http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-branson/science-the-final-frontie_b_1184313.html I for one welcome free enterprise getting involved in space flight. The more players involved, the more activity, the more the final frontier will get opened up... NASA and the other government agencies will continue their thing, the private sector will do it's thing, and everyone will benefit.
Welcome to 2010! Richard Branson and his amusement park ride barely qualifies as part of the "nuspace" crowd. Now, if he wants to invest some real money and get an orbital version of his "spacecraft" going, he's more than welcome to the club.
I have been steadily becoming a SpaceX fanboi in the last couple of years, which I guess is understandable given how they are doing and the hype around their proposals. I love how they try to undercut everyone's prices by innovative designs focusing on efficiency and simplicity. Of course, that shouldn't be difficult given that the space industry is underdeveloped, even close to not existing, overpricing is present everywhere in it and designs have been far from optimal. The government space programs have been guilty of things like the space shuttle, which I find awesome for a lot of reasons, but they don't include the actual use of it. Anything that screws the government here gets me excited. And anyone who's trying to do more than they can excites me even more.
Stages, friend. Stages. And here's the thing. The future of space, especially public support for space investment, especially public, is getting the public to care about it. They don't care what robot probes are doing, beyond the minority of us that care about the science. They care about what people are up to. And the more space can be shown as a HUMAN endeavor, the more folks will be interested in it. Hell, NASA just announced slots for the next class of Astronaut Candidates. If I was in charge of their public affairs department, I would SO be pimping a reality TV program that follows them through their training and experiences.
^Um, yeah, Branson is selling carnival rides to millionaires. Nothing more. When he decides to reach orbit call me. I'll be there in a SpaceX Dragon to greet him.
suborbital. As in "less than orbit". And no, there is nothing in the works currently. Spaceship2 is it.
Well yes, one wouldn't want ORBITAL point to point flights, that would be stupid..but even suborbital, it's still private spaceflight 2 hours from New York to London?..much of it at zero G?... http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2008/02/spaceshipthree-revealed.html http://www.spacetourismnow.com/spaceshipthree.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-point_suborbital_spaceflight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipThree Or would you deny Alan Shepard's 1st flight was a spaceflight?
So, got any links actually showing that SS3 is in development? Something newer than the 4 year old article in your first link?
Per my original post.. I didn't know if it was in development, I simply asked the question.. It is a proposal, probably under development but only if those joyrides do provide a profit.. But the fact exists, Virgin Galactic HAS considered the concept..and may go forward AFTER Spaceship 2 flights prove profitable. and they wouldn't be the first. http://www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld011.htm
As you point out with a link to a Douglas idea from the 60's, lots of concepts have been considered. Few get built. Branson has shown no recent interest.
The private sector is getting most of their money by flying support missions for NASA (since NASA can barely afford to support itself AND pay into Congress' pork barrel at the same time). The COTS-2/3 demonstration of the SpaceX Dragon is scheduled to fly less than a month from now with the fully equipped C1 Dragon making a test flight to the International Space Station. SpaceX has already retooled their operations for mass production so they're pretty much out of "prototype mode" now; from here on it's small improvements to the design process as they gain more experience and they start churning out Dragons and Falcon-9s assembly line style. If they stick to their schedule -- with the usual NASA delays and redtape -- by 2015 the Dragon will be the spaceflight equivalent of the Ford-150 (to the Soyuz's Honda Civic). That leaves Richard Branson puttering around on the fiberglass skateboard that is Spaceship Two.
Now the new stratolauncher will put a winged version of Falcon 5 (that was discontinued) with a capsule to LEO (Delta II -to-R-7 Soyuz type payloads or so) You have to have a heavy lift aircraft just to have ANY significant payloads to LEO. Now, Branson would be wise to have a scaled up version of SS2 with a lot more seats to release out from under stratolauncher for suborbital trips so as to make more money. White Knight two is probably best used for test vehicle drops now.
The Falcon being used by Stratolauncher is NOT winged. It's not even planned to be reusable. Branson has no stake in Stratolaunch and thus will have no access to the aircraft. He is stuck with his amusement ride for now.
That's not what I saw in some artwork. http://photos.al.com/huntsville-times/2011/12/stratolaunch_systems.html
I think when Sojourner said "wings," he meant wings like the space shuttle and Spaceship 2, in that the whole craft would glide back to Earth like an airplane. With this particular Falcon, that would not be the case.
Good for the artwork. Doesn't change the nature of the plans, which do not call for a reusable or winged Falcon 9 (especially since SpaceX has NO plans to develop a winged version of the Falcon and the reusable one is still many years away at best).
I think there's something everyone is forgetting: by treaty, the country a launch takes place in is responsible for the flight. As soon as a US-originated flight goes down and does something ugly (hits a city, releases radioactive material, crashes into a schoolbus full of nuns and orphans), there is going to be a huge backlash against private space flights.
^Yep, because of the thousands of space launches that have been made, sooo many of them have killed people outside the launch area. There is a reason launches are restricted to flight paths over oceans and uninhabited areas.