less orbit.

Private enterprise certainly can weather the problems of things going boom and falling apart. Profit margins are even pretty good... unless you are trying to duplicate the NASA budgeting process and presuming that once a launcher is built that billions will be headed your way. On the other hand, a company that suffers a major set back but has cash reserves to build another vehicle is much more likely to send up the next rocket as opposed to a government operated program like NASA's shuttles that shut the whole program down for years with all sorts of political horsetrading going on in the meantime to fix the problem. That would never happen with a private company: either they go ahead and launch again in a couple of months or they simply close their doors completely.

Re:and NASA

[Teancum]

It is hard to find something NASA has done that is good lately. NASA has mostly been turned into an engineering jobs program whose goal isn't to explore space, but rather to keep high paying jobs in key congressional districts so the respective congressional leaders can keep their jobs, or so votes can be "paid off" for supporting other legislation that helps somebody else.

NASA also seems to be stuck admiring their past far more than showing what they are working on for tomorrow. If you can show me even one manned spaceflight project that has gone past R&D testing and been seriously considered since the Space Shuttle (in the early 1980's) first launched... I'll eat my words. NASA has shown a singular ability to kill programs so fast that it is a wonder that the Ares I even got to where it is now. Most other projects didn't even make it that far, and there have been dozens of other proposals that have fallen flat on their face.

A replacement of the Shuttle is long, long over due, and the fact there isn't an alternative is pointing squarely why NASA is in so much trouble at the moment. Most of this is self-inflicted by NASA as well, I might add. Prominent scientists like Carl Sagan that openly demanded the dismantling of the manned spaceflight office didn't seem to help either, presuming (falsely) that it was a zero-sum game for unmanned spaceflight activities. That others have picked up Sagan's mantle and pushed the same concepts forward have only caused more problems than ever.

Re:and NASA

[Teancum]

All of this is true. The Shuttle program should have been a prototype for a whole series of continuously upgraded and improved vehicles. Not just things like the glass-cockpit idea that is a refurbishment of the shuttle, but a continuous assembly line that should have allowed vehicles like the Columbia to have been retired well before it disintegrated over Texas.

It was shutting down the vehicle construction assembly lines that was the main problem... and if something similar happened to the U.S. Navy where drydocks and shipbuilders were shut down, the USN would have similar kinds of problems in terms of getting talented engineers and scientists being able to build modern warships. It nearly is that way now anyway, but at least some are being built.

What we needed was something like the original X-program (aka X-15 and her sister vehicles) that continuously built upon the data of the previous vehicles for updated and improved vehicles. Improved based on several criteria, but all of them ones that could help the overall performance.

Unfortunately, data from the X-15 wasn't really used by anybody until Burt Rutan built Spaceship One... to cite a horrible example of what could have been but wasn't. At least Scaled Composites is taking that technology to the next generation. Where is the similar "next generation" shuttle program at right now? Orion is not a next generation shuttle.

Re:and NASA

[dsmall]

Rather than "hate" or "like" NASA, there's a very well written history of how Apollo was compromised (Apollo 18-20 were cancelled), and how the Shuttle ended up with solid rocket boosters, at: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/contents.htm .

It boils down to: This was what NASA could do with the money given them by the OMB (Office of Management and Budget).

I found this process to be quite interesting.

From a historical point of view, history seems to be repeating itself. Another "outside" committee has looked into NASA's plans and other options. The committee has priced the options for lowest possible, plod along, and even (remarkably) do something worthwhile.

I assume "lowest possible" will be picked.

I recommend the above hyperlink to anyone.

Thanks,

      Dave

Re:and NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA usually contracts private contractors to do their work.

They don't design or build much of anything themselves.

False, at least if "anything" includes things like science experiments and life support systems. When I was an electrical engineering student (2001-2005), co-oping at the Mashall Space Flight Center, I worked on the printed circuit board designs for several different in-house projects, including control modules for the the Environmental Control & Life Support System (ECLSS) and the Material Science Research Rack (MSRR) (If the PDFs bother your philosophical beliefs, you can look them up in wikipeadia). So yes, NASA does both design and build things, or at least as of 2005 they did. I was there, I helped (in a small way) design some of these things, and they are in orbit today. Furthermore I very much resent, both personally and on behalf my former co-workers, how prevalent the idea that "NASA doesn't really design or build much of anything themselves" in a supposedly intelligent, informed, and technologically sophisticated group.

Now launch vehicles they don't completely design, and certainly don't build, themselves (which IMHO is something that the private sector ought to be able to handle by now). However, that doesn't mean important and challenging engineering work isn't happening at NASA!

Re:and NASA

[Forge]

Constructive Criticism == good. :)

Maybe if construction costs went down significantly they would build more?

Re:and NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to what some nation-states are doing (e.g. invading Iraq and Afghanistan)...

Last time something similar was pulled in these parts was 1991-1995. Some other nation-state did this in, say, 2001-present and 2003-present?

Took them long enough

[Ryand-Smith]

For private spaceflight, this is a big deal, if this pans out NASA might come a nocking for ISS trips since Japan can move Cargo..

Re:Took them long enough

[morgan_greywolf]

For private spaceflight, this is a big deal, if this pans out NASA might come a nocking for ISS trips since Japan can move Cargo

NASA already has a contract with Space-X and Orbital Sciences to move cargo to the ISS. No need to go knocking on IOS' or Japan's door.

Re:Took them long enough

[damburger]

NASA will be asking the Church of Scientology for a lift before these jokers.

The fact is, the private sector does not have a real role in the ISS; Russia can handle the people and Europe the cargo for less money, and can do it right now, than US private enterprise. The only reason SpaceX got a sniff of a contract (when their unproven Dragon capsule being less capable and less value for money than ATV) is because the US government is pushing NASA to go for US private companies even when they aren't the best at their job; thus negating the supposed advantage of private enterprise.

Re:Took them long enough

[camperdave]

The Dragon capsule is more capable than the ATV module in two important respects. First, it is designed to ferry people. Second, because it is designed to ferry people, it is capable of bringing cargo down from the ISS. The ATV, the Russian Progress, and the Japanese HTV are all incapable of doing that.

Re:Took them long enough

[damburger]

Soyuz can be used to ferry people and return cargo. ATV has been designed from the outset to be adapted for both those functions, and being large would be more capable at both of them.

Re:Took them long enough

[OolimPhon]

If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?

If we could put a man on the moon... why can't we now put a man on the moon?

Re:Took them long enough

[Richard_at_work]

The ATV has flown, Dragon has yet to fly. Thats a huge difference in capability right there.

Not Astronauts!

[happy_place]

Those names don't sound like Astronauts... they sound suspiciously like... Cosmonauts! ;)

Re:Not Astronauts!

[ColdWetDog]

Those names don't sound like Astronauts... they sound suspiciously like... Cosmonauts! ;)

No, according to the TFA, they are "Tweeting Experienced Explorers".

Whatever the Hell that happens to be.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[janek78]

Nebojsa is a perfect name for someone attempting a feat like this - it translates as "Fear not".

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Neboja, and it does not translate to anything. "Ne boj se" does.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, Slashdot, hater and destroyer of non-ASCII characters since the dawn of time.

Let's transliterate: "Nebojsha".

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Anonymous Coward]

offtopic douche bag. not only does it have nothing to do with the thread, but you are trying to turn this into a political issue, which its not.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? TFA says: "Mojave, California-based Interorbital Systems (IOS) announced Saturday that it is developing a two-person orbital crew module..."

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Sir_Dill]

***gets out the bag of troll food*** What the hell are you talking about?

did you even READ the article?

