What's Next in the New Private Space Industry? 360
Cesaro asks: "I'm as thrilled as every other geek out there with the success of SpaceShipOne. But what are realistic expectations of our next steps into this new industry? The Economist clearly thinks the next step is high paying 'space tourism' at a whopping $200k+ per trip. That is all well and good, but what do *we* think the goals and schedule should look like?"
"How about travel? A flight to Australia will currently take me 20+ hours. How long down the road until I can take off from the US and land SpaceShipOne in Australia where another White Knight is waiting to ferry it back into the air again? (Anyone know how fast I could get there?) I only get 10 days of vacation a year and spending two of them in a metal cylinder is not such a good deal. How many years until we can start carrying cargo and DHL/UPS/FedEx can promise around the globe next day delivery? So I ask Slashdot: What should be the next steps and what is a realistic expectation of when those steps could occur?"
SPACE PIRATES (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SPACE PIRATES (Score:2)
Longer stay, lower price (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully we can get to something more along the lines of spending the night in space for, say,$50,000. If we could do that within five years that would be awesome. I don't think I would spend 210K for three minutes even if I had it.
Re:Longer stay, lower price (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Longer stay, lower price (Score:3, Insightful)
Space travel won't be for you or me for a very long time. In the mean time there are lots of people who wouldn't think twice about dropping 200K a few times a year.
It's kind of sick when you think about it too much though. There are millions of people in the world who live on $2.00 a day.
Food (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Food (Score:3, Insightful)
Gravity (Score:2)
The day we learn how to couple electricity and gravity to get precisely those amenities (which really need gravity to make them happen - pools, normal meals, etc.) will be the day space travel and in fact the world at large will be changed forever.
Re:Gravity (Score:3, Insightful)
And that day was in 1687. We call it Centrifugal force, one effect of Newtons laws.
Re:Food (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe we could even send robotic missions to the moon first and have them set up a hydrogen mining facility so that when humans get there they will be sitting on top of a huge ready-to-u
They were on Jay Leno yesterday (Score:4, Interesting)
Once airline industry embraces this, it will be very quickly coming down to affordable level for commoners for tourism atleast. For commerical travel, it might be a while before this technology is used as we can see from the example or Concorde.
Jay Leno was joking that Southwest will offer space flight for $99 but you will have to stop in fresno, LA and SFO first.
And what's up with these messages?
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Re:They were on Jay Leno yesterday (Score:5, Insightful)
doc-space investment bubble... (Score:5, Informative)
For one, the initial investment required to develop a meaningful space-based business is significantly higher than that for a software/Web-based business. VCs are a lot tighter with their money these days. They are typically only entertaining large investments in the biotech industy, with has a lot more mature private sector component than the space industry.
Second, it's was relatively easy for an entrepreneur to sell the idea of an internet-based business by just pointing to an analog in an existing brick-and-mortar industry and saying a variation of, "We'll do what they're doing, but we'll do it more efficiently." It's hard to see how this sort of argument applies to the nascent private space-industry.
Third, the Internet bubble was partly fueled by a relatively large population of software development expertise. Training software developer, and developing actual software, is significantly easier and cheaper than doing almost *anything* related to space travel. Certainly cheaper than doing anything related to cutting-edge, industry transforming space engineering R&D.
Fourth, the VC's, and the rest of the investment community, are relatively savvy wrt software, computers, telecom, and related businesses (or, at least they *think* they are). It was easy for a VC to do some "due diligence" and a gut check and decide to commit some dollars to an internet-based business. As a group, they are not at all savvy wrt space. The majority of VCs/early stage investors are not nearly as cutting edge, forward thinking, or even smart as they'd have the general public believe. It'll take a lot more than one success by one group for the bulk of the early stage institutional investors to start licking their chops.
The fifth reason I don't think there will be 90's style spike in investment for space travel is that, as cool as SpaceShipOne is, it doesn't fundamentally alter the economics of space travel. None of the XPrize contenders that I know off were working on fit that criteria. The internet was so compelling to investors because they could see that it did improve operational efficiencies for a large number of industries, even if the investors didn't know *how* those efficiencies would be manifested. SpaceShipOne does seem to incrementally improve the space travel equation by executing a low-cost composite-based variation of the Orbital Sciences/Pegasus rocket. But I'm pretty sure that it's does not match up as a transformative technology that the internet was.
