Bezos brings space race to Kent as he plans a passenger rocket

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Sun, 01 Jan 2006 15:59:00 GMT, in a place far, far away,
Christopher made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Yet another suborbital flight company that'll probably go the same way
as Roton did.

Roton was not a suborbital flight company. And it didn't have
billions of dollars of its own money, as Jeff Bezos does. Other than
that your prediction is spot on (not).

Oh, when is he going to 'go for orbit'?

Presumably after he's sorted out suborbit. The mistake (including
NASA and the Air Force) everyone makes is to take too large a leap
before they've figured out how to do things cheaply and reliably. As
Jeff Greason has pointed out numerous times, it's much easier to
gradually expand the envelope of a low-cost reliable system (the way
we did with aviation) than to take an existing high-performance system
and make it low-cost and reliable.

And he's right, but not as folks like Rutan are doing it with new
vehicles for every significant advance in flight envelope. Greason
means building a vehicle theoretically capable of going all the way,
but having intact abort capability and recoverability so that it can be
tested like aircraft a taxi tests, takeoff tests, level flight
tests, maneuvering tests, gradual speed increment tests, incremental
altitude tests, etc. Rutan did a bit of this with ~14 test flights of
increasing altitude and speed, after doing some drop tests, but is
essentially building new vehicle designs for SS2 and SS3.

The X-37 and other projects are doing something similar, but nobody
with significant funding is building an orbital vehicle right now that
is capable of such incremental testing and intact abort landings. DC-X
and X-33 were the closest attempts at it thus far. DC-X followed
essentially the General Dynamics proposals of the 80's, the Y and I
vehicles would have been truly full envelope capable.

On 1 Jan 2006 13:04:47 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Mike Lorrey"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

Presumably after he's sorted out suborbit. The mistake (including
NASA and the Air Force) everyone makes is to take too large a leap
before they've figured out how to do things cheaply and reliably. As
Jeff Greason has pointed out numerous times, it's much easier to
gradually expand the envelope of a low-cost reliable system (the way
we did with aviation) than to take an existing high-performance system
and make it low-cost and reliable.

And he's right, but not as folks like Rutan are doing it with new
vehicles for every significant advance in flight envelope. Greason
means building a vehicle theoretically capable of going all the way,
but having intact abort capability and recoverability so that it can be
tested like aircraft a taxi tests, takeoff tests, level flight
tests, maneuvering tests, gradual speed increment tests, incremental
altitude tests, etc.

Not to speak for him, but I don't think that's what he means. At
least not for going from his first suborbital vehicle to an orbital
one. There will have to be some step functions in between, but the
point is that the experience gained will be incorporated into each new
vehicle development as well.

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 02:09:59 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On 1 Jan 2006 13:04:47 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Mike Lorrey"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

Presumably after he's sorted out suborbit. The mistake (including
NASA and the Air Force) everyone makes is to take too large a leap
before they've figured out how to do things cheaply and reliably. As
Jeff Greason has pointed out numerous times, it's much easier to
gradually expand the envelope of a low-cost reliable system (the way
we did with aviation) than to take an existing high-performance system
and make it low-cost and reliable.

And he's right, but not as folks like Rutan are doing it with new
vehicles for every significant advance in flight envelope. Greason
means building a vehicle theoretically capable of going all the way,
but having intact abort capability and recoverability so that it can be
tested like aircraft a taxi tests, takeoff tests, level flight
tests, maneuvering tests, gradual speed increment tests, incremental
altitude tests, etc.

Not to speak for him, but I don't think that's what he means. At
least not for going from his first suborbital vehicle to an orbital
one. There will have to be some step functions in between, but the
point is that the experience gained will be incorporated into each new
vehicle development as well.

No, what I meant was this billionaire is going into the space tourism
business, but he's just another space tourism company IF he pull's it
off that will only be offering a sub orbital hop. I know for a fact
that you can get to orbit for $20 million a pop, and
http://www.spaceadventures.com/intro is the company that can get you
there. They also offer suborbital hops, but more importantly they
offer for $20 million the Full Monty, and I'd rather wait for other
companies to offer full access to space that cough up for a sub
orbital flight with say only 5 minutes at the top of the hop, and just
a taste of spaceflight.





--

Christopher

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:10:49 GMT, in a place far, far away,
Christopher made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

No, what I meant was this billionaire is going into the space tourism
business, but he's just another space tourism company IF he pull's it
off that will only be offering a sub orbital hop.

Initially.

I'd rather wait for other
companies to offer full access to space that cough up for a sub
orbital flight with say only 5 minutes at the top of the hop, and just
a taste of spaceflight.

So? You aren't the entire market.

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 22:40:37 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 17:10:49 GMT, in a place far, far away,
Christopher made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

No, what I meant was this billionaire is going into the space tourism
business, but he's just another space tourism company IF he pull's it
off that will only be offering a sub orbital hop.

Initially.

I'd rather wait for other
companies to offer full access to space that cough up for a sub
orbital flight with say only 5 minutes at the top of the hop, and just
a taste of spaceflight.

So?

So why settle for meat loaf when there is pheasant on the menu.

You aren't the entire market.

Obviously.


--

Christopher

Christopher wrote:

I'd rather wait for other
companies to offer full access to space that cough up for a sub
orbital flight with say only 5 minutes at the top of the hop, and just
a taste of spaceflight.

So?

So why settle for meat loaf when there is pheasant on the menu.

Pheasant won't be served until quite some time in the future. Meat loaf
is a more immediately available dish. If you crave meat, the choice
isn't as simple as you imply.

It's easier to serve pheasant in a space-limited ag environment. Better
yet, rabbit and duck, as well as trout, would be the normal three meat
animals on a space station/moon base.

Beef is just too wasteful, you really have no use for those big bones
(unless you can engineer a cow to grow iron, aluminum, or titanium
bones from eating regolith)...

On 4 Jan 2006 07:37:24 -0800, "Mike Lorrey" wrote:

It's easier to serve pheasant in a space-limited ag environment. Better
yet, rabbit and duck, as well as trout, would be the normal three meat
animals on a space station/moon base.

It was a metaphor.

Beef is just too wasteful, you really have no use for those big bones
(unless you can engineer a cow to grow iron, aluminum, or titanium
bones from eating regolith)...

--

Christopher

Alan Anderson wrote:
Pheasant won't be served until quite some time in the future.

It's been on the menu for years now, $20 million per serving.

--
"Always look on the bright side of life."
To reply by email, replace no.spam with my last name.

Russell Wallace wrote:

Alan Anderson wrote:
Pheasant won't be served until quite some time in the future.

It's been on the menu for years now, $20 million per serving.

Good point.

With meat loaf several orders of magnitude less expensive, though, the
choice is still anything but simple.