The company is based in the mojave desert in CALIFORNIA! Just because the people they choose to employ are former members of the russian cosmonaut program does not mean this is a product of a "russian free market"

As a matter of fact, AFAIK so far all the MAJOR private space ventures are HQ'd in the US precisely because of the freedom afforded by the market.

Take your politics elsewhere or save them for political topics. This is about commercial spaceflight.

To be quite honest the post reeks of astroturf probably trying to capitalize on the recent annoucements from SpaceX and Orbital Sciences regarding COTS contracts for ISS resupply.

Also with SpaceX coming off the successful launch of RazakSat in July, and the upcoming Falcon9 test sometime this month(sept 2009 according the to website), the whole submission reeks of "me too" and from what I can tell, InterOrbital has not launched any mission hardware as of yet.

So the more I think about it, I think they are getting a little ahead of themselves here. I suspect that SpaceX will launch Dragon before 2011.

In short, I'll get excited about InterOrbital once they have some actual launches. I don't see how they can expect to get from "we're building the rocket" in 2009 to "we're sending people into space" two years later. Seems unrealistic considering the product life-cycle.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[jellomizer]

How About calling them Spacenauts. Give a different name for private space pioneers.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Hurricane78]

Bah. Luxemburgish Weltraumonauten are the best! (As soon as Luxemburg will have a space program... in 2355...)

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

One's a Serb, one's a Croat. May I suggest "ethniklashinauts?"

Quite seriously, good for them.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[GumphMaster]

As a matter of fact, AFAIK so far all the MAJOR private space ventures are HQ'd in the US precisely because of the freedom afforded by the market

Bollocks. This is a natural consequence of anything to do with rockets or rocket guidance being treated as weaponry, and therefore subject to export limitation by US Government restrictions. Further, most of these technologies are also restricted to work only by "US persons"; something hard to find, for example, in Australia and other "safe" places to play with rocketry. While ostensibly protecting "national security" these restrictions also very conveniently stack things in favour of US companies. If the money is originating in the US then the work must also occur there; if it did not the private venture would be buried in so much red tape that it would never surface.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Croatia and Serbia are not in Russia.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Cassius Corodes]

But how long before they partition the capsule!

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those names don't sound like Astronauts... they sound suspiciously like... Cosmonauts! ;)

They seem to be croats, not ex-soviet/russian, even their emails are croatian, though according to google, both astronaut and cosmonaut are acceptable in Croatian. Yugoslavia was neutral during the entire cold war, despite them having a "communist" croat dictator, so don't confuse them with the former east-block.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[Yvanhoe]

I prefer Shuttleworth.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[ivucica]

I'd also like to point out that situation was somewhat unique. Despite "dictator" being Croatian, most higher functions in companies and in state service were held by Serbs, and even the "dictator" was not exactly comparable to the likes of Kim Jong Il, Ceausescu et al. Or so my parents tell me.

Re:Not Astronauts!

[iamangry]

More importantly, from an engineering perspective their launch vehicle looks like a total scam. They're using hypergolic fuels in a big conjunction of smaller booster systems. This is going to give them crappy aerodynamics (they claim it will be more aerodynamic than the space shuttle. Maybe so, but only if you consider total drag force and then you have to realize that the space shuttle lifts some 10x the amount this is proposed to), and reliability problems from the accumulated probabilistic failure rate of their engines (they want 84 for a 4000kg payload to orbit). Additionally, the partitioning of their fuel among all of these "modules" is going to give them a crappy mass fraction which means they have to use more materials to lift the same payload. In other words I don't think these people have the technical basis on which to claim they'll be successful, if only from a feasibility perspective on their launch vehicle. Could it get things to orbit? Yes. Could it do so reliably and cost effectively? I doubt it. And that's the whole point.

$800,000 PP

[Tobenisstinky]

But what does the launch actually cost? I mean, vs a shuttle or soyz launch?

Re:$800,000 PP

[agentgonzo]

Shuttle missions cost an average of $450M to launch. I don't know about Soyuzes (What the hell is the plural of Soyuz? Soyez?) but I think that private individuals have purchased seats on the Soyuz ride to the ISS for about $20M.

Re:$800,000 PP

[natehoy]

>>>What the hell is the plural of Soyuz?

Soyuzlent Green? It's People!

Re:$800,000 PP

[Anonymous Cowpat]

last I heard, a shuttle launch cost ~ $1bn, all told. Dunno about a Soyuz

Re:$800,000 PP

[Lavene]

But what does the launch actually cost? I mean, vs a shuttle or soyz launch?

About $150

Re:$800,000 PP

[ivucica]

IMHO, "Soyuzi" feels most natural. That's the Slavic plural.

I would really like to see it happen

[WindBourne]

But I would give next to zero chance. But good luck, guys. It takes a decent amount of money to get something off the ground, let alone get it up there and back.

hypergolic main engines?

[h.ross.perot]

From the website: Common Propulsion Module STATIC Engine Test Rocket engine ignition is hypergolic. I wonder what fuels they use?

Re:hypergolic main engines?

[reverseengineer]

From the Interorbital Systems site, it says, "Storable, high-density white fuming nitric acid (WFNA) and Hydrocarbon-X (HX) are the rocket's primary propellants." I'd presume "Hydrocarbon-X" is some sort of kerosene-like blend of petroleum distillates.

Re:hypergolic main engines?

[jamstar7]

Sounds to me those fuels aren't as safe as they'd love us to believe. Though it makes for a cheaper rocket to use them...

Anybody find any links to the specific impulse of those fuels?

Re:hypergolic main engines?

[Chris Burke]

I'd presume "Hydrocarbon-X" is some sort of kerosene-like blend of petroleum distillates.

Naw. Hydrocarbon-X is just a combustible version of Chemical X which was used to make the Powerpuff Girls.

Their rocket should be quite spectacular.

Re:hypergolic main engines?

[snspdaarf]

I thought it might be urine from Racer X, who, unbeknown to Speed, is really his brother...

I've got a better solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

And the solution is called Energia.

Go Soyuz !

Yours In Akademgorodok,
K. Trout

Color me skeptical

[Nyeerrmm]

While there's certainly room for improvement over NASA's methods, a two order-of-magnitude improvement from a startup seems absurdly optimistic, no matter what modular rockets and other mission design innovations they use.

However, I wish them the best of luck, and even if costs creep up to $8 million a person, then it will still be a worthwhile endeavor.

Space-age companies

[Kelz]

Am I the only one extremely excited to hear a company name like "Inter-orbital Systems?" All of my geek-neurons register glee.

Why this matters...

[Fished]

Okay, so personally I think this particular company doesn't seem to have much chance of succeeding. They don't seem to have the funding or the infrastructure. But what's important is this: for the first time ever we're seeing private companies trying to develop launch capabilities. And not just one or two, and not just so they can resell to governments (like SpaceX), but a bunch of them, with many different business models. You throw enough paint at the wall, some of it might stick. And, eventually, I think it is possible to dramatically reduce launch costs this way--which makes things like solar power satellites and space tourism practical.

In 50 years, the space industry could be transformed by this sort of thing into an actual, profit-making enterprise. And it's only once there is profit to be had that the ideal of true multi-planetary life can become a reality.

Re:Why this matters...

[DerekLyons]

But what's important is this: for the first time ever we're seeing private companies trying to develop launch capabilities. And not just one or two, and not just so they can resell to governments (like SpaceX), but a bunch of them, with many different business models.

Huh? Where have you been for the past thirty plus years? There's been a steady stream of hopeful startups since the mid 70's at least. More than a few have gotten hardware off the ground, and one (Orbital Sciences) has flown multiple commercial flights. (And that's if you use the all too common screwball definition that doesn't consider companies like Boeing and Lockheed as private.)
 