The one group where there might be a pick-up in interest is the private investors like Paul Allen and Carmack. I'd also think that their might be a pick up in investments in the institutions (universities and labs) that are doing fundamental research in novel space technology. I wouldn't be surprised if those institutions start mining their patents and papers to see if they can "monetize" them via spin-offs, start-ups and/or licensing.
Nah. I'd say that large scale early-stage investment in space is several decades off, barring the development of some technology that fundamentally changes the economics of space travel.
Would that be bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a result, half the population in the first world accesses the net via broadband connections. In most of the rest of the world people do at least have the chance to visit an internet cafe.
And the net is changing our cultures. IMO for the better. There is f.e. a lot of information I simply wouldn't care to look up without it. And even scientific publications will (hopefully) break the dependency on publishers.
If something like this would happen to space flight, it would make me pretty happy.
DaVinci and Canadian Arrow (Score:4, Interesting)
Space tourism and Extreme space diving are not going to be profitable. The next phase is likely going to be a private satellite launch system. However, I could see a new "X-Prize" for private launch to low earth orbit as the next step.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:DaVinci and Canadian Arrow (Score:2)
However, I will be in London this weekend, checking out the private astronaut school.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:DaVinci and Canadian Arrow (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:DaVinci and Canadian Arrow (Score:2)
Re:DaVinci and Canadian Arrow (Score:2)
Getting a corporate attorney from New York to Singapore in three hours will often be worth the price of a suborbital hop. The pace of business is now fast enough that there will be a small, core market for this service.
Re:DaVinci and Canadian Arrow (Score:3, Insightful)
Same applies here. One off space tourists, yes. Regular business travellers no.
My money is on Sir Richard (Score:3, Funny)
I am sorry but no matter how high is your karma I still put my money on Sir Richard. ;)
On television... (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps not the next step but (Score:2, Interesting)
Read a little bit [amazon.com] about it before you yell that it can't be done or that it will cost a trillion zillion dollars.
Re:Perhaps not the next step but (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Perhaps not the next step but (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Perhaps not the next step but (Score:2)
*No offense intended to the good people of Miami.
legalized space prostitution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:legalized space prostitution (Score:2)
Porn, pot are keys to NASA salvation [cyberista.com]
The intent was to help NASA but with this brave new world of private space industry, I'm sure the ideas can be adopted.
Sex in space... (Score:5, Funny)
And, hopefully there will be room for two in that capsule, so that it can be even MORE special!
*JOY*
Re:Sex in space... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sex in space... (Score:3, Funny)
By the way, after his flight, would the company running the flights have to change its name?
Re:legalized space prostitution (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not just go to a country where it's fully legal? Instead of paying $200,000 for 5 minutes in space, you can take a week's vacation in Holland, Germany, or Switzerland for under $2000, including hotel. Really nice brothels in Zurich charge about $175 for half an hour.
IMHO this is a service industry which you want to be regulated by the government, as long as the govt is not in the hands of a bunch of bigoted puritans, like the US.
Profit! (Score:3, Insightful)
Saving lives (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine how far we could reduce the death toll from hurricanes, droughts and floods if we could get supplies there hours/days faster than if we used airplanes.
What if we were to use a space elevator to get materials into orbit, and then spaceshipone or another vehical to deliver them to wherever they would be needed?
Black Sky - Discovery Channel (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Black Sky - Discovery Channel (Score:2)
it reminds me of something i read once:
"The ultimate responsibility of the pilot is to fulfill the dreams of the countless millions of earthbound ancestors who could only stare skyward and wish."
and dreaming we are!
They'd best be careful (Score:3, Insightful)
There isn't an industry yet (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, Rutan's technology is not applicable to orbital space travel, as near as I can tell, so I'm not sure that this does anything for space tourism, except as a something for the press to report (which may be worth somethin
Bad news guys (Score:3, Informative)
Suborbital legislation suddenly sinks
Amended bill said to carry 'poison pill' for spaceflight
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6201543/
Just days after SpaceShipOne's prize-winning flight opened the world's eyes to the prospect for private spaceflight, legislation that might have opened the way for paying passengers to get on board has sunk into a congressional
Re:Bad news guys (Score:2)
Oh, god forbid we have 'standards.'
