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Space Adventures, the Virginia-based company that has worked with the Russians to send seven millionaires to the International Space Station, says it has reached "a unique agreement" with the Boeing Co. on space transportation services — and executives from both companies will be talking about the deal next week.
Today's announcement, sent to me via e-mail, merely notes that a noontime news briefing will be conducted next Wednesday at Boeing's offices in Arlington, Va. Speakers will include Brewster Shaw, vice president and general manager of Boeing's space exploration division (and a former astronaut); as well as Eric Anderson, co-founder and chairman of Space Adventures.
Space Adventures isn't saying anything further about the substance of the deal — but you could easily make the case that each company has something the other one wants:
• Under the terms of an $18 million agreement with NASA, Boeing is designing a spaceship known as the CST-100 that can carry up to seven people to the space station and other destinations in low Earth orbit. But the aerospace giant has said that ferrying astronauts for NASA isn't a lucrative enough business by itself. It also needs commitments for private-sector clients. That's one reason why Boeing already has partnered with Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace, which is planning to put a commercial space station into orbit as early as 2014 or 2015. I'm guessing that Boeing would love to have an even bigger market for its commercial space transport services.
• For years, Space Adventures has been building up a list of clients willing to take multimillion-dollar trips into orbit — including, for example, Sergey Brin, one of Google's billionaire co-founders. In the past, the company has purchased open seats aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that have brought astronauts to the space station and back. However, now that the station's long-duration capacity has been expanded from three to six, those open seats have dried up. Particularly with the imminent retirement of NASA's shuttle fleet, Soyuz seats are needed to ferry the professional astronauts back and forth. The outlook for tourist seats could improve a couple of years from now, but I'm guessing that Space Adventures would love to have a deal with Boeing like the one they've had with the Russians.
But these are just my guesses. Feel free to speculate about what all this could mean for the two companies, and for space commercialization in general, by leaving your comments below. And tune in on Wednesday to get the full story.
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My guess is that space adventures will retain the right to buy that seventh seat on trips to the space station and any extras on flights in general. I don't think that they will be able to announce selling the seats on trips to any forthcoming Bigelow complex with B.A. in the loop. That is probably coming though. Bigelow could very well lease stations to spaceAdventures and leave them to manage the back and forth. I imagine SpaceAdventures will also provide feedback on design requirements for strictly commercial flights.
Now that Boeing is involved we just might see something of real substance happen with civilian space travel...
Why do you think Boeing will do better than any other company? SpaceX has designed, developed, produced, and launched vehicles in record time with a success rate comparable to any other rocket maker. Boeing and Lockheed are only moving into this area of development because they know they have competition. With NASA money drying up, they have to shift to be competitive.
Boeing's plans are still on the drawing board while SpaceX's Dragon capsule has already *flown*. There are several other companies already testing their prototypes as well. I look forward to seeing what Boeing provides to the commercial market, but they will be one of a range of vehicles that will suit varying purposes.
I applaud Boeing's entry into the commercial human spaceflight market and look forward to seeing them fly passengers in the near future!
Agree with points of both above; SpaceX's rapid ascent on the learning curve has raised some eyebrows and got people thinking human spaceflight can be done more economically than many had thought. There's a tremendous amount of work to be done, but it's impressive progress for the amount of money invested. The commitment of an aerospace leader like Boeing lends still more legitimacy to the concept of commercial HSF. Major corporations aren't doing this because it's cool but because it's a market with a profit potential. It's never been a question of if it's going to be done, but rather when and for how much. I would expect that other, not yet announced, companies are working behind the scenes on plans and we'll see intense competition once the first private human orbital mission returns safely.
That Dragon capsule was a mock-up and not a full blown "capable" version. It served as payload for testing the rocket. I think the capsule design is a step back and not a step forward. While it looks good on paper because of the cost savings the only real long term use of a one time use rocket and capsule design is going to be for emergency evacuations of orbiting space stations and cargo resupply trips and returns. I do not see any breakthrough technological advancement upside to the design and one time use rocket system. I prefer the two stage approach such as the Virgin Galactic method. I wish Boeng would try this approch with a modified version of the 747 (as with the Shuttle piggy backing on top, think Superman Returns the movie) and a highly modified 787 with delta wings, rear firing rocket ascent boosters (perhaps an updated design of the Shuttle Engines, a beefier version of the Rocket Plane's engine, or a system of RATO interchangeable rockets for easy maintenance that you swap out after each use), and a cargo door on top for a heavy lift capacity. Put some jet engines mounted on the top side of the delta wings (similar to the Honda Jet) and you have a single stage to low earth orbit vehicle capable of carrying satellites or passengers to any point on the globe. This was the original intention of the Space Shuttle design. Only when they figured out how much the shuttle weighed they added the familiar two solid propellant boosters and huge fuel tank that you commonly see. I think any one time use rocket is a waste of materials and not as environmentally friendly (think floating space junk and all those precious metals now gone, we do not have infinite supplies here on Earth).
"Why do you think Boeing will do better than any other company?"
They may well not. Despite Boeing's long history, either one has developed a manned spacecraft (not just a launcher for one) before.
