Slashdot Mirror
John Carmack To Cut Space Tourism Prices 50%
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like John Carmack, through Armadillo Aerospace, will be battling Burt Rutan and Richard Branson to make space travel affordable. From the article: 'Space Adventures is going to use an Armadillo Technologies rocket to launch amateur astronauts 62 miles into the sky. Nothing new, except that they will do it at half the price of Virgin Galactic's ticket, and in a real rocket!' Perhaps I'll visit space, after all."
As soon as I sell my Fijian island.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
You're paying for a one-way ticket to go up into space. Coming down from space will be free.
Most of the difficulty lies in accelerating up to orbit and decelerating from it. Currently, only Space Adventures is offering that by reserving seats on Soyuz spacecraft. Sub-orbital shots require neither powerful rockets nor massive heat-shielding.
Hmm. 5 minutes up in the space and 100k. Make it just a tad longer and a wee bit cheaper and I guarantee you that it won't take long for us to see the first porn clip to have been filmed in space.
Anyways, 100k is obviously still too expensive for us regular folk but I wonder what is the price tag at which we'll consider it affordable. 50k is unlikely. 20k? still probably not... 10k? I don't know. For that amount, I might want to visit the space before I die. (Hopefully, not *just* before I die, though)
I see that it's Space Adventures not Armadillo Aerospace that's boosting this particular advertising payload. While I applaud the optimism and enthusiasm displayed here, I must add that I'll believe it when I see it. It also seems to me that they missed a chance to have a flight to space for $99,999.99.
Crappy picture in the article, here's a video of the concept vehicle.
At Space Access, after the grumblings about being trumped on the LLC, Carmack made the pledge that this year they'll be doing something new. Here's hoping it involves *people*.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Thanks, genius.
Do people still need the "early adopter" concept explained to them? We live in a technological society where new gadgets and experiences come onto the market all the time. The early adopters pay top dollar for them, this attracts competitors, and the price starts to drop.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I linked to this is a previous slashdot submission, but for the curious you can see video of some of Armadillo's launches in the past year here:
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/Gallery/Videos
Youtube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsdpB6UmrAw
There was also a rather cool news update back in January describing in great detail what they've been up to for the prior 8+ months: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=369
Also, I disagree with the summary/gizmodo's claim that Armadillo has a "real" rocket while SpaceShipTwo isn't a real rocket. Armadillo has a VTVL (vertical take-off, vertical landing) while Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo is an air-launched HTVL (horizontal take-off, vertical landing). Both are "real" rockets.
Finally, NASA recently put out a request for proposals for a testbed for lunar lander demonstrations, which I think will be right up Armadillo's alley. They'll probably be competing with companies like Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems (Lunar Lander Challenge winner, currently working on their "Xogdor the Meltinator" vehicle), and Unreasonable Rocket:
http://spaceprizes.blogspot.com/2010/05/shoulda-had-tfftb-prize.html
ETDD is for smaller technology development and demonstration projects. Expected subjects for ETDD include in situ resource utilization, autonomous precision landing, advanced in-space propulsion, closed-loop life support systems, advanced EVA, radiation shielding, human-robotic interfaces, efficient space power systems, EDL (entry, descent, and landing) technologies, high-performance materials and structures, and participatory exploration.
The new ETDD RFI is for several technology demonstrations. The subjects of these demonstrations include:
* In-Situ Resource Utilization: This is to demonstrate a prototype ISRU system in a vacuum chamber that can simulate lunar temperatures and that can contain lunar simulant. Later, there would be a flight demonstration at the lunar surface on a robotic precursor mission. Of course this plan brings to mind several lunar space prizes: the Regolith Excavation Challenge, the MoonROx Challenge, and the Google Lunar X PRIZE.
* High-Power Electric Propulsion System for human spaceflight
* Human Exploration Telerobotics: This involves ISS-to-ground telerobotics, ground-to-ISS telerobotics, and large-scale participatory exploration
* Fission Power Systems Technology
* Autonomous Precision Landing: This involves demonstrations on Earth of autonomous landing and hazard avoidance technologies. The long-range plan is to use the technology on a robotic lander on the Moon or other large body. The technology "Must be capable of flying on a variety of lunar lander precursor missions". The two major parts of this demonstration are the Terrestrial Free Flyer Test Bed and the Hazard Detection System.
The Terrestrial Free Flyer Test Bed deserves special attention. This test bed needs to be able to carry 100 kg of sensor/electronics payload as well as supporting mass for other subsystems, fly up to 1 km, translate horizontally, land at various angles ending in the last 30-50 meters with vertical landing, and fly for at least 210 seconds with the payload. I didn't see anything in the RFI about propulsion, but I imagine rocket-powered vehicles would have a bit of an edge.
The regulations - by the FAA's Office of Space Transportation (AST) - are already in place, and perfectly manageable. They asked John (and everyone else in the industry) for input on developing them, with a mind for both flight participant safety and safety of people on the ground.
Sales tax would seem to apply as well, as well as federal corporate income tax.
Are you under the impression that they'd tax it more than normal business transactions?
Jump in early and get burned? I hope it's not literally in this case... somehow I'd wait and have the rockets perfected by experience first...
Carmack will offer to bring back creatures from hell at half the price from other competitors. I always wanted my very own pet Baron of Hell.
Regards, Steve
The cost of the fuel for a flight like this is about $2000.
How we know is more important than what we know.
An integer rocket.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
it makes you wonder about nasa prices for each missions... and also wonder why this has not happened before
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
Doesn't Mark Shuttleworth feel like a sucker now?