If you like anarchy so much, move to Western Sahara and call us in the morning. Otherwise, STFU.
Re:Bad news guys (Score:2, Offtopic)
Nice attitude.
> What part of representative democracy escapes you?
The cronyism, the payback to the religious right, the corruption.
See Stem Cells for more info. [chicagotribune.com]
Re:Bad news guys (Score:2)
The soma that is the conservative corporate media continues to not only cover for Bush, but makes people believe voting against their own interests is a smart move. Those who don't vote on one hot-button issue. Hence, half a country of Republicans who think "liberals will ban the bible," "Saddam ordered 9/11," etc.
We're seeing the same thing with stem cell research. The brain drain here in the US has been documented for quite some time, its just that a
OT: US woes (Score:2, Insightful)
The US dollar is weak, not helped by the massive budget and current account deficits. For now that doesn't matter too much (particularly the current account situation) because the US is viewed as a strong economic powerhouse, and the US dollar is in high demand because it is the standard currency for most major commodity markets.
The catch is that both of those factors can change.
Re:OT: US woes (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree entirely that a weaker US dollar would be useful in certain areas. But again, that's another domino: where is US manufacturing? Most manufacturing has been outsourced oveseas, and very little takes place in the US. Certainly a dramatic fall in the US dollar would give a huge inc
Re:There isn't an industry yet (circa 1903) (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the Wright Brothers' technology is not applicable to intercontinental travel, as near as I can tell, so I'm not sure that this does anything for the aero-plane industry, except as a something for the press to report (which may be worth something, but I tend to doubt that it means much).
The question is how many people are going to be fooled that this is really flight.
Re:There isn't an industry yet (circa 1903) (Score:2, Insightful)
I understand the jist of your argument, though. I've heard it said many times that the Wright Flyer (Kitty Hawk was the location in North Carolina where the flight took place) really made what amounted to short hops across the ground. The first attem
Re:There isn't an industry yet (circa 1903) (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't follow the thread to the parent to realize that the Wright bros reference was a sarcastic response. Apologies to "kippy".
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There isn't an industry yet (circa 1903) (Score:4, Interesting)
Your post is akin to saying "horse and carriage was a dead-end technology". Of course it was, everything is, except it worked very well for thousands of years until something better came along.
Similarly silicon wafers are a dead-end technology, the Internet is a dead-end technology, and definitely rocket-powered space flight is a complete dead-end technology that will never get us to the stars.
Except no one has found a better alternative as yet.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:There isn't an industry yet (Score:2)
Re:There isn't an industry yet (Score:2)
It's mentioned a bit at the bottom of this [216.239.39.104] article,
though I think they botched the meaning of tier 3. If you can, catch a showing of Black Sky: Winning the X-Prize on the Discovery Channel... in a short scene where Rutan is talking about the next steps, he shows the plans for an orbital craft, and it's a scaled up version of While Knight and SpaceShipOne (that sits 7 i
Re:There isn't an industry yet (Score:2, Informative)
Nothing IS until we dream it (Score:2)
Before there IS anything, we first must imagine it.
Wernher von Braun said the most important ingredient to building a moon rocket is: "the will to do it!"
The space industry exists. Now we have to build it.
Re:There isn't an industry yet (Score:2)
Unfortunately, Rutan's technology is not applicable to orbital space travel, as near as I can tell, so I'm not sure that this does anything for space tourism, except as a something for the press to report (which may be worth something, but I tend to doubt that it means much).
Rutan's technology may be the starting point for reasonable sub-orbital flights (think NYC->Tokyo).
For orbital, affordable space travel, I believe that the X-prize should have been for building a 10 meter long cable made from
It don't MATTER (Score:2)
You got a $200,000 frog in your pocket? Otherwise it jest don't matter a whole hill of beans what *you* think the goals should be.
Lear jets (Score:4, Interesting)
Find a way to put this capability into a Lear jet or similar. Make it one helluva a status symbol. Then, it won't matter so much how many ordinary people use the service, so much as it will matter *how many* of the filthy rich can boast of using it.
