First on the list would be a vehicle that's capable of delivering substantial mass to Mars and then returning to Earth. The company's planned Falcon Heavy rocket, the plans for which were unveiled in April, could conceivably carry 12 to 15 metric tons, but "I think you'll probably want a vehicle that can deliver something on the order of 50 metric tons ... in a fully reusable manner," Musk said.
Unfortunately people feel the answer to this problem is a super heavy lift vehicle. I don't know how we became obsessed with massive Ares V style rockets, but congress/NASA seem to feel they are destined to build one. It would be a far more beneficial and worthwhile investment to solve the problems keeping us from building fuel depots and tugs than to design and build a massive rocket that will be obsolete before it gets off the ground. Falcon 9 Heavy is nowhere near the scale of the proposed requirements for super heavies, but I worry that the buzz surrounding it will reignite the desire to build one.
The Dragon spacecraft needs extra electrical power to conduct station operations. That power is provided via two solar arrays, one of which is seen in this image. Photo Credit: SpaceX
In a SpaceX clean room shown above in Hawthorne (Los Angeles) California, technicians prepare the Dragon spacecraft for thermal vacuum chamber testing. The open bays will hold the parachutes. NASA has given us a launch date of Nov 30, 2011 for Falcon 9 Flight 3, which will send a Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.
Over the last several months, SpaceX has been hard at work preparing for our next flight - a mission designed to demonstrate that a privately-developed space transportation system can deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has given us a Nov. 30, 2011 launch date, which should be followed nine days later by Dragon berthing at the ISS.
NASA has agreed in principle to allow SpaceX to combine all of the tests and demonstration activities that we originally proposed as two separate missions (COTS Demo 2 and COTS Demo 3) into a single mission. Furthermore, SpaceX plans to carry additional payloads aboard the Falcon 9's second stage which will deploy after Dragon separates and is well on its way to the ISS. NASA will grant formal approval for the combined COTS missions pending resolution of any potential risks associated with these secondary payloads. Our team continues to work closely with NASA to resolve all questions and concerns.
This next mission represents a huge milestone not only for SpaceX, but also for NASA and the US space program. When the astronauts stationed on the ISS open the hatch and enter the Dragon spacecraft for the first time, it will mark the beginning of a new era in space travel.
Very exciting! This is awesome news, to see NASA working with SpaceX on manned missions, especially with the impending budget cuts and the demise of the shuttle program.
This also brings some hope to the JWST. Although the Hubble went through many similar set backs including budget cuts and cost overruns, the proposed cutting of funding to the James Webb is a very scary reality we might face in the near future.
$4.5 billion for NASA Science programs, which is $431 million below last year’s level. The bill also terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management.
Most of the energy of the start is used up to actually get the whole rocket / spaceship moving in the first few seconds. Personally I have always thought it should be cheaper to build something like the steam catapult on an aircraft carrier (although without the super rapid acceleration at the start) OR a carrier plane to give the entire thing the initial acceleration (and maybe a bonus boost for height in the case of a carrier plane. Vertical starts with huge fuel consumption are dangerous and cost inefficient.
So in a sense I am happy for any new approach to the problem of getting people and equipment into space, but I also feel that capsules are not the right way to go. They are the easiest (and maybe the cheapest) way, but we shouldnt go about it the easy way but rather the sustainable long term way. Eventually - if Star Trek is to become true - we will need shuttles to get up there and back down anyways.
I also think that we should stop wasting the energy for moving stuff up there by sending up satellites (or space telescopes) which are designed for a limited lifetime only. Throw away goods arent very intelligent when it comes to long term use of resources and the amount of trash surrounding this planet is potentially dangerous to any manned space missions. Thus we need big and modular platforms for our geostationary satellites and fewer spy and GPS satellites in close orbit.
So I do have a problem with making it cheaper to bring stuff into space, because that will "Walmart" it and eventually make it too dangerous for some things due to the excess of waste up there.
I'm a bit curious as to how a private company like this is funded? Is it based on a contract? I have a hard time figuring out how to make profit from such a large investment that would seem to not have that much commercial use.
Very cool though. Always liked NASA and space travel etc. Hopefully they can take it to a new level soon.
i feel stuff like out of space travel, and eventually perhaps interaction with other races, is best left regulated and in control of NASA, i would hope if some insane discoverery was made NASA would start up again and take control. would feel safer knowing that an organisation, albiet an american organisation, was behind it not a private company
I'm sure this is putting more pressure on SpaceX to be successful:
An "emergency situation" occurred during today's launch of a robotic Russian resupply ship headed for the International Space Station, preventing the Soyuz rocket from placing the freighter into orbit.
Communications were lost about six minutes into what should have been a nine-minute ascent provided by the three-stage rocket.
The core stage of the Soyuz shut down and separated about five minutes after liftoff, leaving the four-nozzle engine of the upper stage to burn its mixture of kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen for the final boost needed to achieve the proper orbit.
Separation of the Progress 44P was expected at 9:09 a.m. EDT (1309 GMT) to start its two-day automated chase to rendezvous with the station for docking Friday.
Instead, the malfunction sent the rocket falling back to Earth. The Interfax news agency reported the spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere over eastern Russia.
