NASA and the Private Sector - Page 68

On November 21 2015 08:47 Thorakh wrote:
But isn't that the point? It would be a massive accomplishment for humankind and would inspire billions of people around the globe. That alone is enough reason to go to Mars.

Regardless, it wouldn't even be a complete waste of money because lots of new technologies would need to be developed that could have benefits back here on Earth as well.

On November 21 2015 08:50 zlefin wrote:
Starting on a moonbase would be more helpful and a sounder plan (if done properly).

Manned commercial space flight took a giant leap forward as Nasa signed its first mission orders with California-based private spaceflight company SpaceX to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.

SpaceX joins Boeing, which signed a similar contract with the space agency in May, in planning for the first private manned launches to the station, provisionally scheduled to take place towards the end of 2017. But before they do, both companies will have to pass a stringent certification process for both their hardware and their astronauts, Tabatha Thomson, public affairs officer at Nasa, said.

The missions will not take place until Nasa verifies the safety of the equipment and crew. The flights, assuming they pass the certification, will take place on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.

It has not yet been determined what specific missions the astronauts will be doing on the flight. But when SpaceX and Boeing successfully pass their certification tests, Thomson said, it will allow Nasa to to concentrate on “long-duration space flight”.

The cost of contracting out low-orbit manned operations to commercial operations like Boeing and SpaceX is considerably less than what Nasa currently pays the Russian Federal Space Agency for use of their Soyuz vehicle – their only option since the retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011.

On November 21 2015 12:34 JimmyJRaynor wrote:


i'd be impressed if some organization can just break out of low earth orbit... its been 43+ years now... so even just doing that would be a major accomplishment.

Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company, applauds President Obama who signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2262) into law. This law recognizes the right of U.S. citizens to own asteroid resources they obtain and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids.

“This is the single greatest recognition of property rights in history,” said Eric Anderson, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc. “This legislation establishes the same supportive framework that created the great economies of history, and will encourage the sustained development of space.”

Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc., said, “A hundred years from now, humanity will look at this period in time as the point in which we were able to establish a permanent foothold in space. In history, there has never been a more rapid rate progress than right now.”

On the Monday before Thanksgiving NASA made what it deemed a momentous announcement: the space agency had awarded $1.16 billion to Aerojet Rocketdyne for rocket engines that would power its “Journey to Mars.” By contrast, a few hours earlier, the private space company Blue Origin secretly launched a rocket into space and safely landed it. The contrast between the deal struck in corridors of Washington D.C. and what had happened in the desert of West Texas could not have been more stark.

The engines that will power NASA’s new rocket, the Space Launch System, were first developed in 1970. These RS-25 engines that gave the space shuttle its thrust were engineering marvels; with some refurbishment NASA could use them over and over again. But now NASA is funding a contract to restart production of those old engines because they would no longer be reused. Like the rest of the massive SLS rocket, its engines will be used once and then burn up in the atmosphere.

In contrast to the billions of dollars NASA spends on legacy hardware, Blue Origin has received about $25 million from the agency during its 15-year existence. That’s less than the cost of a single RS-25 engine. With the launch of its New Shepard vehicle, Blue Origin has gone not only for reusable engines but a reusable booster and a reusable spacecraft. Why? Because this approach is much, much cheaper than throwing flight-quality hardware away after every launch.

In a call with reporters after New Shepard’s launch, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos was almost incredulous when asked about NASA’s vision for the future of rocketry with its completely expendable SLS launcher. “The holy grail of rocketry is full reusability,” Bezos explained.

Bezos then spoke of Wernher von Braun, the German rocket scientist who built the deadly V-2 rocket for Hitler before defecting to the United States at the end of World War II. Later von Braun would help popularize the exploration of space in his adopted country, and he designed the Saturn V rocket that blasted Neil and Buzz to the Moon. The German would be shocked, Bezos said, that NASA is still flying essentially the same hardware he designed in the 1960s.

Launching satellites, spacecraft and people into space is expensive because we only use our launch vehicles once. After delivering their payloads into orbit, our rockets either burn up in the atmosphere or crash into the ocean. Imagine how expensive a transatlantic flight would be if aircraft made only a single flight before being scrapped – this is the situation with the commercial space industry. Rocket fuel accounts for only 1,000th of the total launch cost, with the rest largely accounted for by the one-shot, disposable launch vehicle.

Engineers have spent decades on this problem, and finally two different solutions have emerged: US-based SpaceX has built a rocket that can return to base, using its rocket engines to land vertically, while UK-based Reaction Engines is touting Skylon, a spaceplane built around its hybrid turbojet/rocket SABRE engine, which can travel into space – but takes off and lands on a runway like an aircraft.

On December 21 2015 11:42 Rassy wrote:
Wow that is epic, like tin tin on the moon.
Never thought they would make such a rocket though I guess the Apollo had something similar when landing on the moon.

Still, 5 years since the start of this thread.
The future always comes slower then expected.

Just compare the progress from 1960 to 1970 with the progress from 2005-2015.