 

You throw enough paint at the wall, some of it might stick.

So far, none has really stuck per se, though are flowing down the wall really slowly.
 
 

In 50 years, the space industry could be transformed by this sort of thing into an actual, profit-making enterprise.

The space industry is already quite profitable, for those that have survived. You're fifty years too late.

Re:Why this matters...

[sexconker]

NASA should just lie when LARCOSS hits and say "OMG THERE'S OIL ON THE MOON!".

Re:Why this matters...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

And that's if you use the all too common screwball definition that doesn't consider companies like Boeing and Lockheed as private.

To be fair, Boeing and Lockheed developed much of their tech on government contracts, and these remain a major source of their revenue. I get the general impression (and will happily admit to being wrong, if I am) that most of the space tech Lockheed, especially, sells is basically recycled military equipment.

Re:Why this matters...

[LWATCDR]

"that most of the space tech Lockheed, especially, sells is basically recycled military equipment."
Not sure what you mean by that. Right now Boeing "owns" the Delta, Atlas, and SeaLaunch systems.
The current Atlas has no relation to the old Atlas that was based on the Atlas ICBM from the 50s.
The current Delta has no relation the old Delta that was based off the Thor IRBM from the 50s.
SeaLaunch and Atlas use a lot of Russian tech and the Delta uses the first new liquid fuel rocket engine, the RS-70 developed in the US since the SSME.
Boeing and Lockheed are both big military contractors so I am sure there is a good amount of miltary tech in these launchers but they are not recycled old ICBMs and IRBMS like the Titan, old Atlas, and, old Delta from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Re:Why this matters...

[DerekLyons]

To be fair, Boeing and Lockheed developed much of their tech on government contracts, and these remain a major source of their revenue

So what? They are still private companies who will happily sell launch services to anyone willing to plunk down the cash. Commercial launches have outnumbered government launches for decades.
 
 

I get the general impression (and will happily admit to being wrong, if I am) that most of the space tech Lockheed, especially, sells is basically recycled military equipment.

Again, so what? They are private companies that will happily sell launch services to anyone willing to plunk down the cash. (Not to mention the military abandoned that basic tech and equipment back in the late 1950's as it doesn't suit their needs.)

The first PLANNED private orbital spaceflight

[Andy Dodd]

They haven't launched yet (and are at least two years from launch according to their plans), so there's no way to guarantee their claims.

If you look at their news page there is a 2004 announcement that they'd be launching a satellite in 2006, but there is no news of an actual launch.

In fact I don't even see news of a flight test of any sort, let alone a full orbital launch.

TBH the website also looks like a pretty fly-by-night operation. You would think that a company with enough money to launch a manned space mission would be able to hire a web designer.

Re:The first PLANNED private orbital spaceflight

[morgan_greywolf]

TBH the website also looks like a pretty fly-by-night operation. You would think that a company with enough money to launch a manned space mission would be able to hire a web designer.

Hey, I designed that w.....wait.... *clicks View | Page Source*

<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">

Nope. Nevermind. Even I won't go that far for a laugh!

Re:The first PLANNED private orbital spaceflight

[barzok]

TBH the website also looks like a pretty fly-by-night operation.

Well, night launches are more spectacular to watch.

Safety?

[OrangeMonkey11]

The one thing I have not heard of much is the safety measures that would be put in place for all these privatize space flights. Itâ(TM)s cool and great that there are more and more companies out there developing commercial space flights but one has to wonder about the safety factor of these yet untested manned flights.

Re:Safety?

[WinPimp2K]

Safety would just interfere with adrenaline production from the "tweeting explorers".

Me I'm waiting for the video footage of the liftoff to see if it is recycled V2 footage, or a photoshopped Soyuz liftoff.

"Spaceport Tonga"? Someone did not read enough Jerry Pournelle in the 70s. Everyone knows you put your spaceport in Baja and use Tonga to support your marine research facilities and as a convenient base for your "private" military.

What am I missing?

[PinkyDead]

The Google Lunar X Prize has nothing to do with manned space travel. It's about launching a robot that can deliver HD images from the moon.

Maybe their plan is to go up there and launch the robot from orbit - just seems like an awful waste of energy.

Re:What am I missing?

[Narishma]

RTFA. They plan to use this rocket in the Google Lunar X Prize.

Re:What am I missing?

[CraftyJack]

Once in lunar orbit, Nebojsa and Miroslav will split a liter of vodka and wrestle to see who will be "the robot". The winner will then paint the loser silver, hand him a HD camera, and strap him into the descent stage.

Re:What am I missing?

[PinkyDead]

RTFA yourself: it says nothing of the sort.

And even if it did, it would still be ridiculous. The load characteristics of manned versus unmanned spaceflight are totally different, and more importantly the safety systems required are at a much higher level.

Re:What am I missing?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. I fyou read carefully, Ionterorbital Systems is a part of Google Lunar X Prize's Team Lunar Synergy.
Interorbital gives the vehicle to put robot on the moon surface, but they have their own plans - with orbital tourism.
If I understood well - please, corect me if I am wrong - the crew members come from the Human Synergy Project, a part of the Team Lunar Synergy.

If you put all aside, this is a brave move to expose themselves with such announce. If that is a kind of vaporvare, they are dead forever in that business.

And, please, notice, their concept is not as bad as you can look trogh MASA buraucracy galsses. It is genuine Space 2.0 concept, and somebody will be the first in that, besides behemots like state space agencies are. Give them a chance. If it is vaporvare, they disintegrate. If it si not, they are heores.

Anti-Safety!

[TaoPhoenix]

"Sickonauts"!

We keep assuming that we want world-class important fellas going up. Then we fret over safety. Meanwhile per a post above, we fret about health care.

Let's take non-critical terminally ill folks, train them for 3 months on a simulator, and send them along! Send them at 50-per-batch. I'm positive the hardware should be way lower, maybe $100 million, then divided by a much bigger people load.

"It can't be that hard" if we've had 40 years to improve on 1969 tech. Just build a big-a$$ box that itself can serve as a structural block, triple-bulkhead it, Quad-redundant cheap engines, then make sure 5 of the 50 fellas are WhipperSnappers who can fly it. It's not supposed to come back. You leave it there on the moon. Next one lands beside it. It's Space-Tetris.

Subject: LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIP IN BUSINESS

[MRe_nl]

Engr David Koni.
(BOARD OF CONTRACT AWARD COMITTEE.)
Cotonou Republic Du Benin.

Sir/Madam,

It is my great pleasure to write to you and present my business proposal for your consideration and possible acceptance which you will find mutually beneficial to both parties.

Orbital Fares and the "Free Ticket to Orbit" Option: When regular orbital tourism flights begin, the cost per spaceline ticket is expected to be $5 million, but you now have the option of spending a week in orbit for free. Buy a spaceline ticket now at the special promotional fare of $250,000 (regularly priced at $5 million), and get a full rebate two years after your orbital mission. That's the equivalent of a $5 million Ticket To Orbit For Free! We are selling ten spaceline tickets at this price.

There are currently only eight spaceline tickets left! Tim Reed of Gladstone, Missouri purchased the first "promotional fare" spaceline ticket.

"Promotional Fare" spaceline tickets must be purchased directly from Interorbital Systems or Astro Expeditions, LLC. IOS is the only commercial space company offering advance-purchase tickets for orbital tourism flights. If you take advantage of our special promotional offer, you can spend seven days on an orbital expedition at an up-front cost of less than $25 per minute. Each "Promotional Fare" spaceline ticket holder will fly an orbital mission with three "full-fare" astronaut-tourists and one astronaut-pilot.

