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NASA says it's awarding about $475,000 to two of the pioneers of the suborbital spaceship business — Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace and California-based Masten Space Systems — for test flights that will approach the edge of outer space.
Those two companies have already won $2 million of NASA's money between them, prizes that were offered in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. But today's announcement signals that the space agency is open to giving the new guys some real business.
Both companies are already deeply involved in the space business. Armadillo, for example, provides the rocket engines for the Rocket Racing League's X-Racer planes, is working on a suborbital spaceship for tourists, and plays a supporting role in the "Project M" plan to send a robonaut to the moon. Masten is partnering with XCOR Aerospace, one of its neighbors in Mojave, Calif., to develop landers that can go anyplace NASA might want to visit.
NASA already spends millions of dollars a year to launch suborbital research rockets, but the rocket-powered vehicles involved in this new program would be reusable rather than expendable. Some space entrepreneurs and researchers hope that suborbital research could become the "killer app" for new breeds of low-cost launch vehicles.
The NASA program that would be paying out the money for Armadillo's and Masten's services over the fall and winter is aptly named the Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research program, or CRuSR for short. The $475,000 is being set aside to fund three flights of Armadillo's Super-Mod vehicle, starting with a 9-mile-high trip and rising to a maximum altitude of 25 miles; and four flights by Masten's Xaero vehicle, ranging from 3 to 18 miles in altitude. These aren't technically spaceflights, because they don't rise to the internationally recognized boundary of 62 miles (100 kilometers). Instead, the flights will test the vehicles' ability to reach "near-space" at an affordable cost with easy recovery of payloads.
ADS-B radio antennas will be installed on the vehicles to broadcast their position and other telemetry during the test flights.
This NASA news release provides the details, including a quote from NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun:
"These two awards are just the beginning of an innovative teaming relationship with industry to provide affordable access to the edge of space while evaluating the microgravity environment for future science and technology experiments. CRuSR represents the sort of government-commercial partnership that will facilitate near-space access at affordable costs."
Is this the start of something big? Or has something big already started? For example, NASA has already awarded $3.7 million to Blue Origin, the space venture that's backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, for work on components that could be used on future orbital vehicles. What giant leaps — or giant missteps — might lie ahead for the space agency and space entrepreneurs? Feel free to add your opinion in the comment section below.
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When talking to James Van Allen about supporting PL101-611, I mentioned the general strategy of NASA funding _only— science missions -- not launch services per se -- as a way of synthesizing a robust market for launch services. In other words, NASA funds scientists based on their proposals and their proposals must include the cost of insured launch.
He thought that was the best approach.
Now, I know Dr. Van Allen is no longer with us to verify his statement, but PL101-611 did pass, and its Congressional sponsor (Rep. Ron Packard, R-CA) did credit me in Congressional hearings held July 29, 1991 with being the primary driving force behind its passage, so may I please be given a little credit for faithfully reporting the words of the premiere space scientist?
Let the record show your contribution, James.
I suspected you'd display your usual degree of support of anything that's not BoLockMart, gaetano. You did not disappoint me...
BTW, NASA never stopped doing suborbital research during those '50 years,' therefore it only makes sense to support better (read: more economical) ways of doing that, as well as manned orbital access. It's not about merely doing what someone else has done. I can't speak for you, but I'd rather fly non-stop to Paris in something more cost-effective than the Spirit of St. Louis, now that it's possible. (Nor should NASA rely indefinitely on a single-source, and foreign at that, for orbital access...that, too, is common business [and political] sense.)
And Soyuz-1 was 1967, the first Progress, 1978 (to service Salyut 6). Even the Russians haven't been operating that hardware (which has undergone incremental improvement since then, and is not quite the same as when introduced...SpaceX isn't using late 60's tech either.) for '50 years.'.
Will you be equally 'supportive' (not that it matters) of Boeing (who has never made a manned spacecraft either) and their capsule, when it reaches SpaceX's current level of technology demonstration? Or will they get a pass merely because they're an old name...?
This looks like another productive and innovative step by the Chief Technologist's office; so far I'm liking what I'm seeing since Dr. Braun was appointed. These contracts may not all be widely successful - they are about taking technical risk after all, but having NASA and these companies collaborate is going to be beneficial for all parties. I hope there is enough success to encourage more of these fast-track efforts; it's more satisfying watching my taxes fly prototypes and experiments than paying to generate PowerPoint and .AVI's of things that will never get built.
"well, you suspect WRONG, Frank, since, it seems, you have not even read my articles on my blogs"
I know what you post here and elsewhere. It's always sufficed. At least you seem to no longer use words like 'amateur' and 'toys.'
"$5 billion ONLY to have an AMERICAN version of the Soyuz and Progress with similar performances and LEO only capabilities!!!"
"over $6 billion ONLY to develop a new hydrocarbon engine with the SAME performance of the RD-180 "
What did I say about reliance on a foreign (and not always friendly) source?
Anyone hoping to bring China into the ISS stream (not that they've shown any open interest) should take that to heart, too.
Small bits of news like this lend hope to what appears to be a dieing U.S. space program. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me that the American public would rather fight among them selves in the political arena (and on the streets) then strive for a better country. It is sad that in my life time the U.S.A has gone from being number 1 to some place farther down the line.
I would rather see the millions of dollars that is spent fighting between all the political parties spent on all the space programs out there. Instead of tearing the country apart by pointing out the differences between all of you and all of us, maybe work on building unity on all the things we all have in common.
As the U.S. space program slowly moves into twilight other nations and groups are moving into the forefront and will surpass us some time soon.
Sounds like a bit of a waste of taxpayer money to pay for a competition for suborbital flight, been there done that almost 50 years ago. It would be smarter to pay them to go into orbit, say about the distance to get to the International Space Station around 200 miles up.
I believe that NASA is to keep one shuttle in reserve for emergencies (just in case). I think one should be left attached to the ISS permanently. Some day a new station will be built and construction crews will live in the old one. Can you immagine building a huge ship in orbit with landers built in to be used for long term exploration?
It takes a lot of resources and support (read: money) to keep even one orbiter on standby. And the less often one flies, the less efficient and more expensive the whole system is.
And, the orbiters are not designed to be 'lifeboats' with indefinite standby times in orbit. Eventually they run out of consumables that can't be replenished in space (not to mention keeping a docking port on ISS indefinitely tied up)...and I can't help but worry about what the long-term effect of atomic oxygen might be on the thermal tiles...
Again, suborbital research has continued to be done through that entire '50 years.' (and is on the verge of a commercial human market) If it is to continue (and likely will as long as it's cheaper than orbital, or because suborbital's simply all that some users need), there's obvious value in seeking better/more economical means of carrying it out.
Once more: We don't do non-stop transatlantic flight the way Lindbergh did, anymore. It's also an old activity, but much better now. (And partly due to NASA's aeronautic side) Suborbital? We're likewise still there, and doing that. We have been, all along.
But you seem to understand the value of 'improved' vs. 'new' as well as gaetano does...
And of course, what's 'suborbital' technology on this planet, is orbital or even escape, somewhere that's less massive. Or do you think it a coincidence that neither of the awarded companies use winged designs, but are entirely VTVL?
Or ya just don't need it on airless worlds. Occam's Razor, G.
If wings were al that mattered, the money would go to Scaled Composites or Xcor, instead.