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

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.

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.