Here's a list of ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
Industrial Space
Several things come to mind:
- Tourism: the view is fantastic.
- Medical Recuperation: SciFi hit on this a long time ago. The movie CONTACT did so, even. The zero-gravity environment would be much easier on a heart patient.
- Theme Park: One of the consistent features of theme parks is 'Gravity Games!' - roller coasters play with positive/negative G's.
- Real Estate! If you want to build "a house on a hill", there's no bigger hill than Olympus Mons. You will NOT run out of real estate.
- Scientific exploration: Obvious, isn't it, to put an conventional large telescope (even a multi-mirrored one) in a vacuum?
- Industrial Processes: there has to be some industrial use for very, very high heat in a vacuum and zero G. Honeycombed metals? The heat could be from a very simple parabolic mirror made from cheap mylar. There's no breeze, it's unflappable at higher orbits, etc.
- Prospecting: Asteroids made of small chunks of pure metal. that's worth something right there. When the impurities in the iron are Nickel and Platinum?
Just a few ideas.The whirlygigs spin you around. Well, Zero G must be a lot of fun, lots of people pay lots of money to experience moments of zero g.
The problem is that Antartica is far more hospitable than Mars. But, that can be fixed with increasingly reliable machinery.
There's value there not just in the metal, but in the location of the metal, already out of our gravity well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Here's a list of ideas (Score:3, Insightful)
Cool, and the starting few Gs will help eliminate those patients who wouldn't survive anyway.
IOW, not such a good idea with the current way of sitting on a rocket to get up there. A patient in a space elevator would be much better off getting to the zero G level.
Unrealistic (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, if
Re:Unrealistic (Score:3, Insightful)
Im sorry, is that your ship leaving? *as the Titanic departs* *or the Hindenburg*
Luxury is great, but no luxury holds a candle to the luxury that is SPEED. Get me from point A to point B twice as fast as the other guy and I will give you 4x as much cash. LAX to London, Paris, Singapore, Cairo,
Demand is very likely there... (Score:5, Insightful)
The average Fortune 1000 CEO earned $8.3 million a year, way back in 2001. That's 22,000 USD per day. So, just in non-productive CEO time alone, sending the CEO to Australia costs 44,000 USD, on top of the 14,000 USD or so for the first-class return ticket. That's a big cost - not to mention that this technology offers the possibility of intercontinental day trips, something that is simply not possible now. There are people - not many, but some - for whom these features will be worth paying a lot of money for. Just like aircraft in their early days, in fact...
Also, I gather there would also be a market for really fast package delivery, which could theoretically carry even higher per-kilogram costs. Imagine if a crucial part is required to resume production at a major automotive plant. How much is a day's lost production worth?
Re:Unrealistic (Score:2)
Yes, that's why we all travel around in luxurious decadence in our fabulous 21st century horse-drawn carriages.
To make a statement like this requires a remarkable depth an
Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Asteroid Mining (Score:2)
Bad news: Suborbital bill hijacked (Score:5, Insightful)
Just got this message Jeff Greason of XCOR Aerospace that the current legislation to assist the development of the suborbital spaceflight industry has been distorted by Senate staffers into something that will instead smother the industry in the cradle:
There is a last-minute move by some staffers in the Senate to heavily amend HR 3752 [loc.gov]. The amendments would completely change the charter of the office of commercial space transportation (AST [faa.gov]), placing the safety of the crew and passengers on equal footing with the safety of the uninvolved public. Since that is well beyond present technology, it would effectively stop development of the industry in the U.S.. It is too late to fix the bill before the session adjourns, but not too late to stop it. If you or people you know have connections to any Senator, please ask them to put a "hold" on HR 3752. That prevents it from passing by unanimous consent. We may have less than 24 hours.
If the bill is "held" there may be opportunity to fix it in a post-election session -- but if not, we would still rather the bill die than pass with these poison-pill amendments.
If your Senator is on the Commerce Committee, that's even better: http://commerce.senate.gov/about/membership.html [senate.gov]
Personally, I'm in favor of having the AST in charge of the safety of the uninvolved public on the ground, as the bill was originally worded. However, I think that the last-minute changes to have the same agency regulate the safety of crew and passengers (and require the corresponding mountains of paperwork) would be an excellent way to kill off the budding US space tourism industry.
