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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."
What makes this more interesting is that NASA won't actually be paying for the flights until they have flown successfully, and although Armadillo and Masten have been working towards the kind of capability NASA wants, they've mostly been plotting their own course, which means NASA has actually bought something here without specifying the requirements in infinite detail - like they usually do.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You know, it's kind of funny. Lately with all the hub-ub regarding the closure of the shuttle program, the small launch companies have been getting a ton of publicity. We have companies like SpaceX and Orbital working their way into the medium and heavy lift rocket arenas. We have Blue Origin, Masten, Armadillo, and a half-dozen other small rocket/sounding rocket/propulsion companies developing launch platforms for low gravity environments (moon, Mars) and suborbital flights. One thing that I can't seem to find a lot of, however, is small, commercial payload companies. There are definitely a few. Companies like Clyde Space for instance are starting to offer available payloads on cubesat buses. There are also companies like Interorbital Sciences that are trying to push the small payload/tubesat architecture. And, of course, there are dozens of startups competing for the rover portion of the GLXP. Nonetheless, I would like to see more small satellite companies start cropping up. It seems like there would be a market for a company that could develop a common, reliable, small payload bus (about 250 - 500 kg) that could guarantee a mission life of XX many years and a power base of XX many kW that customers could mount scientific payloads on to test technologies, gather a bit of data, whatever.
I guess that I am surprised to see commercial launch companies getting so much publicity, while the market for commercial satellite buses remains so small. It would be cool to see a company do to satellites what SpaceX is trying to do the launch market. Surely some science communities out there would pay to gather 0 g data for some field or another...
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
It's great to hear that both of these companies are getting some needed funding! Armadillo has said outright that they have a goal of putting tourists into space and Masten has hinted at it. I for one look forward to lighting a rocket under my butt and launching myself out of the atmosphere.
Help me fix my brother's injured butt!
Along with heavy government regulation. Free market restricted by sensible government regulation, thank you FMRBSG.
Hopefully this will actually be cost effective. The space shuttle was a boondoggle "reusable" space ship that had to be rebuilt nearly from scratch every launch. I care not a whit about reusable, but I do care greatly about cost.