As soon as all ten of the "Promotional Fare" tickets with rebate have been sold, IOS will sell orbital spaceline tickets at the regular price of $5 million.

Re:Subject: LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIP IN BUSINESS

[reebmmm]

Engr David Koni -
Your offer intrigues me. I am very excited to have been selected to receive this offer. It is a great honor as I have always wanted to be an astronaut. It is even better that you are offering me such a great opportunity for free.

However, I am somewhat dubious though, since you state that there are ten spaceline tickets, but only eight left after a Mr. Tim Reed of Gladstone Missouri purchased one such ticket. Perhaps this was just an ambiguity and that you meant Mr. Reed is but one of two sold tickets. So I contacted Mr. Reed in Gladstone, Missouri. He was very surprised to find out that he has a ticket to orbit. He asked me what planet I was orbiting? He must be joking, of course. As such a prominent individual as Mr. Reed must have known that we would be orbiting Earth. Right? Do you offer tickets to orbit other planets?

Also, I am a bit curious about your companies. I could only find a website called "slashdot" ("news for nerds. stuff that matters") that mentioned them. They seemed to scoff at your idea. And, in any case, I assume that this must be a new company because orbital expeditions seem like a new opportunity. So then it would seem reasonable to not yet have a website. So a print out of your website design would make me feel better about your company.

Last question, is it possible to buy a ticket for my cat? I would surely miss my cat if I spent a week in space. Who would feed her? I assume that since it costs merely $25/minute upfront for me that my cat could fly for like $10/minute upfront. Is there are rebate available for her?

With the greatest of respect,
Mr. Reeb MMM

Re:Subject: LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIP IN BUSINESS

[Anonymous Coward]

$25/min? That's about what my lawyer costs! What a DEAL!!!

Re:Subject: LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIP IN BUSINESS

[richmaine]

That's hilarious. At first I just thought it was a mildly amusing bit of unsubtle satire. But that was before I glanced around the IOS web site and found that this is actually directly quoted from there. That makes it hilarious.

That's nothing, I am *planning* to go to Saturn

[fantomas]

Pah, they have no ambition. I am *planning* to go to Saturn for 2011. Ok, I have no idea how but I could probably sketch up some Photoshop pictures of my rocket, I've got some technical drawings I made when I was 7 years old.

Seriously, can somebody point me at proof these companies can actually launch human-rated spacecraft? It seems that some fairly large nations are still struggling to make steps towards this. Can anybody explain why it will be any easier for a company like this than India, South Korea, Japan, ESA, etc? at least these companies/organisations have a track record of launching unmanned payloads of 10 -20 tonnes so I can believe they are on the way.

Feels like vapourware to me. What happened to that dozen or so original X-Prizes companies that promised they'd be in space and carrying astronauts by now? I seem to remember it was launched in 1996 and those companies were all promising launches in about 2003?

Re:That's nothing, I am *planning* to go to Saturn

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Two years is a very short period of time, and do they have any orbital launches to their credit yet at all? I see sounding rockets, that's a far cry from being able to achieve orbit. What is the timeline of an unmanned orbital test?

Re:That's nothing, I am *planning* to go to Saturn

[Gunnut1124]

...proof these companies can actually launch human-rated spacecraft? ...

What the heck is "human-rated spacecraft" other than a bureaucratic term for "rigorously tested until all innovation has been expelled". The statistical improvements in avoiding failure have been small, very small in fact, over a simple engineering consensus. It turns out that engineers realize they are working with human lives and avoid all but the most necessary risks. Everything beyond that is mandated by some paper pusher that read an ISO9000 book and thought that NASA didn't have enough meetings. They then lead NASA into the mess it's in now, going from political gem in Washington to pariah. Funding is nearly impossible and even successful projects are seen as limited and irrelevant (Hubble, Spirit/Opportunity anyone?).

I can't imagine why anyone would NOT look to corporate innovation to lead this program. We just need to give a profit motive and allow competition to do the rest.

Re:That's nothing, I am *planning* to go to Saturn

[Daniel Dvorkin]

What the heck is "human-rated spacecraft" other than a bureaucratic term for "rigorously tested until all innovation has been expelled". The statistical improvements in avoiding failure have been small, very small in fact, over a simple engineering consensus.

Human-rated (they used to call it "man-rated") has always meant engineering consensus -- and there's nothing "simple" about it. Believe it or not, the people who build rockets to carry other people into space tend to be very, very picky about these things; it has been the case since Mercury that the engineers tend to be more cautious than the bureaucrats, not less.

Re:That's nothing, I am *planning* to go to Saturn

[Gunnut1124]

Engineers are contributing to the farce that is the "human rated" badge. Take a look at Richard Feynman's assessment of the process used to calculate the risk. Tell me if that looks like a problem created by engineers or by bureaucrats.

"Human Rated" has no engineering meaning. It's a badge for bureaucrats to pin on a project they don't understand so they can call it "safe". Their use of broken statistics and ignorant assessments means that things are far more difficult than required and generally not much safer. All I'm suggesting is that there are far better ways than using NASA-jargon to label risk, such as a strictly engineering decision (I think they'd make the best possible decision), not a bureaucratic rating.

absolutely, definitely a scam

[slashdotmsiriv]

They are selling lunar samples from their missions to moon starting 2012 ...

http://www.interorbital.com/Lunar%20Sample%20Return_1.htm

Re:absolutely, definitely a scam

[slashdotmsiriv]

hate to reply to my posts, but this is funny:

"What is the RIPPER?

RIPPER is an acronym for the Robotic Interplanetary Prospector Excavator and Retriever. It is an automated two-stage spacecraft and Earth Reentry Capsule (ERC) designed to land on and return samples from the smaller extraterrestrial bodies in the Solar System. This includes the moons, the asteroids, and the comets."

"Ripper"... how appropriate ...

Re:absolutely, definitely a scam

[sexconker]

Robotic Interplanetary Prospector Excavator and Retriever

RIPPER? More like RIPER.

If you MUST have a shitty backronym, at least make the letters and shit match up. All of the following, while still extremely terrible, would have been an improvement.

RIPPER (Robotic Inter-Planetary Prospector Excavator and Retriever)

RIPPER (Robotic InterPlanetary Prospector Excavator and Retriever)

RIPPER (Robotic Inter Planetary Prospector Excavator and Retriever)

RIPpER

RIpPER

SpaceX is already profitable

[Sir_Dill]

SpaceX has been profitable since last year according to the website.

OrbitalSciences also looks as though its been profitable for a while (NYSE:ORB)

The space industry is going to move faster than I think anyone expects. We have China and India getting into the mix pretty heavily now as well. I think we could see space become bigger than it was in the 60's both politically and commercially.

Don't think so...

[PhantomHarlock]

This company managed to launch one high powered amateur rocket in the 1990s. That's it. Nothing since then. Complete vapor. The only serious orbital launch company is currently SpaceX. The only serious near term suborbital launch companies are XCOR and Virgin Galactic, with the various VTVL / lunar X-Prize people (Masten, Armadillo, etc.) filling in a different but useful niche down the road.

SpaceX finally succeeded in orbital launch after many millions of dollars of hardware and testing. XCOR has 66 manned rocket flights to its credit (the largest share of manned rocket flights worldwide since 2000.) Virgin/Scaled has SS1, Armadillo and Masten have a large number of VTVL flights under their belt and years of hardware development.

Interorbital has paper and mockups.

Re:Don't think so...

[DerekLyons]

The only serious orbital launch company is currently SpaceX.