No, because Mark went into orbit in a fair dinkum Russian spacecraft, which he got to fly (partly) himself. The vehicle being discussed here won't go into orbit.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Well, it's nice to see that competition in a market can drive prices down. Now the trick is to prevent them from forming a cartel.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Even it it were a hundred bucks, 5 minutes isn't a vacation ... at best it's a quickie.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
NASA isn't doing "tourism", it's doing science. A big part of what it does is continuous improvement and modification of the mission capabilities of their systems. These guys won't be able to afford that. They'll have to do one or two rounds of refinement then lock it in place for several dozen "missions" in order to break even, because if they don't break even, they go bankrupt and stop flying. NASA breaks even by getting the science done, wowing the taxpayers, and getting approved for another year of funding.
BTW, NASA invented almost all of the stuff that these guys are now using, but these guys don't have to pay NASA a nickel in royalties. If they did, these tourist flights would be an order of magnitude costlier. NASA's successes paid for Carmack's profit projections.
I'm not rich (I'm a community college professor), but this is a price I could afford if I made it a priority in my life and planned my finances around it. Some people who make the same amount of money I do make it a priority to own a car that costs roughly this much.
Arguments against:
Find free books.
paying half-rate for a no-track-record was-video-game-developer who is excited to be using much more explosive to get me there...
I would pay double for the Virgin Galactic vehicle. Rutan's Scaled Composites have made a few vehicles for a few customers, and have a long record of high-quality vehicles. With SpaceShip One, they actually flew into some definition of "space" on three occasions. So the Virgin Galactic vehicle program has a few successful flights to its record.
I am not sure, but I don't think Armadillo Aerospace has actually launched any manned or unmanned vehicles anywhere near the altitude that SpaceShip One attained. Armadillo has flown a few VTOL/hover flights near the surface. I don't think they've flown vehicles above Mach 1, but I would be glad to see a correction.
In short, the Armadillo program seems a little over-hyped.
The worse consequence of all the private space program over-hyping of late is that President Obama has decided to rely on these private space companies for human space flight, starting "ASAP." We're going to lose some astronauts to hype, I fear. And we will definitely give up our "lead" in space flight.
I am in favor of private space exploration companies, but I am against over-hyping their capabilities. We are presently making a blunder by retiring the Space Shuttle while we hope that these private suppliers get somewhere quickly.
Doesn't Mark Shuttleworth feel like a sucker now?
A quick name change to Mark Rocketworth will change that, no prob.
Yeah, we should make sure it is deregulated. It worked out great for us re the financial sector and oil industries!
I've been over Chinese MIG fighter pilots pressure suits and I can tell you that by our definition their pilots are skinny midgets. So I disagree about people being the same.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
it makes you wonder about nasa prices for each missions... and also wonder why this has not happened before
Well, given Carmack's proposal isn't even in the same league as the average shuttle launch, I suspect the cost differential is pretty understandable. After all, last I checked, NASA didn't bother with piddly little missions to send people just barely past the boundary of space (which is 62 mi/100 km) and then immediately bring them right back again. The delta between that and a real orbital mission is massive.
No, this is but a very tiny step toward real, commercial spaceflight. And the step from this to real commercial space flight is much much larger.
If you think those industries are unregulated, then I would like to see what you consider to be regulated. I mean, once you have governmental control over the money supply, how much a bank can and cannot loan, etc., it becomes pretty hard to call it unregulated. Poorly regulated, perhaps, but not at all left to its own devices.
SSC
"Whaddya mean oxygen is another 20 mil?"
Table-ized A.I.
which, to come full circle, they likely would not have done without the assurance that they would not lose money trying to. Thus NASA still is the source for all this neat stuff. And while it was made by an NGO, it was made under contract to a GO, thus is PD.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
The FY2011 budget doesn't intend for Armadillo or Virgin or any suborbital company to take the lead in HSF development. For the most part that money is going to be going to the same people it was before: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences and all of their various subcontractors. The big difference is in that NASA will be moving towards a system where they pay a fixed price for a service rather than using nebulous cost-plus contracts with variable accountability to build them to ever-changing requirements.
Also, Carmack knows what he's talking about when it comes to these machines -- he's hands on in the design and can spout of critical parameters like Q-star like nobodies business. While they may not be visibly as far as Virgin in manned flights, that doesn't mean they don't have a decent chance to catch up. Suborbital is "easier," so the various players can be a lot more nimble and turn-around can go a lot quicker.
Finally, over-hyping the shuttle is as big a blunder as over-hyping anything else. I can't help but feel that if we keep flying it, we'll be killing another 7 astronauts before too long. The shuttle was set to be retired 5 years ago -- unfortunately Griffin pushed for a retro-style Apollo clone that was too expensive for the budget thats politically sustainable for NASA, and thats why we're in this mess. Moving to a system that removes some of the inherent instability of politics seems like a good bet to me.
Yeah, and I don't even think it's actually that bad a price for early adoption either.
To many the idea of going into space is unimaginable, but getting it down to 100k means many people could afford it if they were willing to really work for it and perhaps downsize their house- i.e. if it was that important a dream to them.
If going into space is your greatest dream, then at this price you don't even really need to be a millionaire anymore. It's a price that's in grasp of most middle class folks if they're willing to make some sacrifices for it, and the price is as you say only going to go down over time.
It's an insult to those of us that have grown on Science Fiction and on a dream of visiting other star systems.
To those of us who have grown up on Science and Engineering, your words are a gross insult. It's too bad that actual space travel isn't sexy enough for the Star Trek crowd (or whatever fantasy you prefer to reality), but we shouldn't diminish genuine accomplishments (well, *cough* when those accomplishments happen).