But this could be comparable to 1981, when people didn't take desktop computers seriously, until IBM got in the game. This 'legitimized' them in the eyes of many, who previously had blown them off as 'toys' and 'glorified video games' prior to that. Apple was already out there ( know...my computing adventures began with an Apple II), but it helped them take off, too.
If Boeing is serious, even with a 'paper' vehicle, about supporting commercial orbital space tourism, people who still don't take SpaceX seriously (and had previously blown them off as 'amateurs' and 'toy rockets'), may now sit up and take notice of the idea.
And this is a good thing.
As is this related item involving possible cooperation between Boeing and India's ISRO, on manned space:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=23436
The more players, the better, the more customers, the better.
I think Boeing will do better a better job for a few reasons. Look at their track record for building safe planes for the commercial market. The best. The fewest accidents of all major commercial airline builders.
They have engineering talent, expertise, research and developement data spanning back to the dawn of aviation. The engineering talent in Washington State is some of the best in the world and the local infrastructure is already in place waiting for an economic boost. I live right down the street from Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos's pet project) and they look like they are working on some cool ideas. I think they are working on a propulsion system involving the use of low temperature liquids.
Boeing has a large variety of the top secret military hardware, advanced metals, composite materials experience and very large catalog of off the shelf components and engineering designs catalog to utilize.
The company already produces a heavy lift 747 Cargo Aircraft in production for a lifting vehicle and experience flying a vehicle with a payload the size of the space shuttle. This vehicle could go straight into service with little modification.
The only major engineering obstacle is the spacecraft but with the depth of the areospace industry around the production facilites in the Northwest where they produce the 787 for final assembly it should be relatively simple.
The production lines for the 767 are due to go idle unless there is a mass order of refueling tankers or AWACS. Since that will not be settled for a while, the excess production capacity is availble already or in the near future.
What Boeing lacks is visionary Project Managers to assemble the pieces utilizing as much off the shelf hardware as they can. The only roadblocks are the life support system, rocket selection and they currently have a few to choose from, and the re-entry heat resistant one piece delta wing design and they have an Autoclave big enough currently for the baking process. All of the other components exist currently in their vast catalog of aviation, command and control experience.
This project would be similar to converting an aircraft from commercial use to military use or vice versa. Something in which they already have a ton of experience doing. I also think that this would entail the lowest risk because they already designed the HST, (High Speed Transport) that was cancelled prior to production which could easily serve as the basis for the orbitor.
I think Space X is a great company doing some cool stuff. I was just hoping that Boeing would get into the game.
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One more bottomless pit for Boeing to throw money into. What a load of ridiculous crap!
First the Dreamliner, now this. Idiotic!
your opinion means nothing. but then again that is just my opinion.
Can I use my airmiles for this trip?
I'm sure the plan involves using a B.A. capsule to go to a future Bigelow Sundancer based station. At 40 mil a pop, S.A. can send six billionaires and a stewardess up there for a week and make 200mil. If you factor in the occasional unmanned supply mission and 1 or 2 permanent crew on their station, you might have a viable business plan.
The real questions are just how long is S.A.'s list of rich clients and how long will it take before the "Adventure" gets old and they have to start spending more to add value to the experience. Private commercial is great, but this system won't really take off until there are 2 different companies competing for those extra billionaire's millions. Just my 2 sense. :-)
Build it, create it and the adventure begins!
I want to be rich so bad! I would build my own space station and fly people there just for fun.
My concern is the number of space capsules under development, and the duplication of effort they represent. NASA has its Orion capsule, Bigelow Aerospace is contemplating a stripped-down version called Orion Lite, Space X is developing its Dragon capsule, and Boeing is developing the CST-100. While it's good not to depend on one company or system to get humans into space, these spacecraft are all very similar and accomplish basically the same thing. Considering that all of them are receiving some level of government funding- some more than others- that means the taxpayers are footing the bill for this constant reinvention of the same vehicle. Better perhaps to settle on one or two designs that accomplish different tasks and put our space resources into other projects. It seems to me that getting humans into space isn't nearly as important as what those humans do once they get there. The Russians have used their venerable Soyuz capsule for decades, and in an ironic twist, not only is it going to outlive the much more impressive Space Shuttle, but now we have to rely on the Soyuz to get our astronauts to the ISS until our own capsule(s) are ready. Sometimes simple and basic is just fine when what you have is a simple and basic task.
Hogwash,
You will get a much better ride (as opposed to lauching to the space station) if you drive your old chevy (the one with the bad shocks) to an IMAX theater. :)
And it will cost you 1/20,000,000 the price.
Yeah, Oaktree. And maybe I should just look at travelogues of Hawaii, Australia, Egypt, the Aleutians or Antarctica too, instead of getting off my a$$ and going out to have a real-life, even if a bit (Gasp!) uncomfortable experience.
Life's not all about comfort. There's no escalator up the side of Mt Everest. (And I'd go to orbit a dozen times before doing that climb, yet I understand why people do...)
Please pass the chips? Hey, where is that damn remote?
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