Cover story: The new space race

Las Vegas Mercury ^ | 1/17/02 | GEORGE KNAPP

[Brett66]

NASA should stand for No Access to Space for Americans

[Brett66]

indexing

[Brett66]

Ping.

[NC_Libertarian]

"NASA figured it would spend about a billion dollars to build its module. If it costs me half a billion to do the same, then I've failed completely," Bigelow says. "I can't be satisfied with cutting the cost in half. We are looking for a complete breathrough, a way to change the whole equation of going into space. Hopefully, one of our modules can be built for $50 million."

This is because Bigelow earned his money. NASA didn't.

[El Sordo]

Well, this should be interesting.

Sy, does anyone know whatever happened to the Roton?

[RightWhale]

Bigelow has been real quiet about his space hotel since he announced the plan a few years ago on the Art Bell show. He will have competition, from some Japanese in particular, and they have deeper pockets. It didn't seem at the time that Bigelow had the capital on his own to pull it off, and he wasn't accepting outside investment.

[DoctorMichael]

....5....4....3....2....1....Bump.

[B-Chan]

< cartman > Kick ass. < /cartman >

Rotary Rocket went belly-up last year. The tech was good -- but they ran out of cash. Roton mastermind Gary C. Hudson is still alive and well, however, and who knows what he'll come up with next time?

[Brett66]

It's too bad about the ROTON, I liked the concept. Maybe at a future date this idea will get off the launch pad.

[NC_Libertarian]

NASA is profoundly unAmerican and should be totally dimantled. A new limited space agency concerned with defense and only defense should be created. Everything else should be opened to enterprising free men.

[discostu]

Yeah privatizing space. Message to NASA: put up or shut up, and don't tell us space is "dangerous" we knew that already.

[Brett66]

If men like Bigelow succeed, then NASA can be made irrelevant. This could lead to their demise, but those senators are addicted to NASA's pork like crack cocaine.

[Congressman Billybob]

In answer to your question, Dick Roton is the "test pilot" of a privately financed, reuseable launch vehicle. That project is also located in the Las Vegas area. A test launch of a small-scale prototype was reported in an article about a month ago.

This is one of those subjects which is entirely feasible from a technical standpoint. All it takes is the wilolingness and the wherewithall to do it. This man seems to have both.

Congressman Billybob

Phil & Billybob in the mornings.

[marktwain]

Anyone who is interested in this subject should read "Kings of the High Frontier" by Victor Koman. It is very well written and was one of the first books that was published in cyberspace before it was published in paper. There are still a few copies out there, I'd check ABEBOOKS and Amazon to find one. I believe it won the science fiction Prometheus Award *Before being published on paper*!

I have no financial interest in Kings of the High Frontier, but it is a great book!

[dr_who]

Viva Los Vegas.

[Brett66]

XCOR

Dick Rutan is the test pilot for XCOR. His brother, Burt Rutan, is the team leader at scaled composites- an X-Prize contender.

[anymouse]

Looks like "Superchicken"'s eggcopter. :)

Seriously, I know the guys building and financing XCOR's rocketplane. Sharp guys, but I'm still skeptical about the value of this particular contraption. Not that it won't lead to better products down the road.

[marktwain]

Allow underfunded underengineered free lancers to dump their stuff in orbit and soon space would become useless. You aren't thinking clearly. Your argument is nonsense. We already are in the situation that you describe, and space is far from useless. The only difference is that any "underfunded and underengineered" stuff that goes up now is from some third world government like India or China. Remember that space is a lot larger than earth. There is no one in overall charge of the Oceans, which are a lot smaller and only a two dimensional surface for 99.99% of the traffic on them, yet the oceans have not become "unusable".

Let space junk accumulate to where it is a real problem, and I predict some private space junk dealer will make a fortune. That mass cost a fortune to put in obit, and so it is potentially worth a lot up there.

[anymouse]

Don't know if you saw this yet?

There is a space bump list that you can seach on too.