The companies that have been launching commercial payloads into orbit for years (Orbital Sciences) or decades (Boeing, Lockheed), might beg to differ.

Re:Don't think so...

[PhantomHarlock]

I thought someone might say this :)

I needed to have prefaced that with "NEW private space companies" :)

Re:Don't think so...

[DerekLyons]

Missed this the first time around...
 
 

XCOR has 66 manned rocket flights to its credit (the largest share of manned rocket flights worldwide since 2000.)

But those are rocket powered airplane flights - not at all the type of flight usually considered when discussing space access.
 
 

Virgin/Scaled has SS1, Armadillo and Masten have a large number of VTVL flights under their belt and years of hardware development.

Comparing these, and XCOR's work, to actual booster hardware is roughly as useful as comparing someone with a homebuilt go kart to a company building NASCAR racers and cars capable of threatening the land speed record - they simply aren't in the same league. They aren't even close.

It'll never get off the ground, Orville.....

[DynaSoar]

I've built things in my garage, and flown them multiple times and with more power, than the only thing these people have ever had leave the pad vertically. Sure, they've been static testing all sorts of motors. More's the pity -- I don't have to.

These upstart startups are trying to cash in on investment money (though I do credit IOS with selling tubesat and ad space) and behaving at the functional amateur level as though they're professionals. The startups that don't rely on investors (Armadillo, Scaled until the second half of SS1, etc.) accomplish things the others don't. Still, they're spending a lot on R&D that they don't need to.

My money, and anyone's who wants in, says an amateur-built vehicle made from commonly available materials and off the shelf parts could put itself into orbit for under 6 figures. That includes all incidentals and consultancies. The motors, a major development issue with these companies, are available from Loki Research. Their 96" x 152mm 80,000 ns P motors were used in last April's flight of the 1/10 scale Saturn V. The reason he didn't use three was that (> 200,000 ns) would put it in the FAA/OST's ball park and therefore not amateur. Neither would this be, but the point here is to hit the goal, not just go flying with my NAR and Tripoli friends. I ran the numbers on a 3P booster with 1P sustainer using their older 60" x 152 mm 50,000 ns motors. Ground launched it'd break the 62.5 mile 'space' altitude, and balloon launched it'd break 100 miles. The new motors, obviously proven, pack 60% more power. A ground launched 2.5 stage (the 3 x 1 plus 'dart' payload/nose) should do the job.

Somebody's going to do it, before or after one of these startups. It'll be after if nobody tries before. And if it takes money, rather than investors in a commercial endeavor, sell commercials. Rocketman's GoFast, the first amateur rocket to break the space altitude was named for an 'investor' simply for the advertising. And while Dunkin' Donuts isn't likely to jump in (hey, they didn't for Astronaut Farmer, so why now?) there's some who might.

And once a vehicle gets up there, the next step is human flight. A TV commercial costs between $500,000 and $1M to produce and run the first time. For the bottom end of that, using nothing exotic, and if not off the shelf then built from off the shelf components, a truly amateur enterprise could put a person over 62.5 miles. What are the odds that a company used to paying out that kind of money would be willing to have their name on this project, particularly if at apogee that company's catch phrase got broadcast by the amateur astronaut, for instance: "Can you hear me now? Good."

The major difference is on return on investment. The commercial startups need to return their investors' money, plus. An amatuer project only needs to do what it sets out to do. An ad based amateur project only needs to do what an amateur project does, plus acknowledge the source of the funds, and not return anything to anyone beyond noteriety for the accomplishment. If it weren't for the scale of the designs and the lack of available components, Robert Truax would have done this years ago.

Re:It'll never get off the ground, Orville.....

[Michael_gr]

I'm confused, first you talk about getting to orbit, then you mention a height of 62.5 miles, which implies you are talking about a suborbital flight with a ballistic trajectory. So which is it?

Re:It'll never get off the ground, Orville.....

[khallow]

And then he talks about orbit again. The poster claims the old motors can reach the definition of space. The new motors can reach orbit.

Re:It'll never get off the ground, Orville.....

[LWATCDR]

You are ignoring the problem of control and guidance. A good enough guidance system could be made but then you have the issue of thrust vectoring. Fins will only get you so far so then you a thrust vectoring system. Ever notice how Tripoli seems to stay away from guidance systems? They are actually not allowed and I can think of a lot of good reasons why.
You next issue would be cutting off the thrust. I would probably use a NOX hi-breed upper stage so you could control the cut off. For the real world you don't want to end up in some random orbit.

Yes it could work but it is a little more complex that you might think at least for orbital flight.

Re:It'll never get off the ground, Orville.....

[DynaSoar]

You are ignoring the problem of control and guidance. A good enough guidance system could be made but then you have the issue of thrust vectoring. Fins will only get you so far so then you a thrust vectoring system. Ever notice how Tripoli seems to stay away from guidance systems? They are actually not allowed and I can think of a lot of good reasons why.
You next issue would be cutting off the thrust. I would probably use a NOX hi-breed upper stage so you could control the cut off. For the real world you don't want to end up in some random orbit.

Yes it could work but it is a little more complex that you might think at least for orbital flight.

Tripoli and NAR *members* stay away from guidance because they claim it's against the rules. When you show them the rules and there's nothing in there about it, they say "yeah but then they'd come down on us for making things that can be aimed like missiles". This, despite the fact that a sun seeking optical based guidance system won an NAR R&D prize. They fought off ATFE over the ACPC/explosive argument but cower over this. So I built a gyro based vehicle that kept itself vertical in wind. I proved it's not against the rules. I also proved there's more drag cutting through the wind than if you let it windcock.

Fins are fine for a booster. Spin stab was good enough for Vanguard, it's good enough for me. And a dart doesn't need it because attitude is irrelevant. No, I'm very aware of the complexity and familiar with the possible solutions. Those I'm not familiar with, well that's what the 'consultancies' is about. I know who knows what I don't, and some of them are pros; that takes money. Not a problem.

BTW, it's "hybrid", not 'hi-breed' Been working on those too. Wax based. Very cheap, very powerful. I've been working with an engineer to come up with a reusable E size hybrid with non-pyro ejection, so they can get certified as approved motors, so that kids can use them. The only reason I'd need one upstairs is for a human in orbit, so they're on a predictable trajectory. Unmanned orbital, who cares, the point is to get it there period. No recovery so after tracking it long enough to prove it's in orbit, job done. For suborbital, even manned, it's ballistic until apogee, then a drogue serves as stabilizer (the nose is low drag, the drogue isn't -- CG before CF). Of course it's not a chute. That'd never work. It's a balloon using the same CO2 system that was ejection for the Aurora project.

Re:It'll never get off the ground, Orville.....

[DynaSoar]

I'm confused, first you talk about getting to orbit, then you mention a height of 62.5 miles, which implies you are talking about a suborbital flight with a ballistic trajectory. So which is it?

Both, clearly, or so I thought. Ballistic suborbital manned; orbital unmanned with minimal guidance because orbital parameters other than "it is" are irrelevant.

Re:It'll never get off the ground, Orville.....

[DynaSoar]

Oh yeah. Guidance is LESS of a problem than YOU assume. Vectored thrust is necessary on draggy vehicles that need to punch through max Q quickly, so they start more vertical and vector over more as drag drops. And they tend to want to go to specific trajectories. A ballistic bird can be thrown at an angle based on the known motor output. If it's low drag through transonic, its max Q can last longer due to the angle and it'll still cut through to vacuum effectively. Malaysia designed and built entirely solid fueled (sugar based solids, no less) birds intended to be launched in just this way.

Re:It'll never get off the ground, Orville.....

