Commercial space will need both trucks and tour buses. While follow-ons to SS1 must be scaled up to reach true orbit with paying passengers, I think it's a mistake to even begin to think of them in terms of heavy lifting. It was this kind of thinking that created the space shuttle... overkill for the majority of missions.
Passenger craft should concentrate on ferrying people to orbit as comfortably and safely as possible. Meanwhile, new lower cost launchers like the SpaceX Falcon series will be the key to bringing down the cost of freight transport.
And FYI... Bigelow Aerospace has already paid the down payment on the maiden flight of the Falcon V to put one of their inflatable modules in orbit. This is a hotelier forseeing a near term potential for habitable property in orbit. When the "ready to assemble" spacecraft begin arriving on orbit, there's a good chance the construction crew quarters will already be there with the sheets turned down.
These are exciting times for space nuts like me!
What will it do to the project if the pilot dies or is seriously injured during the flight or the landing?
It will obviously slow the schedule considerably as they evaluate what went wrong, but I doubt that it will stop the project.
Why aren't they sending up a monkey or a peice of meatloaf first?
Too late for that. This bird has already had three piloted burns... two to black sky height. I fail to see how this flight is significantly more risky... or more important for that matter, other than achieving an arbitrarily selected milestone. Mike Melville and maybe even Shane Siebold are already astronauts as far as I'm concerned.
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Commercial space will need both trucks and tour buses. While follow-ons to SS1 must be scaled up to reach true orbit with paying passengers, I think it's a mistake to even begin to think of them in terms of heavy lifting. It was this kind of thinking that created the space shuttle... overkill for the majority of missions. Passenger craft should concentrate on ferrying people to orbit as comfortably and safely as possible. Meanwhile, new lower cost launchers like the SpaceX Falcon series will be the key to bringing down the cost of freight transport. And FYI... Bigelow Aerospace has already paid the down payment on the maiden flight of the Falcon V to put one of their inflatable modules in orbit. This is a hotelier forseeing a near term potential for habitable property in orbit. When the "ready to assemble" spacecraft begin arriving on orbit, there's a good chance the construction crew quarters will already be there with the sheets turned down. These are exciting times for space nuts like me!
What will it do to the project if the pilot dies or is seriously injured during the flight or the landing? It will obviously slow the schedule considerably as they evaluate what went wrong, but I doubt that it will stop the project. Why aren't they sending up a monkey or a peice of meatloaf first? Too late for that. This bird has already had three piloted burns... two to black sky height. I fail to see how this flight is significantly more risky... or more important for that matter, other than achieving an arbitrarily selected milestone. Mike Melville and maybe even Shane Siebold are already astronauts as far as I'm concerned.