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2014 Will Be a Big Year For Commercial Space Travel
An anonymous reader writes "Getting into space is a difficult prospect. The commercial space industry has been making steady progress over the past decade, and they're finally getting to the point where they can be relied upon to transport people and important cargoes. This article makes the case that 2014 will be a turning point for commercial space travel, the year that a nascent industry comes into its own. 'We should — finally — start to see the first flights into space by Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, and perhaps the first commercial flights of that vehicle as well, depending on how well their test program proceeds. In addition, we should also see the first test flights, although not necessarily into space, of XCOR's Lynx vehicle in 2014, and possibly even commercial flights by the end of the year if all goes well,' said Jeff Foust, editor of The Space Review. 'If these companies achieve those long-awaited, and sometimes long-delayed, major milestones, it will go far to erase any lingering doubts that suborbital space tourism is a real market, while also enabling opportunities for using those vehicles in other applications, like suborbital research and technology demonstration.'"
Will Commercial Space Travel Blast Off in 2014?
Hence, no.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
We all know that 2014 will be The Year of Linux on the Desktop!
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Reality: A cramped tin can, 10 minute ride to the upper atmosphere, sub-orbital joyride. No aliens, no warp drives, no class-M planets. You're still in the atmosphere, you're still using rockets with the same elements as on the periodic table, no fictional elements or forces. You're not even getting out of the tin can and you're landing right back where you came from.
So sorry. We don't even have the Concorde anymore and I'm supposed to cheer for the thrill rides of people who've somehow managed to game the system to make money while my real wages have been going down for 10 years?
...vomit comet. Or is that the baloney pony?
If these companies achieve those long-awaited, and sometimes long-delayed, major milestones, it will go far to erase any lingering doubts that suborbital space tourism is a real market
How does a successful test of a prototype tell you anything about the demand for it? Silicon Valley landfills are filled with successful prototypes of products you've never heard of.
They need someplace to go and something to do up there. Until consumers can spend a weekend in orbit doing entertaining activities, it's hard to imagine many people willing spend six figures (?) on the trip.
(I'm all for commercial space flight, by the way, I just don't see much consumer demand for it.)
finally getting to the point where they can be relied upon to transport people
Leeches and trustafarians, perhaps. It'll be a few years before they can transport people.
It's quite sad to see that man is exporting the Church of the Invisible Hand off this planet. Ah well, they do say the surest sign of intelligent extraterrestrial life is that it hasn't tried to contact us.
Bitcoin is ready for takeoff, and it will take Virgin Galactic along with it!
Virgin Galagtic's Space Ship II and XCOR's Lynx are both suboribtal. They both only have about 1-2% of the energy on board that would be needed to make it to orbit. With this concept it's simply not possible to reach orbit. They have way more common with a MIG 25 parabolic flight then with a trip to the ISS.
Space X's Dragon capsule and Sierra Nevada Corporation's Dream Chaser are the real deal in commercial space travel. And 2014 is decisive year for both of them.
lots of articles from 2013 said the same thing
...a year that the nasdaq and s&p500 have a decent correction bucking the almost continuous upward trend of the last few years, so i doubt there will be any major investment by anyone other than reserve banks, and that companies will continue to hoard cash
why do i predict a stock market correction? because humans are fickle and despite all the talk to stoke confidence in the so-called "recovery", humans are also not stupid... investors aren't in stocks because of confidence in the government or the fed or of consumers, but because they are taking advantage of a bubble in the stock market fuelled by cheap money from the fed. many also aren't investing for long term gains, but are playing computer games where they can take advantage of even small ticks up and down (technical trading). investors know that the bull run in stocks will not last forever, and it won't take much to turn the trend.
dunno if it's going to be a crash like the doomsayers predict, but no doubt the dollar will continue to lose value; to all the inflation denialists out there, check out the buying power table @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar#Value
for reaping pork from tax payers.
