Archive through August 22, 2023
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Non-Game Discussions: Real-World Space Exploration:
Archive through August 22, 2023
So now there are THREE main private billionaire "vanity" space companies? Blue Origin, Space X and Virgin Galatic?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies
Its a tad messier than that.
Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic provide suborbital flight profiles. VG's craft has a little more usable volume it seems, so you can do a short(!) microgravity experiment. Landing in a glider seems more fun too 
SpaceX private flights have come in two flavors:
- orbital flights using Crew Dragon with private riders/pilot. Inspiration4 was the first of these, I think they are planning another.
- private "missions" to the ISS, facilitated by Axiom Space. These have been planned as ~7 day stays, though I think they stayed about two weeks last time due to issues on the ground.
Someone was looking at circling the moon once and returning... That still on someones plate...
I almost hate to bring this up, but the idea of billionaires flying into space just because they can afford to do so makes me think of the idea of billionaires diving down to the Titanic, just because they can afford to do so.
Quote:but the idea of billionaires flying into space just because they can afford to do so
The idea of the money returning to the system, instead of just sitting around is appealing....
Like Musk buying Twitter, whoever gets it in the long run, it's moving through the system.....
Better to be spent creating jobs and economic boost for many families rather than sit in some stock accounts generating wealth for on family.
SpaceX requires you to take weeks of training, and you do some work in orbit and the station. The point is that you get vastly more from them than the other two companies can do. They can't even reach orbit. In addition, the space tourism is just a side venture for them and has the useful effect of helping us develop technologies for living in space (which 5 minute joy rides to the Karmin line doesn't do).
SpaceX is spending a ton of their own money developing the Starship/Superheavy. Presuming they get it working as they intend, it'll be possible to space much more cheaply, perhaps $45000 for a trip to orbit. This is by making a vehicle that is 100% reusable and very large scale.
Fingers crossed.
The other two ventures are not useful for orbital space usage and won't be.
Well, all three offer something.
BO and VG are perhaps more tourist based - but as Tom mentioned - VG does have some other abilities - the Italian Air Force Trip this week did take some experiments with it.
The question is, should 'space tourism' be banned?
The next step would banning private planes..... and supercars and anything else which is not 'effecient' (so sorry, all those 5 litre+ muscle cars will go).
I don't know how far along Carbon Offsetting is going with any of the 3 companies, but three seem to be making some noises about improving.
So what is permitted and what shouldn't be permitted for the 'very wealthy'?
My apologies for being VERY unclear!
My comment was not meant to suggest "Banning" anything; it was meant to point out that people were doing something of high risk with little more reward than a visceral thrill.
Space is a deadly environment for humans, and human spaceflight is filled with tragedies; Salyut 1, Challenger, and Columbia come foremost to mind. The deep ocean is likewise a deadly environment, and IMO, good people are putting their lives in danger for... what?
good people are putting their lives in danger for... what?
Good people have died in numerous adventures for 100s of years...
Everest just being one, that's cost dozens of lives...
The best Walton was an adventurer.
Vietnam War Green Beret, Pilot, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_T._Walton
Agree with everything Richard said w/r to the differences in the Space-X vs. suborbital ventures. The suborbitals are limited in real benefits.
The one thing the Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic programs do provide is some advances in aerospace technology. Remains to be seen how useful those would be, but at the very list the VG craft has some unique technology that makes it work, for example the re-entry profile might be applicable to future spacecraft.
VG at least also might offer some advantage over a sounding rocket; at least its re-usable.
It's good that VG offers some technilogical advances that can be used elsewhere. That's more than BO offers as far as I know.
On some forums BO is referred to as 'Below Orbit' for being in existence longer than SpaceX(!) and not actually building anything that has yet reached orbit. They have big plans but still no rocket. They did build a new engine which will be used on the Vulcan rocket, but that is mired in delays.
A difference betwen their BE-4 engine and SpaceXs raptor is that the BO origin engine is larger and havier but only produces about the same thrust as the highly efficient Ratpr. The Raptor is of an advanced design that has never been used in a working rocket before. The BO engine is difficult to make, from what I have read, each one essentially being hand crafted by highly talented engineers. The SpaceX Raptor has been made to be quickly and cheaply producable - a necessary factor given their plans for multiple SH boosters per year, each of which use 33(!) engines.
The SS/SH exists NOW, and the second test flight will occur in (hopefulyy) a couple months. They've done more than a thousand changes to the second stage if I remember rightly, and many changes to the first. SpaceX quickly iterates through new designs to improve their rockets, even if they lose the test articles they get progress.
VG and BO, at this time, do not compart to the efforts SpaceX has made to provide cheap and fast access to space. No other company is even close.
I have to pinch myself every time someone mentions that BE is older than SpaceX. Truly hard to believe when considering their relative accomplishments. SpaceX has radically revolutionized access to space, and Blue Origin has produced the Salvage-1
There is something to be said for having another engine manufacturer, so I hope the BE-4/Vulcan combination can actually work. What a slog though.
Related, I was fortunate enough to be at KSC for the first commercial Falcon Heavy launch, and see the two side boosters return to earth. Absolutely surreal--it breaks the brain to see rockets return to earth under control.
The Vulcan is in no way reusable. It's claim to fame is probably the use of methane as a propellant, whenever it actually gets off the ground, which it hasn't yet.
"The Vulcan is in no way reusable."
I know. Its so sad. And dare I say it...illogical!
Amusingly, it was at one point suppored to launch on 5/4/23, to the best of my knowledge.
Well, Virgin Galactic has registered it's first three 'official' Space Tourists to space.
(All the previous people it took up were Space Workers !).
We are up to about a Dozen Space Tourists now in total - and that number will rapdily rise over the coming months I think!
Russia's Luna-25 lander crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit.
They say the 26th time's the charm.
I guess India is up next...
Looks to been orbit for a week or so...
Date of landing attempt not mentioned....
Maybe the Russian Parachute failed?
Mike Grafton:
At least some indication that you are joking. Besides, we all know that the crash was intentional so that the luna-25 could begin burrowing into the suspected water on the Moon.
Oh, I heard a rumor they might have forgotten to convert meters to feet...
Most likely is that some expensive thingy was stolen from the module for resale before it was even launched.
To be honest, Mike, the most likely explanation is that programing something to launch out of Earth's gravity well, cross a quarter million miles of space, orbit the Moon, and then land safely is a difficult, risk-laden business even under the best of circumstances, rife with any number of things that can go wrong from high-tech processors to a tiny solder point.
Not that Russia isn't chock-full of corruption and other problems. But in brief, space exploration is hard.