..it's not going to change the world. They're putting together a cheap instrument package which they'll apparently launch as a piggyback load on a larger rocket, or will maybe pay the Russians a couple of mill to launch it on a converted ICBM. Big deal. Others are doing that.
There are some people out there who are doing real, practical work to bring down the cost of space travel -- which is the same as commercializing it.
Check out an outfit called Microcosm. They're building a family of cheap disposable boosters called Scorpius (www.scorpius.com) which aim to bring down launch costs by a factor of 10. They've already developed and tested two progressively more powerful suborbital rockets, and are on track to launch an orbital "mini-lift" rocket (max 700 pounds payload) in two years.
These guys are doing it slowly and on the cheap, with some grants from BMDO and DARPA and also internal funding from their other businesses, but they are doing it. And they've hit every goal they've set so far. I heard their engineering VP speak at a spaceflight entrepreneur's conference a couple of years ago, and he had the only business plan I heard that was actually practical for a small cspace ompany to achieve. (All the others began with, "Once we get $50 million in venture capital funding...").
Cheap access to space will happen. But it won't necessarily come from the people who are getting all the press...
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..it's not going to change the world. They're putting together a cheap instrument package which they'll apparently launch as a piggyback load on a larger rocket, or will maybe pay the Russians a couple of mill to launch it on a converted ICBM. Big deal. Others are doing that. There are some people out there who are doing real, practical work to bring down the cost of space travel -- which is the same as commercializing it. Check out an outfit called Microcosm. They're building a family of cheap disposable boosters called Scorpius (www.scorpius.com) which aim to bring down launch costs by a factor of 10. They've already developed and tested two progressively more powerful suborbital rockets, and are on track to launch an orbital "mini-lift" rocket (max 700 pounds payload) in two years. These guys are doing it slowly and on the cheap, with some grants from BMDO and DARPA and also internal funding from their other businesses, but they are doing it. And they've hit every goal they've set so far. I heard their engineering VP speak at a spaceflight entrepreneur's conference a couple of years ago, and he had the only business plan I heard that was actually practical for a small cspace ompany to achieve. (All the others began with, "Once we get $50 million in venture capital funding..."). Cheap access to space will happen. But it won't necessarily come from the people who are getting all the press...