Since watching Spaceship One win the X-prize for civilian space-flight I started to realize that the days where we would all need to wait for an individual nation's space agency to act were numbered. Reading articles like
this one give me hope.
Seeing as how NASA got the axe, I had been hoping we would still be finding ways to explore out there. Many nations have been to the moon now, time to push farther and with this new rocket, it just might be possible to do just that.
Oh, and on a less grandiose note, at least NASA can pay them like a space-taxi to still make trips to the ISS and for only like 500k as opposed to the 1.5 billion required when all things are said and done to launch a shuttle. Good news really in that now little kids can still aspire to be astronauts.
Just a cool article I wanted to share.
Comments
I agree that space flight will slowly become more feasible for private/commercial organizations. It's always been the case that new technologies and frontiers are explored when they provide some sort of advantage that can be exploited, either militarily or commerically. So far, space really hasn't been that for either, except for spy satellites, and more terrestrial drones are proving more effective than sats.
Hell, the Phoenix warp ship in First Contact was a commercial venture. Cochrane even says as much!
Especially given Gene's anti-capitalism view (aka early TNG Ferengi), that is amusing.
Yeah, but they have no plans of making another human-carrying vessel that I know of. That's more what concerned me. Really don't care about probes.
There was something that The Man put out about going to visit an Asteroid, and using that to gain experience to go to Mars. I am not sure how traveling to a near Zer-G asteroid will help us with a nearly 1G and atmosphered planet. At least with W there was a plan and equipment in development to go to the Moon and to Mars. I'm very excited to see how Space X gets on with ther Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy Rockets. I looked up there website to see what jobs they had here in the DC area, but they only had "Office Manager" which is pretty much a Secretary/Receptionist type person in the PC way of speaking. all their other sites are way to warm and/or earthquakey for me
That's why nasa just isn't getting the funding anymore. Humans aren't needed until they're colonizing other worlds or something. Everything else costs 1/100th as much to use a robot.
What did the guys do on the moon? They picked up rocks, took pictures, and hit a golf ball. Is there anything that required a human with food, oxygen, heat, pressure suits, a buggy, etc....? Nope.
The space stations do research on life in space, so that needs life... but there's just nothing for people to do out there. If you want to do science, send a probe. If you want to have fun, don't use public funds -- let the private companies waste their own money. :rolleyes:
They beat the Russians which was the primary mission as laid down by JFK. The rest was just gravy. That also explains why the American appetite for space flight diminished once we planted the flag.
I want a commercial outfit to build a resort on the moon. People got on rickety wood boats for a months to make it to America. Are you saying no one is willing to make the three day flight to the moon?
The Cardboard Box.
And if NASA didn't get the axe, we would have had another Moon mission in a few years...
Maybe Transformers 3 will make everyone like space travel again
I saw STS-133 from the causeway as a guest of NASA.
Nice! I've never seen a launch before in-person so I better get my butt in gear or I'll be stuck watching Delta Vs.