MSNBC has a more in-depth article [msn.com] on this.
Re:Bad news: Suborbital bill hijacked (Score:2)
You're assuming, of course, that the industry isn't legislated out of existence to protect us from ourselves.
Killer App? How about the Killing App? (Score:2)
Rutan's plans for a one-person orbital spacecraft (Score:5, Interesting)
One-man version of SpaceShipOne may be next stage in development of space holidays
A one-person version of Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne that reaches an orbit of 130km (81 miles) to rendezvous with an orbiting hotel may form the next stage of Burt Rutan's private manned spaceflight plans.
Speaking at a lecture organised by the Manx Festival of Aviation at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, the aerospace designer detailed how such an orbital vehicle could be evolved from his existing three-man, suborbital 3,000kg (6,600lb) SpaceShipOne. The amount of spacecraft mass dedicated to fuel would be increased to achieve the greater altitude and speed required.
"We'd have a small cramped cabin for the orbital flight and you'd be in it for a long time. You'd want to go to a hotel [because of that] and for orbital tourism you'd want an altitude of 130km," says Rutan.
In his lecture, Rutan referred to plans by Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, to develop a space hotel based on NASA-originated inflatable habitat technology.
Before Rutan begins work on orbital flight technology, he will attempt to win the X-Prize, which requires two suborbital flights within two weeks carrying a mass equivalent to three people. Rutan's first flight is scheduled for 29 September and his second for 4 October. But before he flies for the second time, competing Canadian X-Prize team da Vinci Project is scheduled to try to reach space in its Wild Fire rocket on 2 October.
Another X-Prize team, Space Transportation, saw its Rubicon One rocket fail a flight test in Washington on 8 August seconds after launch. The engines of the $20,000 rocket failed after it reached an altitude of 1,000ft (305m). Rubicon One's remains crashed to Earth 61m from its launch site after its parachute system failed. It was carrying three dummies representing the pilot and passengers.
Re:Rutan's plans for a one-person orbital spacecra (Score:2)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Think about what you can do... (Score:3, Insightful)
I know people who have gone on trips from london to sydney (which is about 20 hours and in 1st class must be close to $10k) for one meeting and then flown straight back.
Major companies would pay $50k to save the 3 days of travel that involves.
Personal satellites, anyone? (Score:2)
Thats going to be rather difficult (Score:2)
It takes very little to launch a rock off the moon and drop it on earth causing an extinction event.
I believe it even more now that they're trying to use legislation to kill off private space tourism.
Our government is increasingly power hungry and they'll never let something like that leave their grasp. It'll take revolution first.
Re:Thats going to be rather difficult (Score:2)
That companies like Boeing or Lockheed-Martin might try to push for hard regulations, I think the time has past f
Re:Thats going to be rather difficult (Score:2)
I guess I could have given safer examples, but the point is that no country regulates international waters, just like interplanetary space would also not be regulated by nation-states on the Earth.
Re:Personal satellites, anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Personal satellites, anyone? (Score:2)
They are now. Next year? Who knows!
Re:Ever hear of AMSAT or OSCAR? (Score:2)
Big demand for suborbital science (Score:5, Informative)
From the report: "One space scientist, who puts experiments on sounding rockets, responded to my specification of a one week turnaround and a $200k price tag with "I don't believe these numbers (either the turnaround or the cost). Similar promises were made about the space shuttle 30 years ago, and they turned out to be grossly overoptimistic."
Rutan has received several offers from scientists and organizations [bbc.co.uk] who want to fly experiments on SpaceShipOne. He's turned them down, however, as he wants to focus on using SpaceShipOne as a development platform to perfect his next-generation space vehicle, which will be sold not only to Virgin Galactic, but to four or five other unannounced companies.
Interestingly, according to the BBC article [bbc.co.uk]: "Once its flight life is over, SpaceShipOne will be joining other notable ships of exploration at the Air and Space museum. Except for one piece. Rutan plans to pack up to 100g of SpaceShipOne to fly on the New Horizons' mission to Pluto - the first non-governmental launch into deep space."
suborbital cargo/passenger flight (Score:2)
What are the basic economics of SpaceShipOne? (Score:2)
And how many flights is one good for before it becomes non-air/spaceworthy?
