History and Innovation

In air banking. Conceptual image of VMS Eve SpaceShip Two in flight - Virgin Galactic

Are ventures like Virgin Galactic nothing more than an expensive joy ride for the rich?

Virgin Galactic has booked over 450 passengers on a trip to space, which costs $200,000 per ticket. The price includes 2 days of flight preparation, and a trip to space and a feeling of weightlessness that lasts about 4 minutes...

What? 4 minutes? That's it? For $200,000 I get 4 minutes in space?

Although it is much cheaper than what it costs to send a NASA Astronaut to space (which hovers somewhere around $50 million), $200,000 is still expensive to say you were in space for 4 minutes. Although it is very subtle, the fact that the price has been dropped so low, and you don't have to be deemed a government approved astronaut to go is a big deal. We must look at companies like Virgin Galactic, XCOR, Space Adventures, and other space tourism companies in the context of history and innovation.

In this post, we will look into the development and history of great things that have changed the way we lived, and why we can be optimistic that space travel will fall along the same progression.

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The Virgin Galactic Story

In the next 18 months, we will see the first regular paying customers take trips to space aboard Virgin Galactics SpaceShip 2. The story of this company's creation, and the momentum it has created for a new commercial space industry never gets old in its telling. Their story is a great victory in making space travel available to everyone. 

This post serves to introduce (or re-introduce) you to how Virgin Galactic and The Spaceship Company was created. Enjoy!...

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What Will Happen With Private Space In 2011

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- XCOR 5K18 "Lynx" Engine, Photo by Mike Massee - 

 

The Adventure Continues...

There are those going to work today, thinking about the future of space travel. How cool is that? Of course I am not saying that they just started thinking about it, they have been thinking about this since the first man ever stepped foot in space almost 50 years ago now. They are building the next generation of rockets, space planes, and space stations. Fortunately, the environment in which they have built these new space businesses has been one that allows them to operate on much smaller budgets, due to advances in propulsion, computers, robotics, and commercial off the shelf parts that make things much easier to build. NASA has also realized the value of these new commercial businesses, and have dedicated a good amount of extra funds to help them. Let us hope that our government also realizes how important they are, and keeps the funding going (fingers crossed). There is no shortage of amazing things that will happen this year, and I would like to highlight some of the companies and what they plan to do this year.

 

You ready for this? Let's get to it.

 

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My Top 10 for 2010

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What a year it has been!
Private space has grown by leaps and bounds this year. This year was marked by commercial companies achieving major milestones, new partnerships, and surprisingly, a good amount of NASA funding to help the industry along. Here is my little take on the year, hope you enjoy...

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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.

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