spaceshiptwo – Techdirt (original) (raw)
Stories filed under: "spaceshiptwo"
DailyDirt: Space Tourism vs Working In Space
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Even though there are less than a handful of ways for people to get into space right now, there may be a few more options in the near future to get close to space or into low earth orbit. If you have the resources, you could just book a seat on a Soyuz for $20-70 million. But for a bit less, you can book a trip on various vehicles without a decades-long track record. Or… you could be paid to be an astronaut if you have the skills, but the odds of getting selected are pretty slim.
- Virgin Galactic has built a replacement for its SpaceShipTwo vehicle that was destroyed in a fatal accident. The new VSS Unity incorporates a few more automated safety features and uses a different rocket fuel — and may someday take dozens (hundreds?) of passengers to the edge of space as tourists. [url]
- Over 18,000 people have applied to become an astronaut for NASA — in order to be named one of the 8 to 14 new astronauts in 2017. It’s never been easy to be selected as an astronaut, but this is apparently the highest number of applications that NASA has received (even when NASA still operated a vehicle that could take people into space). [url]
- World View Enterprises is another step closer to building its own “spaceport” in Arizona. Spaceport Tuscon would launch World View’s high altitude balloons to about 100,000 feet up in pressurized cabins. FYI, World View owns the tech that helped ex-Google VP Alan Eustace make a record-breaking skydive from an altitude of 135,908 feet. [url]
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Filed Under: astronauts, leo, manned missions, soyuz, space, space exploration, space tourism, spaceport, spaceport tuscon, spaceshiptwo, vss unity
Companies: nasa, virgin galactic, world view enterprises
DailyDirt: Plenty Of Spaceships… Sorta
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The number of ways to get a person into space is pretty limited at the moment. Only Russia and China have operational launch systems that can escape the Earth’s gravity (with people as passengers). There are a bunch more spaceships in development, though, so if you really want to get into space without a Soyuz or Shenzhou, you’ll have to be patient. There have been a few recent accidents, but it looks like engineers have figured out some of the problems.
- Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo crash was evidently caused by human error. Co-pilot Michael Alsbury prematurely unlocked the ship’s braking system which deployed and led to a catastrophic structural failure. This spacecraft was designed with minimal automated systems to reduce complexity, but Virgin Galactic has added a safety feature to prevent this from happening again — and the design philosophy that favors manual systems may need additional tweaking. [url]
- EmDrive is a theoretically impossible propulsion system that produces “anomalous thrust” which has been observed by at least two independent labs now. It’s still not clear what is going on, but if this technology actually works, it would completely change the timetables for space travel. An EmDrive-powered vehicle could reach Pluto in 18 months — instead of the years that it took New Horizons to do so. [url]
- If you want to just see the edge of space, there are more and more helium-balloon-like ways to get there. Stratospheric ballooning for space tourism might be a bit safer than a rocket to LEO, and maybe a little bit cheaper. (Who’s counting
penniesc-notes when we’re talking about traveling to the edge of space?) [url] - Blue Origin has tested its New Shepard suborbital system successfully, but it didn’t recover its reusable booster stage. Ultimately, the New Shepard spaceship will hold 3 passengers and reach an altitude of 62 miles, but further unmanned testing will be done before passengers are allowed onboard. [url]
After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.
Filed Under: emdrive, leo, new shepard, propulsion, shenzhou, soyuz, space tourism, spacecraft, spaceships, spaceshiptwo, stratospheric ballooning
Companies: blue origin, virgin galactic
DailyDirt: Getting Into Space
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The cost of putting something into space has been getting a bit cheaper over time, but it’s still not exactly affordable (unless you count the helium balloons that can reach altitudes of around 100,000 feet or roughly 30 km). The edge of space is generally considered to be about 100 km (~62 miles or ~330,000 feet) up. Here are just a few projects making some progress in getting stuff into space on the cheap.
- The International Space Station is scheduled to launch 33 cubesats into space. Some of these tiny satellites will be used for detailed imaging of the Earth’s surface, and a couple of these cubesats will make Lithuania and Peru into spacefaring nations for the first time. [url]
- The concept of a space cannon that can shoot things into space isn’t new, but a guy from Canada wants to build one in his backyard. Richard Graf has a Kickstarter project, looking for $65,000 to help him continue his work. [url]
- Virgin Galactic is getting closer to being able to offer commercial space flights to passengers (maybe later this year?). Virgin Galactic’s third supersonic test flight for SpaceShipTwo has reached an altitude of 71,000 feet, its highest flight yet. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: cubesat, iss, richard graf, satellites, space, space cannon, spaceflight, spaceshiptwo, suborbital missions, supersonic, virgin galactic
Companies: kickstarter, virgin galactic