If you sum the first figures and divide by the second figure, it should give us a close idea as to what a quickie space tourist ride would cost. It doesn't factor in research, but I guess as a business I'd largely ignore that for savings relat
Asteroid mining (Score:2)
but the big bucks are in lassoing an asteroid and
sending bucket loads of precious metals earthside.
Where's my flying car??? (Score:2)
Numerous Benefits: Travel, Suborbital, LEO, FedEx (Score:3, Insightful)
This is where the world WAS going, but very slowly and not exactly driven much. The really great thing about SpaceShipOne is not necessarily the design itself but the ATTENTION it is generating and the hope it is putting into people's eyes, most importantly those of INVESTORS! Investors are cold people who look at bottom lines and ROI's like doctors look at vital signs. They don't care about what is really cool and what could be amazing some day, with rare exceptions like Paul Allen and other dreamers. Those rare exceptions are the ones who often have the highest risk but also the greatest ability to influence change. Like the old Apple commercial: here's to the dreamers, the crazy ones,
Anyway, the attention we're getting on this front is AMAZING. The X-Prize Cup will continue to influence people to push into space, and companies like Virgin Galactic will actually push hundreds of people into suborbital flight within a few years! And given that humans would always push for more, they will invariably push to LEO flight, then the moon, and then Mars and elsewhere.
It has to start somewhere with a catalyst, and NASA has certainly NOT done its job in this effort (with all honesty, it was never their job to do this with the exception of Apollo).
I would predict that by 2014, you will have global flights with max times of 90 minutes, SAME-DAY global delivery (send a package from NYC at 10 AM and have it arrive an hour later in Rome), regular LEO flights to primitive but functional orbiting hotels, and even the first commercial expedition to the moon, funded by corporate investors and reality TV shows.
The point is that the catalyst has arrived!!!! I've been waiting for this catalyst for YEARS.
God bless everyone who has made this happen---the SpaceShipOne crew, Paul Allen, Peter Diamondis, and especially NASA for having done nothing in 30 years that required us to do it for ourselves.
Ad Astra Per Aspera!
Re:Numerous Benefits: Travel, Suborbital, LEO, Fed (Score:2)
90 minutes around the globe means orbital speed pretty much exactly. Once you are in orbit, you can choose the time you're up at your leisure.
Mass Drivers (Score:2, Interesting)
Tourism's a good start (Score:2)
Oh, and if I can get a flying car out of this somehow, I'll be very happy.
The next step? Local or Long Distance? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, really, what you want is a local use of long distance development.
And that, really, means to move from "barely enters space" on to the harder things... in order, that would be
Each of those steps gets progressively harder. But, for your uses... once LEO becomes economical, your trip from L.A. to Sydney is just a modification of a LEO orbital insertion.
LEO is closer to 230 miles high, instead of the current 60 miles high. It's a serious difference, and, from what I've read, SpaceShipOne isn't really designed for that. I'm not bashing Rutan and his people, they made a well-designed craft for the purpose it was designed, which, unfortunately, has nothing to do with going into orbit.
But then, give them a few years of income from people willing to pay $200K for "Oh! I got in space for 3 minutes!" and they'll be working on the next level, which is that hotel in LEO you've probably already heard about. And then they (or someone else) will start thinking about hotels on the moon, and you'll get another level of development.
If you want to make this commercial, forget about science as a driving factor. It will be economics and Return On Investment, and for the next 10-20 years that's going to mean "silly" tourism. Profitable, but not terribly useful, other than for funding development towards stages that will be useful. If we're lucky, when the LEO hotel becomes a reality, some space will be devoted to science, but it will probably be purely for PR purposes.
Remember also that this was never planned for heavy-lift capabilities, which limits the scientific usefulness, because scientific gear for space tends to be heavy.