[LWATCDR]

I was only talking about an orbital flight and putting paying satellites into orbit. Yes for a ballistic flight fins are good enough and the reasons for not using a guidance system are all political but that doesn't mean they are not valid for the community as a whole.
You might have noticed that I said that making a good enough guidance system probably wouldn't be that hard. Gyros and accelerometers have gotten pretty cheap. For vectoring the thrust you could use graphite vanes but the problem I see is testing it all with out getting lots of people upset. And yes I have seen sugar based motors.
None of this is impossible but I wouldn't classify them as trivial. But if you do build one I hope you launch it from Florida so I can see it go.

Production milestones towards orbit

[bobdotorg]

You can track their progress by checking out their Orbital Launch Simulator.

What?

[zogger]

No new powerplants? They are going in daily, just new designs that don't burn coal. They are called windchargers and the commercial ones are a megawatt to 2.5 megawatt, and they are designing even larger ones, both for onshore and offshore use. Going up all over the planet. And they are building a variety of both solar thermal commercial sized plants, and even a few quite large solar PV plants, and who knows how many smaller home sized systems go in daily, which will give us eventually millions and millions of points of production, not just a thousand controlled by bigelectroco.. These are new paradigm powerplants, just like all these new private space projects are pushing the envelope there as well.

When it comes to both energy, and space travel, and biotech, these are *exciting times*, after being stuck in the doldrums for a few decades.

Re:What?

[nedlohs]

Wow!

2.5 MW.

That's really going to replace those 1,000 MW single nuclear reactors.

Do you think we can fit 1350 of those windcharger things into Lower Alloways Creek Township?

Re:What?

[Beardo the Bearded]

I use 1MW a month at home, so I'm not terribly impressed by wind farms either.

I use electric forced-air heat, and it's running me $120 / month. Cheap cheap cheap!

Re:What?

[CecilPL]

I use 1MW a month at home No you don't. You use 1MWh per month, or 1.4 KW. A watt is a measure of power - ie, the rate at which energy is being used. A 60 watt bulb uses 60 watts when it's on and no watts when it's off. A watt-hour is a measure of the total energy used (one watt for an hour), which is what you're billed for.

A 2.5MW plant running at capacity a month produces 1.8 GWh of energy (roughly $180,000 worth where I live).

Re:What?

[Beardo the Bearded]

Ah, yes, of course, I had some basic unit confusion there. Thank you for the correction.

did I miss something

[confused one]

Looks like vaporware to me. They've not tested anything but a small engine, as far as I could tell (not the current iteration of the company). The legacy efforts they're basing this on... it's too heavy based on what I saw.

Bah. THAT's nothing!

[Hurricane78]

I'm planning to go to Alpha Centauri! I've already got a realistic rocket concept, and Sid Meier did the simulation software to train our Assblastonauts (Yeah! They're ten times fuckin' cooler than your ones! That's why they have cooler names too!)

Wohoo! We'll launch at time X-1. Where X is the time when you will launch yours! So we can nuke it right back to earth!

Re: mildly unsubtle

[MRe_nl]

It made me cry. A little.
Is the company described in TFA a bad hoax, a good troll, a Croatian 419?

Tune in next week for more "Pigs in Spaaaaace" ; ).

shipping

[falconwolf]

in the old days it was tough to stay in the shipping business after your ship sank.

This is why corporations were created, because shipping was a risky business. Way back when, before 1600, if a cargo ship or any of it's cargo was lost the ship's owners were liable. They were also liable for the crews. If a ship sank because of a hurricane or was attacked by pirates too bad for the owners. So in 1600 the British crown granted a corporate charter to the East India Company. The corporate charter gave the owners of the corporation limited liability. Whereas someone who owned a ship could lose everything, including their home, the most a share or stockholder in a corporation can lose is the amount they paid for the shares. Corporations also allow the pooling of a lot of people's money for a business. The next corporate charter was granted to the Dutch East India Company by the Dutch crown in 1602.

However something has been lost in the years since. Corporations were only granted charters if they served the common or public good, and shipping was considered a good. If a corporation no longer did serve the good it's charter could be revoked. Those charters aren't revoked in the US anymore.

Falcon

Re:shipping

[Ritchie70]

If I'm not mistaken (and Wikipedia's got it right) it's also the origins of Lloyds of London. In fact, shipping risk appears to be one of the major factors in the creation of insurance as we know it, dating back almost 4000 years.

Is there substantially more risk in a modern space launch than in a 400 years ago from England to the East Indies?

I suspect not.

Re:shipping

[Forge]

Correct. And then as now, if the Corporation owned just the one ship then it's loss meant the Corporation was Bankrupt. Even if the owners were largely untouched.

Re:shipping

[falconwolf]

If I'm not mistaken (and Wikipedia's got it right) it's also the origins of Lloyds of London.

Lloyd's says the same thing.

In fact, shipping risk appears to be one of the major factors in the creation of insurance as we know it, dating back almost 4000 years.

According to Financial Web ancient Chinese farmers pooled their produce then shipped it on different boats or ships so that if a shipment was lost a farmer would only lose a portion of the crop. It further says the first actual "insurance contracts originated in the 13th century with ship owners who wanted to protect themselves against the possibility of catastrophic losses."

Is there substantially more risk in a modern space launch than in a 400 years ago from England to the East Indies?

I wouldn't say there's more risk but the potential losses are greater, with the possible exception of the Spanish galleons of gold, other precious metals, and stones.

Falcon

Re:shipping

[falconwolf]

if the Corporation owned just the one ship then it's loss meant the Corporation was Bankrupt. Even if the owners were largely untouched.

Actually that way, one corporation owning one ship, is the way to go. If a corporation owned more than one and lost one it could lose the others too, in liability payouts. However a way around that would be to have one corporation own one ship with another corporation owning more than one ship owning corporation. Something like that's done now. Saturn LLC is a subsidiary owned by General Motors.

Real estate investors do the same, set up a corporation or LLC to own or develop a specific property. Doing this also provides another benefit, as long as profits are not taken out of the business it is not taxed. And when it is the owner lists it on their personal income tax. That is unlike Real estate investment trusts or REITs. REITs are required to pay out, distribute, most of their profits. They both allow a number of people to pool resources to invest though.

Falcon

Re:shipping

[Ritchie70]

I was thinking of "risk" strictly in terms of odds of dying by participating in that enterprise.

If I were to get on a ship from England to the East Indies in 1600, is the probability of me dying higher or lower than if I were to get on a modern rocket to space?

I think I'd rather get on the rocket.

Re:shipping

[falconwolf]

I was thinking of "risk" strictly in terms of odds of dying by participating in that enterprise.

You didn't make that clear and since I was commenting on financial risks without indications you meant something else it's pretty rational to assume that that's what you meant too. That is why corporations were granted charters.

If I were to get on a ship from England to the East Indies in 1600, is the probability of me dying higher or lower than if I were to get on a modern rocket to space?

I have no idea about the personal or financial risks of then compared to today.

Falcon

By Improved I mean:

[falconwolf]

1. lower cost for throwaway components (boosters etc...)

Shouldn't that be reducing if not eliminating throwaway components?

Falcon

Re:By Improved I mean:

[tmosley]

That depends solely on cost. It is a LOT cheaper to build a disposable unit to spec than it is to build a reusable one. That is one of the reasons why the Shuttle's launch costs have ballooned the way they have. It has also stuck us with a non-upgradable product that we have been forced to use until failure. That is not good.

Re:By Improved I mean:

[falconwolf]

Shouldn't that be reducing if not eliminating throwaway components?