I think that 2014 could very well be the year that we must all mourn Slashdot, especially if they go ahead and replace the current site with the godawful beta site.
We've seen this kind of thing happen before. Just look at Digg v4 for a stunning example of how a web site upgrade can utterly destroy a community. The scariest part is that the Digg v4 site, at its worst, is still comparatively better than the Slashdot beta site.
The correct thing to do, obviously, is to completely discard the Slashdot beta site. It's a failed experiment. Being a failure, there's no need to continue with it. Close down the beta site, throw away the code, and just leave the current site as it is.
I do fear that if the Slashdot beta goes live at some point, then it will drive away the few remaining users. It is completely unusable, and the general consensus is that it's absolutely terrible. Nobody wants it now, and it's very doubtful that anyone will want it later. It really needs to be discarded, immediately.
I find myself keep asking this question though answer is govt never thought private companies can do space (actually there was since 1950s, i.e. Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell, Convair). It took Scaled Composites with Space Ship One and the CNXT (or CXNT) civilian space shot to demonstrate it can be done. Much of what is happening now is suborbital, much less difficult than orbital space flight, but there are customers besides rich people with a few 200K to blow. There are researchers with projects wanting suborbital flights that want to fly with their experiment. As time goes on, some of these companies will become history, some may survive, and there may new commercial spaceflight companies. An interesting time this is, reminds me of 1920s when all kinds of aircraft start-ups, most became history. What they had was govt support such as N.A.C.A., NASA should fill that role for these companies.
But I still ask, how come commercial space didn't happen in 1980s. Was technology too exotic? There was the Soviet threat but no ITAR.
mfwright@batnet.com
And also, the year of the Linux desktop!
Try not to confuse wishful thinking for accurate predictors of future trends.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
There's something fundamentally wrong with an operation that provides incredibly expensive distraction (for the rich only) by polluting the atmosphere and failing to provide any socially redeeming value whatsoever.
Are any of these ventures actually transporting anyone anywhere other than straight up and straight back down to the same spot? Do any of them ever plan to actually get a human from, say, New York to Tokyo? If not, these services create about as much economic benefit as one of those giant bungie powered slingshot chair thingies you see by the side of the interstate.
On the other hand, the idea of Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, Justin Beiber, and Richard Branson together in a small area covered in their own puke has a certain appeal to it.
The "big year for commercial space travel" will come right after the "big year for Linux on the desktop".
First things first, after all.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Buy a 4K HDTV or go in debt travel to space
Are any of these ventures actually transporting anyone anywhere other than straight up and straight back down to the same spot?
A few of them are planning to bring humans from the ground to the ISS and back. Does that count?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
A few of them are planning to bring humans from the ground to the ISS and back. Does that count?
MirCorp/Space Adventures already did that, and it was purely for the amusement of their passengers.
There are lots of plans for space thrill rides - some are even planning to go to the moon. I was inquiring about the "non-amusement park" side of the industry - specifically getting a human from point a on earth to point b on earth. There was a time in my career when traveling from the US to Asia occurred fairly frequently, and it was a nightmare. Correct me if I'm wrong, but so far none of these ventures appear to be planning a service for folks like me.
These 3 years are where everything comes together.
Starting this year, VG will start flying Scaled's SS2 for sub-orbital flights. Within 2 years after that, 2 more crafts (xcor and Blue Horizon's) will join up and offer competition. That will drive prices down to 100K for all 3 companies.
Then from 2015-2017, 3 companies will fly humans commercially to orbital; SpaceX's Dragon Rider will be first in 2015. Then the next one will be Boeing's CST-100 in 2016, and SNC's DC will be either 2016 or 2017. However, multiple comments here speak about the atlas not being human rated and do not realize that part of Boeing's money for CST-100 is to human rate Atlas. BUT, supposedly, CST-100 AND DC will be allowed to be mated to either Atlas OR F9. And yes, the F9 can fly the DC.
