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I suspect some may request refunds and ticket sales will drop after the first explosion....
There is a cancellation/change fee, this isn’t SouthWest.I suspect some may request refunds and ticket sales will drop after the first explosion....
There is a cancellation/change fee, this isn’t SouthWest.
You completely missed the point. Shepard's rocket and capsule were throw away tech, state of the art of their time.You are missing my point. Doesn’t matter who financed this fireworks. Alan Shepard did this with much more risk, 60 years ago. I would think that there was a foundation there that could be built upon. Sorry, I am meh about Bezos and Branson’s “feats.”
Color me unimpressed with today’s flight. Alan Shepard did the same thing 60 years ago.
I’m not belittling anyone’s courage who participated, but not much of a difference from the first manned space flight from the US.
What a clownish after presser….
EDIT: The landing of the launch vehicle was impressive!
You completely missed the point. Shepard's rocket and capsule were throw away tech, state of the art of their time.
Todays private rockets, spaceplanes will be reused.
That is the big deal
It is about reusability. Space Shuttle, despite being a master piece of engineering, was to expensive and not quiet reliable enough.How will it be determined what number of uses can be had from one rocket/capsule/spaceplane?
It is about reusability. Space Shuttle, despite being a master piece of engineering, was to expensive and not quiet reliable enough.
With the privates, reusing the most expensive parts, like 1. stage, or capsules became a must, because of the cost savings potential. SpaceX has reused its first stages up to 10 times and is reusing its Dragon capsules, crew and uncrewed.
Blue Origin is following the same path, even that it has to do some serious catching up to do. Now they have made their little rocket so reliable, that they can give people a 100km hopp and than reuse it again. That is a path finder for their larger rockets, in development.
The general idea is, to have thousands of people to live and work in Space, expand beyond our planet.
That only works if the transportation cost per pound, gets reduced, close to what todays cost on a airplane is.
We do not throw airplanes away after they land and built new ones.
The Shuttle and the demand list of it was way beyond technology of that time. Just think about the complicated heat tiles and their glue. It really stretched the technology of the 80s to its limit. It was flat out to expensive to operate in the end with its outdated systems.The NASA Space Shuttle was designed to be reflown up to 100x, the first reusable flown in 1981. Rocket sections were also reusable. The US govt is already paying private industry for both service and development of space technology. Private industry will figure it all out by having access to the original US govt tech and current/future financing.
The Shuttle and the demand list of it was way beyond technology of that time. Just think about the complicated heat tiles and their glue. It really stretched the technology of the 80s to its limit. It was flat out to expensive to operate in the end with its outdated systems.
It did a fantastic job building ISS and fixing and updating Hubble.
But it never kept its promise, to lower the per pound lifting price, it did the opposite.
Are lifting bodies a matter of the past. No. Sierra Nevada Corp is building the Dream Catcher, a mini Shuttle. 2 versions, a crewed ( 3) and a cargo. It can be put on top of any midsize rocket, ULA, SpaceX or Ariane. The charm of it is, it can land on any regular airport, anywhere in the world, fully automated, or crewed.
Put it on a Falcon 9, the only thing lost, would be second stage.
For capsules you need a special operation when they land, which is very expensive and time consuming. You land on a airport, attach a airport tug and haul it of.
Yes NASA's job is to be a trail blazer and it has done a outstanding job and now is handing down its knowledge to the industry. Competition will than decide.
Which means who can do it most reliable for the best price and still makes a profit.
But that is just low earth orbit. The next step is Moon and beyond and that is it were it gets real serious. Now we are talking about gigantic rockets.
The current price are based on what is currently available and naturally, its novel, vogue. Flying with a airplane in the 50 and 60 was just for the better of or rich and it was rather stylish. People dressed up for it and everything was First Class. I remember flying in a Super Constellation from Frankfurt to Madrid, with my mother.Going from inner to outer space is geometric. Without having done any research, I'm just wild-guessing that the $250K passenger ticket aboard the Bezos overcompensation vessel would be about $10M onboard the outer space vessel. And likely private innovation will be partially govt subsidized, to whatever extent. That process was initiated yrs ago.