That depends solely on cost. It is a LOT cheaper to build a disposable unit to spec than it is to build a reusable one.

That's why I said "reducing if not eliminating". If resources are wasted they become more expensive. And throwing away many resources wastes them. Wait until oil production drops to find out if costs don't go up.

Falcon

Re:By Improved I mean:

[tmosley]

Oil isn't the important part here, as the same amount of energy is expended every time in either system. It's relatively easy to build a system that will only be used one both safely and cheaply, whereas with reusable systems, you wind up spending more money (which implies the use of more resources) retrofitting and getting the old girl ready for her next launch than it would cost to just build another throwaway unit. In addition, you get economies of scale, as you would have continually operating infrastructure building these things, rather than losing talent over the years due to non-use. In addition, you aren't so locked into old designs when you are launching new rockets at each launch.

The limiting factor in space launches isn't the metal frame. Those can be mass produced cheaply and easily. It's the fuel that is the problem. When you have a reusable vehicle that has to be able to launch safely time and again, it is also likely to be heavier, so you wind up using more fuel that you would with a disposable system.

If you want a reusable system, it needs to be something with a minimum number of moving parts. I would suggest a space elevator.

power plants

[falconwolf]

Similar to the reason that we don't see many new power plants these days. Old plants were grandfathered in after safety and environmental laws were enacted. New plants are held to much higher standards.

So we just have to get by on the old and busted plants which spew tons of junk in the air.

So new plants should be allowed to meet the lower standards? What's the difference between old plants and new ones doing it?

Falcon

wind tubines

[falconwolf]

Wow!

2.5 MW.

That's really going to replace those 1,000 MW single nuclear reactors.

Wow, what'ja know, there are wind turbines bigger than 2.5 MW. Erect 10 5 MW or 5 10 MW wind turbines a month for 10 months and you add 1,000 MW of capacity. If work is done all year you've added 1.2 GW. How long will that nuclear power plant of yours take to build? And don't say a year. Construction on Finland's Olkiluoto 3 reactor started in 2005. It was originally scheduled to start operations this year, 2009, but is 3 years behind schedule and isn't expected to start until 2011-12. Also it's cost overrun is EUR1.5 billion so far. And you can't complain that is because of US regulations, nor because of the inexperience of the builders. One of those contractors is the French government owned Areva, Siemens is another. Both companies have experience building nuclear power plants.

Falcon

capitalism

[falconwolf]

The idea that private enteprise is simply 'better' - an idea rubbished by experiences with healthcare, banking, transport, energy supply, and many other things - is blinding you to how clearly absurd these people are.

Yeap, communism has triumphed over capitalism.

Falcon

Go is to chess

[falconwolf]

as philosophy is to double-entry accounting.

I got a laugh out of this, and couldn't agree more. Unfortunately I haven't played weiqi in about 15 years.

Falcon

Just in 2008

[zogger]

*Just* in the US, *just* in year 2008, 8.3 gigawatts (8,358 megawatts) of wind power went in. There was more before, more this year, and more is coming. You may dismiss it if you want to, but that's a hefty amount in most anyone's book, and world wide it is much larger. China for instance is installing even more than that.

There's no single one technology that will be the "energy fix" or the silver bullet. It will require "all of the above", plus more.

(above is my simple reply, below is more in depth if you'd care to read it, I just like writing)

To me, and this is just my personal opinion, nuclear has one *extremely serious flaw* (besides being overhyped how cheap it is when they can't get private insurance and a whole lot of them do NOT have decommissioning funds available and will be needing "bailouts" most likely, and so on), it is inherently a very contentious technology globally, and we face the prospect of an enlarged middle eastern war, that also has the potential to go to nuclear weapons, over who has access to nuclear technology. Said war would also immediate severely hurt the global crude liquid fuels supply, driving prices to unheard of levels,(as in the fast price rises last summer would be a joke in comparison) as a significant part of the global supply passes daily through the Hormuz Strait, which would instantly be one of the hottest battlefields ever in the case of an attack on Iran, who aren't pushovers like the decimated Iraq military were. They have significantly more, and significantly better quality, anti ship and anti armor and anti aircraft capability. Just some of their good anti ship missiles can hit targets with the best protection available, the Israelies found that out the last time they went into lebanon. The silkworm, the sunburn and the super sunburn, and they might have the squall rocket torpedo as well. And such a war over who has access to nuke tech or not is a real issue that must be taken into consideration when discussing nuke tech in general. This possibility of war over nuclear tech is in the headlines daily. The two aspects of nuclear technology simply can't be seperated realistically. If you can do one, you can do the other without much more effort, they are entwined. This is a problem, and head under the covers and ignoring it won't make this pretty serious boogieman go away.

On the other hand, no one is going to war over wind power (or solar). No one cares. It is a complete and total non issue. Which is quite attractive in these days of high tech war potential. No one is threatening any one else with severe economic sanctions or outright armed attacks over windpower anyplace. No one cares who has windpower or not. You don't need armed guards for the next several centuries to guard windpower "waste". You don't need cadres of soldiers with antiaircraft missiles ringing windpower development labs or production facilities or installed towers. You don't need international "inspectors" taking note of your windpower development. No need to hide stuff in bunkers and engage in global brinksmanship. No need to be the big international hypocrite because you have windpower tech, but the dude over there, or so you claim, can't be "trusted" with it, even though you are the only one to ever use "aggressive windpower" in a weapons of mass destruction attack.

And so on, you get the drift there I'm sure.

Economically, if a few of your thousands of windchargers go down or the wind isn't blowing someplace, pfft, again, a non issue, whereas, if your one nuke plant shuts down for repairs or maintenance, an entire huge city worth of power is lost for the duration. Just last year we came this close to a pretty bad cascading failure event from one nuke plant having problems in Florida. And the Japanese have found out that a lot of the "industry standards for safety" are inadequate when it comes to big earthquakes, an

Seperate the Risk Markets, Tap New Markets

[sanman2]

Just haul men and materiel up to space separately. If nobody wants to risk seeing heroic astronauts die, then use the safe tech just for delivering humans to space. Meanwhile,use the riskier higher-payoff tech on sending the materiel to space, since nobody will cry so much if it's just some cargo that's lost. That's what Ares-I and Ares-V seemed to be trying, even though Ares-I seems to suffer from risky vibrations. It's that one-size-fits-all approach that seems to impose too many compromises.

What if instead of developing the Space Shuttle, the United States had instead spent the money working on scramjets and hypersonic airliners? I still feel that there are 2 main passenger markets for high-velocity travel -- the first being astronauts trying to achieve escape velocity, and the other being intercontinental travelers trying to get to the other side of the world in a few hours. The latter market is clearly a bigger payoff and return on investment in the near to medium term, as compared to the former. Furthermore, the rising global economy would only continue to increase that demand.

Maybe catering to such globalist trends will lead us to getting off the globe.

Re:Seperate the Risk Markets, Tap New Markets

[Teancum]

What ends up happening when you separate the cargo from the astronauts is that the cargo ends up safer than the astronauts.

To explain this, consider that generally cargo is going up far more often than astronauts. The vehicles that are used to deliver the cargo are therefore going to be used, tested, and put into service far more often than the manned vehicles, so therefore there is going to be more history with those vehicles and more chance to work the bugs out.

Q.E.D.- the cargo vessels are going to be safer than the manned vehicles.

If you can build a common heritage with the manned and unmanned vehicles, that at least gives common components that you can test through experience that will help both programs and increase reliability and confidence. Increasing flight rate is always a useful thing in terms of reducing costs as well.

