NASA Buying Private Companies' Suborbital Rocket Flights

FleaPlus writes "NASA is spending a total of $475,000, split between Masten Space Systems and John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace, for a series of seven test flights of the companies' reusable suborbital rockets over the next several months, going to altitudes as high as 25 miles. NASA's goal is to foster a more cost-effective and flexible way to conduct microgravity and upper-atmosphere research. Jeff Bezos's suborbital spaceflight company Blue Origin has also been making steady progress this year on their $3.7M contract to test pusher-escape system and composite pressure vessel technologies, which NASA is interested in for orbital spaceflight."

Comments

Re:Commercial Payload Companies

[QuantumG]

Wow, I wasn't aware there was any surface-to-air missiles that can fly a payload to high altitude and return it to the same launch pad it took off from, and do it again in under an hour. Who has been making these VTVL marvels that the rest of us completely missed?

Or maybe you don't know what you're talking about.