PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

[MXrider13]

At first I was sad that the Space Shuttle program is ending but than I remembered Sir Richard Branson sponsored the SpaceshipOne Program back in 04 which made the First privately owned Manned flight into space and they have been working on Spaceshiptwo which will carry 8 people into space and maybe Orbit the Earth and they are currently working on Spaceshipthree as well.
There is also SpaceX's Dragon that can send 7 people into space (though they still use NASA's Launch pads and they may be working for NASA) and there is the Sierra Nevada Corporations Dream Chaser which is a similar concept to Spaceshiptwo though Dream Chaser is still in development.

I think Private Industry is the better way to go, it just seems more people are closed minded or unaware of it though.

[AirDOGGe]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

Not replacing, but rather supplementing.

Private industry is going to take over easier low-earth-orbit flights with smaller and (hopefully) cheaper rockets, and NASA will develop a "heavy" Saturn-class or larger rocket for exploration purposes, a purpose that was their original duty to begin with. I'm really excited about the latter.

It's really not all that new. Private industry has already long-since taken over satellite launches with large, orbit-capable rockets, which fly payloads that end up in much higher orbits than Station-bound spacecraft. This is just the next step.


NASA has always been about learning the new, exploring the heavens and advancing knowledge of whatever is out there waiting for us, not running a trucking and taxi service to what has become at times a space hotel for super-rich customers, though still the best micro-gravity lab one could hope for.

Let unmanned rockets send the cargo, Russia and maybe a few other countries plus U.S. industry can handle the people-transport business, and NASA can go back to conducting REAL exploration.


I'm a major space fan who visits several space-related websites every day, was fortunate to grow up during the space-race years (born in 1960) and followed the space programs faithfully, and I admit I was very disappointed when they cancelled the 'Constellation' program.

But as long as they are still going to build the heavy launcher portion of that project, I'm game. That was going to be the best part anyway



.

...they have been working on Spaceshiptwo which will carry 8 people into space and maybe Orbit the Earth ....

Nope. that will never happen.

SS2 was not designed to support human life for extended periods in space...only for the dozen minutes or so to reach the EDGE of space and then slowly fall back. The space station will pass approximately 90 miles or so above SS2's highest point of flight, which is only around 60 miles above sea level.

It takes an hour-and-a-half to complete just one orbit. That's a long time to be exposed to Solar radiation, micro-meteorites, GAMMA ray radiation and the like without proper (meaning heavy) shielding, or to go without supplies like water, extra oxygen, BATHROOM FACILITIES (hint-hint) and more,.....Basically, extra mass required for sustained orbital flight that the SS2 is not designed to lift, carry nor support ....

Paid ORBITAL flights will probably require SEVERAL orbits, or even days (18 orbits each) especially when the first of these inflatable "space hotels" being developed gets sent up and needs a cheap customer-delivery system on hand. I imagine the first 'Go-Round-The-Earth' tickets will be in the several, if not tens of millions of dollars per passenger too, versus 1/5 of a million for a SpaceShipTwo ride.

It's gonna take a LOT of fuel to get an SS2-size vehicle with the weight of 8-10 passengers in it into orbit too, so I suspect any "SpaceShipOrbital" vehicle will only carry 2-3 folks at most to orbit (plus crew), to limit the amount of fuel required, and thus keep total gross (fully-fueled) vehicle size, and with it COSTS down.


SS2 doesn't go nearly fast enough to achieve orbit anyway, nor can it withstand the heat of orbital re-entry.

SpaceShipTwo can handle low-mach return velocities at extremely high altitudes where the air is still thin enough to create little friction, but the Shuttle Orbiter required troublesome silicon-based tiles to deal with velocities of 17,000+ miles per hour, the speed necessary to maintain orbit. Even after slowing down to leave orbit the latter still doing over mach 20 when it hits the atmosphere and starts to "cook" in heat hot enough to melt aluminum, and in some locations of the airframe, even steel!. SS2's composite airframe would incinerate in that environment in seconds.


SS3 (or 4 or 5...), if one ever reaches reality, will have to be specifically designed to take on that task. If it ever happens, I hope I'm still around when it does. I watched the ol' Orbiter fly for 3 decades as replacement program after replacement program was started and then cancelled, the X-33 being the last and most painful for me until Constellation's demise. I feel cheated and I want to see some new hardware fly...Git 'er done, NASA!



P.S.... Now they speak of cancelling the WEBB space telescope this far into it, when all the extremely-hard technical problems have finally been solved and most of the money already spent? Man, how much harder I hate the US government at times.

.

[race9]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

Actually, SS3 (or whatever they'll call it) will be sub-orbital jumps to other places on Earth, like NYC-Tokyo in a few hours. Private orbital tourism is still cost prohibitive.