On August 25 2011 01:55 ilovelings wrote: Well, accidents happen. We have not seen private accidents yet because there are little to no private space shuttles.
True I simply meant that this is basically a kick in the pants that there needs to be more options to supply the ISS etc. This is about the downtime of the Soyuz launcher, and therefore the Soyuz spacecraft. Keep in mind the astronauts are NOT stranded but they can't be replaced either. Not that they will have to leave as they more than enough supplies.
I can only imagine the heads that will roll in Russia over this especially after the "Era of Reliability" and the "Era of Soyuz" proclamations.
An "emergency situation" occurred during today's launch of a robotic Russian resupply ship headed for the International Space Station, preventing the Soyuz rocket from placing the freighter into orbit.
Communications were lost about six minutes into what should have been a nine-minute ascent provided by the three-stage rocket.
The core stage of the Soyuz shut down and separated about five minutes after liftoff, leaving the four-nozzle engine of the upper stage to burn its mixture of kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen for the final boost needed to achieve the proper orbit.
Separation of the Progress 44P was expected at 9:09 a.m. EDT (1309 GMT) to start its two-day automated chase to rendezvous with the station for docking Friday.
Instead, the malfunction sent the rocket falling back to Earth. The Interfax news agency reported the spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere over eastern Russia.
Currently the ISS has about 2-3 months of supplies remaining.
This is incorrect, actually. ISS currently has the consumables to last until May 2012 due to the upmass brought on board by the last shuttle flight. The largest problem with this failure is that the 3rd stage that failed is the same system that launches the manned Soyuz system. The ISS guys are currently scrambling to figure out a way to ensure the problem is completely resolved before the next Soyuz is scheduled to launch carrying 2 Russians and 1 American.
They are the easiest (and maybe the cheapest) way, but we shouldnt go about it the easy way but rather the sustainable long term way. Eventually - if Star Trek is to become true - we will need shuttles to get up there and back down anyways.
Building a shuttle isn't the long term solution. This is.
Until such time as humanity can muster the resources, manpower, will and technological know how to complete such an undertaking however cheap (relatively) disposable rockets appear to be the logical continuation unless theres some fundamental breakthroughs in physics this century.
LAS CRUCES, NM - For the second consecutive year, Spaceport America has received a federal grant award to help fund new spaceport infrastructure. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grant is worth $249,378 toward the cost of a roll-back vehicle integration building at Spaceport America The FAA announced the Space Transportation Infrastructure Matching (STIM) grant award on Friday, August 26. The matching grant program was created to ensure the resiliency of the space transportation infrastructure in the United States, which will rely more heavily on the commercial sector for future space activity, research and exploration.
"These matching funds from the FAA are crucial for improving our vertical launch capabilities and expanding services for our launch customers," said New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) Executive Director, Christine Anderson. The roll-back vehicle integration building will be located inside the Vertical Launch Area (VLA) of Spaceport America and will be able to accommodate the larger vehicles that are under development.
"Currently, we can only accommodate vehicles up to approximately 24 feet long and five feet wide," said Anderson. "New vehicles under development are much longer, and some have wings for gliding recovery," explained Anderson. "The new roll-back vehicle integration building will let us handle these new vehicles as they come on line."
The roll-back vehicle integration building is projected to cost $498,756, of which the FAA grant will pay for half.
There is also now serious discussion going on about the ISS being unmanned due to the Soyuz missions being delayed as far as November, the same month as SpaceX plans to to perform it's tests which include berthing and delivering supplies to the space station.
The United States spends $20.2 billion annually on air conditioning for troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan — more than NASA's entire budget, NPR reported.
Its been 40 years since NASA has taken a living thing more than 450 KM off the earth's surface. During this time countless promises have been made that NASA will return to the "glory days" of the "Apollo Era".
After listening to these dozens of broken promises, missed timelines, and wasted budget money it is time to conclude that NASA is not capable of anything more than low earth orbit space flights.
Blue Origin has suffered a (major?)setback after it's vehicle had to be terminated at 45,000 feet:
Three months ago, we successfully flew our second test vehicle in a short hop mission, and then last week we lost the vehicle during a developmental test at Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 45,000 feet. A flight instability drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle. Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we're signed up for this to be hard, and the Blue Origin team is doing an outstanding job. We're already working on our next development vehicle.
The vehicle became unstable at 45,000 feet (13,700 meters) and ground controllers had to terminate it as a precaution. Additional details about what went wrong were not released.
"Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we're signed up for this to be hard," Bezos wrote in a blog post Friday.
Bezos founded Blue Origin to develop a vertical takeoff and landing rocketship that would fly passengers to suborbital space. It recently won money from NASA to compete to go into orbit as a space taxi now that the space shuttle fleet is retired.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) proposes to issue an experimental permit to Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) to conduct suborbital launches and landings of the Grasshopper reusable launch vehicle (RLV) at the McGregor, Texas test site. ... The Grasshopper RLV consists of a Falcon 9 Stage 1 tank, a Merlin-1D engine, four steel landing legs, and a steel support structure. Carbon overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), which are filled with either nitrogen or helium, are attached to the support structure. The Merlin- 1D engine has a maximum thrust of 122,000 pounds. The overall height of the Grasshopper RLV is 106 feet, and the tank height is 85 feet.
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