BUT, what is missing on the orbital flights is that few ppl are going to pay 20 million to orbit earth a few days in a tin can. Instead, these will be used to transport to a space Station. ISS, at least on the western side, is not allowed commercial flights for tourism. So, where will these ppl fly? To Bigelow Aerospace's Space Stations. BA will start building it next year IFF SpaceX gets dragon rider flying with humans. It will take just several flights to assemble a space station that has more volume than the ISS. So, starting in 2016, multiple nations are looking to be on BA's alpha. In addition, it is very likely that there will be tourists on-board. First the first year or two, it will likely costs $30 million / person for 1-2 months. BUT, by 2017, SpaceX will have re-usable first stage, which will drop this price to about $15M. Or 30 million for 6 months or more.
Basically, 2014 is the START of commercial space and VG will make big headlines for their first flight.
But it will take 3-4 years to move from sub-orbital to full orbital and everybody looking towards the moon by 2020, and mars by 2025.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
According to their poll, it's a real bargain.
I can't afford a plane ticket to Florida or LA. I don't think I, or anyone I know, will be heading into space anytime soon.
I was inquiring about the "non-amusement park" side of the industry.
I was referring to the "non-amusement park" side of the industry; specifically SpaceX and others of that ilk, who will be ferrying people back and forth to the ISS for work. Space Adventures is a reseller, and MirCorp closed a decade ago, so they don't count.
There are aerospace companies working on SSTs, but the main reason there isn't a lot of suborbital point to point is that you need to have a lot of horizontal velocity to get anywhere, and that horizontal velocity needs to be nullified. The level of horizontal velocity is close, like 80%+, to orbital velocity. Think about it. Which is harder, a hop across lake Michigan, or a hop across the Pacific? A trip to space, is a simple hundred km up. You only need fuel to accelerate upwards. Gravity slows you down to a stop, and the return trip is nowhere near orbital velocities, so you don't even need heat shields. On the other hand, a transcontinental trip requires a horizontal acceleration, and deceleration. Since you're going at 80ish percent of orbital velocities, you're going to need a lot more fuel and reentry will require heat shields (unless you want to do a retro-burn, in which case you have to carry even more fuel.
Of course, that isn't to say people aren't working on it, but it will be a long, long while before it is commercially viable.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
We (government and corporate) are going to lose the opportunity to get past low earth orbit due to the minefield of hyper-velocity space junk, now exponentially multiplying by collisions with other space junk. Impact speeds are extremely high - 10Km/sec is not unusual, and at such speeds a sugar cube will blast a hole through most structures. The cleanup, and ongoing orbital insertions (and recapture) needs doing VERY SOON... see http://savingthepla.net/ - problem #2
I propose that a "non-corporate" and "non-national" organization or agency be tasked and funded. http://unitedspaceagency.com/ describes such a system, and also provides 2 major bases for ETs (Extra-Terrestrial HUMANS) to permanently live in. http://haven1.com/ and http://leo-port.com/ . AscentCraft.com spells out some designs for achieving this, requiring only drive hardware such as manufactured in the SIXTIES with modern control, computing and communication gear.
The $10Bn budget (unfairly "equally") shared by the 6Bn population who would get some benefit from this (the other 1Bn do not presently get sufficient nutrition) - Problem #5 in a fairer sharing it's about 10cents a week- and 1/2 Hr of effort. Read the websites. help with them, if you can. YES... It could be real in this year -
Commerce? - well yes, we do need the incomes of rich capitalists LEO-PORT (300Km Equatorial) is the first assembly point, with 1/10 G living, and 0G shirtsleeve construction and entertainment space. You can still use a normal toilet, shower, eat food and drink from a cup or glass in the living areas and do zero G ballet or gymnastics, though 1/10 G is pretty "enabling"! - more G if you want it - see the websites
LordOxford 1301-014 KohChang, TH