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

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How can someone just whip out a "commercial satellite bus" business without having a launch vehicle? I'm sure as soon as the half-dozen companies you referenced (plus more that will inevitably be created) are fully functional, "payload launching" will be the next large commercial step.