Consider that a pad worker at KSC only gets to launch three or four shuttles in a year. They really don't get to practice their skills except perhaps on mission scrubs, and even that isn't perfect. If you had a flight rate of dozens of flights a year (5-10 manned flights and a couple dozen cargo flights) those pad workers would gain proficiency in their jobs and even have a strong reason to want to streamline procedures in a manner that still preserves flight safety but also reduces costs.

I'm not sure we can reduce recycling times between landing and launch with spacecraft to the order we can for commercial airliners, but we certainly could try. I was incredibly impressed with the recycle times that SpaceX has done with the Falcon 1, where they could scrub a launch and restart the countdown within an hour... after engineers went to the vehicle and replaced a component and did maintenance on the vehicle. It will be interesting to see if SpaceX can pull off a similar kind of recycling of its launches with the Falcon 9... better yet if somebody was sitting on top of the Falcon.

Shuttle rules are that a scrub must have at least 24 hours and sometimes as long as 72 hours before restarting the countdown clock. That alone eats up costs that are unbelievable. Yes, the recycle times are necessary for the shuttle and I'm not asking to compromise safety, but the design stinks for that vehicle and is demonstrated by the time it takes to recycle a launch attempt. A better design could certainly help improve that issue.

As for hypersonic airliners, I think Virgin Galactic has that one covered. The economics of hypersonic aircraft that don't go sub-orbital is pretty rough, and there is a reason why the SST never was built, and the Concorde has been mothballed. Effectively, you need to leave the atmosphere if you really want to increase travel speeds for point to point destinations on the Earth, and do so efficiently where you can make some money. Point to point terrestrial space travel is something I do see happening in the not too distant future, however.... both for economic as well as military reasons. Landing a company of Marines any place on the globe within 6 hours sounds very appealing with the current U.S. Dept. of Defense thinking, and cost is not a major driver for that market.

Horsefeathers, you mean "pre-announced"

[Anonymous Coward]

Dang you had me hoping there for a couple of seconds.

USA and private manned space flight

[AK Marc]

I predict there will never be a launch of a human into space by a large American company in the USA. The risk of litigation in the case of a mishap will prevent the US from participating in the private manned space race. Though I will retract my prediction if Congress ever passes real tort reform, but I expect the government of the USA will fall before actual tort reform passes.

Capability comparison

[fantomas]

If you had to choose between two companies to invest in, which would you consider had the greater capability, the company that had launched one satellite, can lift 670kg to LEO and has proved it can lift a lightweight satellite, or one that had launched 290 satellites, has lifted 21,000kg to LEO and has proved it can build and fly an autonomous vehicle that can dock with the ISS? (SpaceX vs ESA).

Re:Capability comparison

[camperdave]

SpaceX, obviously. Neither has shown the capacity to return a crew from the ISS. However, SpaceX has reached the prototype phase for doing so. As you say, ESA has a large volume of business, so adding ISS crew return is not going to affect their profit margin significantly. However, once SpaceX makes its first run, its stock is going to quadruple or more. So, should I buy a chance to make fifty cents, or should I buy a chance to make $4+?

Oil isn't the important part here

[falconwolf]

That was just an example. The modern world and it's economy was built on cheap oil. Once peak oil is hit, some say it has already though others say we've still got years before we hit peak oil, oil prices will skyrocket. Now economics, rational economics, says that as prices increase demand for travel and other uses for petroleum will decrease, until something else can compeat economically. Which is why the market in bioplastics is growing. Before DuPont received a patent on cracking petroleum to make a type of plastic plastic was made from plants. The old cellophane plastic wrapper got it's name from plant cellulose.

Falcon

Re:Oil isn't the important part here

[tmosley]

The thing is that reusable rockets take MORE fuel than single use rockets, because they have to be built heavier to survive more trips. In the long run, all you have thrown away are a bunch of heaps of scrap metal, which won't be rare on Earth...ever. You wind up using a LOT LESS fuel with the disposable rockets because they are so much lighter.

This is why the costs for the Space Shuttle have ballooned to the size they are today. It costs more to repair each time than it does to replace with a disposable rocket, and the reusable rocket is heavier, thus requiring more fuel.

Re:Oil isn't the important part here

[falconwolf]

all you have thrown away are a bunch of heaps of scrap metal, which won't be rare on Earth...ever

Mining for coltan, used in electronics to make things like capacitors, is one of the causes of the conflict in the Congo. You probably heard about the fighting, deaths, and genocide in the Sudan, but not many have heard about the fighting next door in the Congo, yes they share a common border. Now though I searched I didn't find out if the Space Shuttles and other rockets used coltan but it would surprise me if they didn't.

This is why the costs for the Space Shuttle have ballooned to the size they are today. It costs more to repair each time than it does to replace with a disposable rocket, and the reusable rocket is heavier, thus requiring more fuel.

It costs more to repair than replace a rocket? Think of that, replacing tires, tiles, and other things costs more than new disposable rockets.

On the other hand I agree with you that making things reusable probably adds to the weight and thus increases the fuel needed for launches. I also agree your idea of using a space elevator may be a better idea. Others have suggested other ideas as well, I'd like a science panel perhaps of the American Association for the Advancement of Science investigating the practical application of various proposals for NASA as well as allowing private entities to run tests.

Falcon

Re:Oil isn't the important part here

[tmosley]

The shuttle launches an average of 25,000 kilos for an average of 1.3 billion dollars per launch ($52,000/kilo, and understand that each dollar is spent on resources, so this reflects how much of humanities work goes into these launches). The Titan 4B launches slightly less, about 22,000 kilos for only 350 million dollars on the high end, or "only" $16,000/kilo.

And it doesn't matter if people in Africa are fighting over X resource, because people in Africa will ALWAYS (and have always) fight over resources, whether it's diamonds, slaves, rum, guns, or coltan. The space program is not the place to be arguing about such things, as despite the large size of the rockets, they are dwarfed by the amount of materials used in any other domestic industry. You would be better off getting people to recycle old electronics than trying and let the rockets remain disposables, because the mass of the computers and other electronics thrown out is probably a hundred times that of the rockets each year. Space is a unique industry, where even highly inefficient things like 1970's era solar cells (which cost more fuel to make than they ever put out in energy) are needed, because they reduce the launch weight, which is so incredibly expensive.

Chemical rockets are too expensive, really. You need something cheaper, and I think that anyone who knows anything agrees that space elevators, or some other transformative solution, is required to do it.

Re:Oil isn't the important part here

[falconwolf]

You would be better off getting people to recycle old electronics than trying and let the rockets remain disposables,

I do, but the way you have it it's either or when it can be both.

because the mass of the computers and other electronics thrown out is probably a hundred times that of the rockets each year.

When I find computers, monitors, and other electronics left out for trash I collect and save it. Now if I have to pay to recycle them I'll end up with a big bill. I've thought of posting what I have on Freecycle so that those who can use things can pick them up. I'm just concerned about whether what I have still works though, and I don't have the equipment to run tests myself.

highly inefficient things like 1970's era solar cells (which cost more fuel to make than they ever put out in energy)

I don't know about the solar PVs from much of the 1970s but I found this, Can Solar Cells Ever Recapture the Energy Invested in their Manufacture?" which says the Energy Return on Energy Invested or EROEI is a few to several years. It cites one study from 1977 that concludes the payback period is 6.4 years. The longest estimate is approximately 86 months whereas the shortest is "0.9 to 1.6 years."

However none of these include the energy used in launches.

Chemical rockets are too expensive, really. You need something cheaper, and I think that anyone who knows anything agrees that space elevators, or some other transformative solution, is required to do it.

I don't know the costs of chemical rocket launches but I agree with the rest of this.

Falcon