[Arctic Cat]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

Check out the spacex link below. A for profit commercial venture getting it done faster and cheaper than gov't. Agency

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

[MXrider13]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

Good Answers
I guess SS2 is a step closer towards the Space Hotel and Private Orbit Theme. I am very Libertarian politically so I like seeing Private companies do more rather than the government (though the Kennedy Space Center was great the time I went). I guess Private Industry will start taking over the low Orbit Missions and maybe NASA will get back to deep space (hopefully then).

[MXrider13]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

Check out the spacex link below. A for profit commercial venture getting it done faster and cheaper than gov't. Agency

http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

They are Hiring a lot of the Former NASA engineers and Astronauts as well.

[MXrider13]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

Actually, SS3 (or whatever they'll call it) will be sub-orbital jumps to other places on Earth, like NYC-Tokyo in a few hours. Private orbital tourism is still cost prohibitive.

Its a step closer to private Orbit

[Donald McMullin]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

It will be interesting to see how past employee's of the Federal Government adapt to the pressure of responsibility, schedules, and budgets of private enterprise.

I have worked both sides of the fence and see the past Federal employees have a difficult transision.

Deep Enough

[laminar]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

Hey Guys

I can't speak for any of our competitors but if you are interested in the Scaled Composites / Virgin Galactic effort and will be at Oshkosh check out one of the Scaled talks. at this years event, I am sure that all the talks will cover some of this project, mine certainly will.

Elliot Seguin
Race 68

[MXrider13]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

Hey Guys

I can't speak for any of our competitors but if you are interested in the Scaled Composites / Virgin Galactic effort and will be at Oshkosh check out one of the Scaled talks. at this years event, I am sure that all the talks will cover some of this project, mine certainly will.

Elliot Seguin
Race 68

Sadly I live to far away

[Reno_Steve]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

A solution to convert a sub-orbital space craft into an orbital craft with low fuel cost is to use the rotating tether concept.

This consists of a 500km+ cable in orbit around the Earth which is spinning so that its lower tip is travelling at only appox 1000mph relative to the Earth surface.

By docking to the cable (will require accurate guidance) the sub-orbital craft is catapulted upto a high orbital speed, ideal for deep space missions.

It has been stated that the cable can be powered by electrical means against the Earths magnetic field, possibly even solar powered.

[Reno_Steve]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

If anyone speaks to Burt , can they see if he has any plans or ideas for a craft to land on Mars from orbit by aerobraking and gliding down.

I am told parachutes are not suitable due to the thin atmosphere for anything much bigger than the probes we have already sent, and the rocket fuel burn otherwise required adds massively to the total mission cost.

I expect some rocket thrusters would still be required but we can make great savings by gliding down to de-accelerate.

[AirDOGGe]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

A solution to convert a sub-orbital space craft into an orbital craft with low fuel cost is to use the rotating tether concept.

This consists of a 500km+ cable in orbit around the Earth which is spinning so that its lower tip is travelling at only appox 1000mph relative to the Earth surface.

By docking to the cable (will require accurate guidance) the sub-orbital craft is catapulted upto a high orbital speed, ideal for deep space missions.

It has been stated that the cable can be powered by electrical means against the Earths magnetic field, possibly even solar powered.

Old concept, but nobody knows what to make the cable from. Kevlar proves strongest, but not strong enough. The weight alone of a 500 km cable will snap it.

NANOTUBES appear strong enough, if someone can find a way to make a cable from it.

And the problem of using Earth's magnetism to create electricity is that it also creates drag, resulting in the tether slowing slowing down and falling out of the sky.

There are also a number of stability issues that every tether-in-space experiment has encountered.




Nope. we need ideas that can use CURRENT tech and materials, not one that requires a large quantity of "unobtanium".




.

[Reno_Steve]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

The rotating tether does not push us to our technology limits for the tether itself.

I am not talking about the space elevator which has to be at least 35000 km long (normally 70000 km to be balanced).
We can also build smaller versions to test the theory and materials at low G-forces.

I do agree there are many problems to be overcome.

[AirDOGGe]

Re: PRIVATE INDUSTRY REPLACING NASA?

The rotating tether does not push us to our technology limits for the tether itself.

I have to disagree.I realize you weren't speaking of the Space Elevator theory. Yet still it will be one heck of a job for a tether to handle, and I have yet to hear how such an elevator would deal with space junk in orbit anyway.

A rotating tether will endure greater loads than the elevator idea simply due to centrifugal forces. A heavy spaceship at the end of a swinging line hundreds of miles long will create massively high tension loads indeed!.

And current experiments have shown that there are issues with stability. Even simple straight lines under tension were looping about and even swinging around like a jump-rope at times. They haven't even been able to get a basic line fully extended without fouling or breaking.

For either idea. we have MOST OF the engineering know-how, but not enough yet. We don't have suitable materials yet, nor have we enough experience with them in a weightless environment. Those are in the works, so just give it time.