10/18/10 What's New?

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-VMS EVE carries VSS Enterprise on her first manned flight. Photo by Mark Greenberg-

It has been a while since my last post, and since then I noticed a lot of cool things happening with various NewSpace companies that I wanted to highlight. If you are a fan of NewSpace news, none of this news might be of any shock to you. However, I'll try to provide some reasons why I thought they were significant enough to write about.

SpaceX: The First Launch of the Dragon Capsule on November 8th

This will be a launch you do not want to miss! SpaceX will be launching their Dragon capsule, which is a pressurized, re-usable spacecraft that can carry up to 7 future astronauts into space. If SpaceX is successful, It has a good chance at replacing the Space Shuttle. Replacing the Space Shuttle would be a monumentous task, and SpaceX is set to do it with their Falcon 9 rocket, and Dragon configuration, which would make space travel millions...strike that...tens of millions of dollars cheaper. SpaceX in their latest announcement regarding the dragon, stated they want to "demonstrate operational communications, navigation, maneuvering and reentry."

If all goes according to plan for SpaceX, not only can they be on their way to replacing the shuttle, but they also prove the ability for non-governmental businesses to build cheap, and reliable space systems. A win for SpaceX is a win for all future commercial space companies. It was pretty exciting to watch the first falcon 9 launch live, so I definitely recommend not missing the next!

Bigelow Aerospace: 6 Different Countries Vying to Lease Future Space Station!

Model of the proposed BA 330 module.

There have not been a lot of details released regarding this, but Robert Bigelow has said that he will announce six different countries looking to lease his future space stations for use. Mr. Bigelow had also said that when the space stations go up they will be able to accomplish everything the ISS was capable of, but instead of taking 2 decades, it will only take 7 launches! Hmm...that sounds more like boasting than reality, however, there is no doubt that the new Bigelow space habitats will be bigger, and a lot more versatile than the ISS could ever be.

Virgin Galactic: First Glide Flight of SpaceShip 2 Successful

Virgin Galacatics spaceship 2 had its first successful glide flight! Here is the video of it:

It was very important that this test went well, because think about it from the customers point of view: Imagine you just spent 200,000 dollars for a ticket aboard that spaceship to find out the first flight ends up going into the ground like a lawn dart? How good would you have felt putting up that money? You would have to be a little shakey, and so would every other Virgin Galactic investor. The fact that they were able to conduct such a perfect test has to be exciting and reassuring to everyone involved (it surely makes me feel that way!). The next test I will look forward to seeing is the actual spaceship 2 rocket firing and ascent. That will be amazing to see.

BOEING: The New Commercial Space Tourism Company?

Boeing is building a new spacecraft called the CST-100, or Commercial Space Transporter (I wish they had picked a better name...oh well...). NASA is funding the development of this spacecraft under a program called CCDEV. NASA's interest in this vehicle is that it will be able to ferry up to 7 astronauts at once up to the ISS. The spacecraft will be launched aboard a Delta IV or Atlas V, and possibly the Falcon 9 by SpaceX. The real interesting thing for me is what is going on between Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace, since they had both collaborated to make this spacecraft happen. What is Bigelow's interest in this? They will use the CST-100 as their means of getting individuals to the bigelow space stations. It makes sense to some degree, most people fly all over the world thanks to Boeing, why not fly people all over space too? 

What do you think? Make sure to leave a comment! =)

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