People mention asteroid mining, but I'm not so sure that will happen any time in the next 50 years. It would be nice, I admit... but it's not even needed until we get some good space construction capabilities, and even then you have the moon to play around with first. There's plenty of resources on the moon, and getting them off is easy, as long as it's just cargo... Mass drivers built to barely exceed lunar escape velocity gets you processed packages in orbit for easy pickup, and not nearly the miles required to go snag an asteroid... even the closer ones inside the orbit of Mars. Remember, it's not just getting there... it's getting there with something you can use to move the thing back to a useful orbit close to Earth. That's a whole different level of complexity and difficulty. What do you use to move something that masses 100 million tons, anyway? That's about what an asteroid 1/2 mile in diameter will mass. (Aircraft carriers are less than 100,000 tons, oil super tankers around 250,000 tones.) Or do you want to set up an outpost there? (And you thought corporate-owned mining towns in the US Old West were bad...)
Re:The next step? Local or Long Distance? (Score:2)
The obvious answer is: Part of the asteroid.
The energy almost certainly would have to come from nuclear reactors.
And you already mentioned mass drivers.
What is next? (Score:2)
Burt Rutans plans as seen on "Black Sky" (Score:3, Interesting)
The first sketch he showed was SS1 attached to the top of a rocket, about twice the length of SS1. Presumably the idea being to boost it up higher than White Knight could get, then kick over to the internal rocket. Presumably to get into LEO.
The second was a concept for a orbital hotel, with a wheel nearby for an "exercise ring." He even admitted that the ring was cribbed from Von Braun. He was a bit "mystical" when describing what you could do in the hotel (observation domes where you could go to "contemplate"), but none the less, it would be a potential cash cow, if he / they can get the funding / customers / aproval.
Initially, if it flys (pardon the pun), I could see the uber-rich schmoes forking over $50k a night to stay up there, plus flight expenses. Eventually, just like with airline travel, the prices would begin to edge down to where normal folks could swing it, but it would be one of those "once in a lifetime" trips.
Of course, success hinges on on a few things. Money, first off, as always. Second, the public, and governments, will need to be willing to accept a certain amount of risk, and likely a few tragedies (Space hotel suffers blowout! News at 11!) The public, if the costs come down before any tragedies, *might* be willing to keep on going. The government, will potentially, and if the bill that is also being discussed here gets passed, try to kill private spaceflight with passengers (and possibly all together)
Which would bite. Because I want to retire to the damn Moon at Armstrong Base. Or be around to see the Utopia Planetia yards begin construction.
Just my
Jason
The real money is in the mass market (Score:3, Interesting)
Since then no one has come up with a reasonable alternative to Concorde, because it is all driven by the bottom line. Most people will put up with staying in a cramped cabin to go from Sydney to London for 30h (I know what I'm talking about because I've done it many times) if it means paying $1500 rather than $3000. It's not that bad and you get over it quickly.
Air travel supplanted ships because it became actually cheaper. Until the 70s most people still came to Australia by boat because it was cheaper. The big Boeings and MDDs changed that.
To be an enormous success that will change the face of travel as opposed to a pricey technology for the happy few, space travel has to become incredibly cheap, so that flying from SYD to NYC costs the same or less than a plane ticket does right now for the same distance.
Is this going to happen? Well if it is possible it will, it is as simple as that, but I'm not optimistic that it will happen in less than 10 years.
For all of those who rail that NASA (or NASDA or ESA) haven't done their jobs, I'm pretty much convinced that putting things into orbit using current rockets technology is already as cheap as it can be, for the simple reason that the satellite market is already a commercial venture and that there is fierce competition between the Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and Russian space agencies to drive the prices as low as possible. Any newcomer will have to (a) absorb the cost of R&D and (b) run an even tighter ship than any of these agencies to be able to compete. At the moment it doesn't look too good on the bottom line.
As for human travel in space it is still incredibly dangerous, as the recent space shuttle disaster reminds us. CEO might want to travel fast, but they also want to arrive in one piece.
So, what's the plan? Innovation. Someone somewhere has to come up with a new cheap, efficient and safe space drive.
Maybe Rutan or someone like him will be able to put a sputnik-equivalent something into orbit within 10 years but unless he can make it incredibly cheap by some unknown means then it simply won't fly.
Right now the rubber-NOX engine suborbital flight is a very cool stunt. I just hope they have something much more interesting up their sleeve.
Re:PhDs (Score:4, Funny)