Posted on 09/02/2006 5:39:43 PM PDT by saganite
AFTER the destruction of America’s Columbia space shuttle three years ago, the final frontier was in danger of becoming a frontier too far.
The shuttle programme began to be wound down, aspirations for the International Space Station were scaled back and scientific projects such as the Hubble telescope were decommissioned.
However, beyond the shuttle, space is a booming market and, for the first time, much of the drive is coming from the private sector. The multibillion-dollar satellite business continues to be very important to companies including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and EADS, which builds the Ariane rocket.
Russia, China and Japan also have growing commercial satellite launch systems.
Manned flight is also making a comeback, with Lockheed Martin winning a $4 billion (£2.1 billion) contract from Nasa to build the next generation of manned spacecraft for the United States.
The Orion project, which was announced two days ago, will replace the space shuttle from about 2014. According to Lockheed Martin, Orion will transport “a new generation of human explorers to and from the International Space Station, the Moon, and eventually to Mars and beyond”.
However, while these giant aerospace corporations soak up government-funded projects, there are dozens of small companies, often backed by successful and famous entrepreneurs, that are already aiming for the stars.
The highest-profile of these is Virgin Galactic, which has signed up about 200 people for suborbital flights starting in 2008, including the Superman director Bryan Singer.
Galactic’s space ship is being built by Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, and Burt Rutan, an aerospace designer. Sir Richard Branson is providing the commercial power and the company has already taken $16.8 million in deposits from customers.
The five proposed Virgin Galactic ships will be launched from a carrier aircraft at about 55,000ft and then rocket up to 70 miles above the Earth.
The passengers will be on the very edge of space before gliding back to Earth.
However, tourism is only the start of Virgin’s plans. Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, said: “In time, we want to be launching orbital craft, science ships and transport ships, but we think that to get there we need to develop the tourism market first. That is where the demand is at the moment and we are telling our customers that they are helping us to invest in the future of space travel.”
The Russians were the first to recognise that tourism could be used to fund other space activities and in two weeks they will carry their fourth paying customer to the International Space Station. Anousheh Ansari, who lives in Texas, has paid $20 million for the trip on the Soyuz rocket. She is indulging part of her $750 million fortune, which she made by setting up an American telecoms company, on the eight-day trip.
Other high-tech entrepreneurs are also moving from the digital world to out-of-this world. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has set up Blue Origin to build a three-man suborbital rocket ship.
John Carmack, developer of Doom and Quake, the computer games, has set up Armadillo Aerospace to build liquid oxygen and ethanol rocket ships. Elon Musk, who founded PayPal, has just won a $278 million contract from Nasa to build a cargo spaceship.
Mr Whitehorn said: “Space has been a government monopoly for 50 years and it will take people like us to prove that we can make it work in the private sector too.”
ROUTE TO MARS
Nasa and the European Space Agency (ESA) are focusing on Mars as the medium-term goal of their exploration programmes. Both intend to send a flotilla of unmanned craft there over the next decade and a half, and the Americans are also planning manned missions to the Moon to test technologies that would be required for a Martian voyage.
2007
Nasa will launch the Phoenix, a relatively cheap landing probe, to Mars.
2008
Nasa will launch the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which will survey potential landing sites for manned missions.
2009
Launch date for Mars Science Laboratory, which will be the most sophisticated lander sent to the Red Planet. The nuclear-powered rover will be twice the size of the Spirit and Opportunity probes that landed there in 2004 and will look for signs of life. It is to arrive in the autumn of 2010.
2010
The scheduled completion date for the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour, the remaining Nasa shuttles, are to be retired, leaving Nasa without its own manned spaceflight capacity until Orion becomes operational. Until then Nasa will rely on Russian Soyuz modules to launch astronauts.
2011
Proposed launch date for ESA’s ExoMars rover. ESA’s member states have pledged €650 million to the project, which may enable the agency to launch a dedicated Mars orbiter at the same time. Instruments will seek life.
2014
Proposed date for the launch of Orion. A crew of six will go into low Earth orbit and visit the ISS. The same module is designed to take four to the Moon. Nasa intends that it will form a key part of a Mars mission, possibly transferring astronauts to a staging post on the Moon.
2016
ESA and Nasa are planning return missions to Mars; unmanned probes would land, collect samples and return to Earth. The agencies may end up collaborating on a single project.
2020
Nasa proposes to send Orion astronauts to the Moon.
2025 to 2035
Likely period in which Nasa and/or ESA will embark on a manned mission to Mars.
Can you believe what the pork-barrelers are doing to the NASA-funded competitive prizes program?
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp109&sid=cp109s0tv8&refer=&r_n=sr280.109&item=&sel=TOC_385521&
"The Committee does not provide any funding in fiscal year 2007 for the Centennial Challenges program. Funding provided in previous fiscal years for this program is sufficient for NASA to run a prize based competition, as
well as to verify that NASA will see tangential benefits from running such a program. Providing additional funds to a program based on prizes only creates a pot of unused funds while other aspects of NASA's mission are
being cut or delayed due to a lack of funds."
Discussed here:
http://www.spacepolitics.com/archives/001028.html
and indirectly here: http://www.spaceprojects.com/prizes
It's a kum-bi-yah, diversity in action, wet dream, just as it was intended to be in the first place.
It hasn't produced anything worthwhile that required a crewed station, and primarily was a taxpayer subsidy for the Russian space program. We need to pull the plug now, since the Russians are making loads of cash off their hydrocarbon sales, and selling rifle factories and advanced fighters to Venezuela.
But we won't.
>>>the Russians are...selling rifle factories and advanced fighters to Venezuela<<<
This is most unfortunate. Chavez is a problem.
So is Putin.
Both Putin and Chavez want to remain in power indefinitely, and have tried to modify the laws accordingly. Chavez's push is reportedly underway right now (through a referendum).
Chavez's push s/b down an elevator shaft.
Before you do that Spin off JPL and let them run the unmanned planetary exploration program. Those guys do a great job there.
Yeah, if they're the ones doing the mini-probes and such, that's not unreasonable. Mostly I'm talking about the Shuttle fleet, and manned efforts in general.
The United States is the leader for construction of the ISS, but Americans will probably hand over much control over the stations to the other members (Russia and the ESA mainly, but Japan and Canada are also members), as NASA tries to go on with Bush's vision for space exploration.
See comment 52.
> How come the article has ESA, but uses Nasa?
My Conspiracy Theory Of The Day: it's subtle psyops. Same as news articles that refer to President Clinton out bopping around, and meeting with Mr. Bush.
I certainally hope that the ship is being built by Mr. Rutan. I wouldn't want to ride in a ship built by a guy who's company is known for "Blue Screen of Death", lock-ups, crashes and 5 minute boot times. :-/
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