Does $200,000 for a 3 hour ride in space sound like a good idea?
The Space Program (especially the manned part) has always been one of those things people either get or don't. On one side is the argument of discovery, science, and exploration. On the other is the concern for Earthly problems that the millions of dollars being spent on rockets & other such things could address. NASA has underwent changes recently in coping with the design flaws in the space shuttle, and planning future manned missions. The new plans for the CEV envision a return to the capsule-rocket system, getting away from the reusuable space plane design of the space shuttle. This system is supposed to take us back to the moon by 2018...
...This plan might have more to do with
China though. The Chinese will
reportedly attempt to send astronauts to the moon around the same time. The Chinese planting the flag of the PRC in the
Sea Of Tranquility next to Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 lander would be a strike at American pride.
However, what I'm finding really interesting is the private efforts for commercial space travel...
Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson is planning to offer flights to sub-orbital heights starting in 2008. Virgin Galactic is a joint effort between Branson's Virgin Group & Scaled Composites, the developer of SpaceShipOne. They just recently announced they will build a $225 million dollar "spaceport" in the New Mexico desert. The launch system will be similar to that of SpaceShipOne. A "mothership" plane that will carry SpaceShipTwo to high altitude. The space ship drops & climbs to the edge of space. It then glides back to a landing on Earth...
Virgin plans to build 5 space ships, with the first to be named VSS Enterprise. The cost of the 3-4 hour ride (with an experience of weightlessness) will be $200,000. The Virgin Galactic website explains what you get for that money. The company claims that revenues will be reinvested to bring down the costs, with the uber-rich being the first passengers. They also claim that they will eventually offer orbital flights.
However, there's another billionaire with plans for commercial space flight...
Amazon.com founder & CEO, Jeff Bezos, has set up Blue Origin. The company, based in Kent, Washington, is planning to offer flights around the same time as Branson's Virgin Galactic. Bezos is building his own spaceport in Texas. The company's rumored launch vehicle will be somewhat unorthodox. It is rumored to be based on the Delta Clipper (DC-X) that NASA & the DOD was developing in the early 90's. It launches & lands similar to a "Flash Gordon" rocketship, with attitude control thrusters & retro-thrusters...
...According to a briefly-posted document on the Blue Origin web site, the group's reusable launch vehicle (RLV) would haul paying passengers on suborbital jaunts. The group's rocket would be comprised of a propulsion module and a crew capsule. Hydrogen peroxide and kerosene are to be used as propellants.
The Bezos booster would be fully reusable, flying autonomously under control of on-board computers. There would be no ground control during nominal flight conditions, the document explained.
Taking off vertically from a concrete pad, the craft would land vertically in an area near the launch site. That flight profile is similar to the trajectory flown by the Pentagon/NASA-sponsored Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X).
The DC-X was built under contract at McDonnell Douglas and repeatedly flew from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico starting in the early 1990s.
Blue Origin said it intended to perform unmanned RLV developmental test flights from the proposed facility beginning in the third quarter of 2006. Once the technology had been thoroughly tested, passenger flight service using the RLV would occur at a maximum rate of 52 launches per year. The RLV was identified as being capable of carrying three or more passengers per operation.
Will These Commercial Enterprises Be Successful?
I guess we'll find out if Branson & Bezos are on to a new industry, or if they'll go from being billionaires to millionaires.
$200,000 is a lot of money for a 3 hour flight, even for the wealthy. Do they take multiple flights, or just one & that's it. That means the market for this kind of thing, at least at the beginning, is limited. A lot of the articles I've read forsee the price falling to around $20,000 after startup (in a good scenario). That would be 10% of the original cost, and I still think it's probably too expensive. I could see a good portion of the population paying $3,000-$5,000 for a flight, however that's almost a 99% cost reduction from the current price.
If you look at the reasons for air travel becoming commonplace...
- Transportation - Taking a plane was faster than a car, bus, or train. If these flights from Virgin Galactic & Blue Origin become orbital hops between New York & Tokyo that take 2 hours instead of 15 hours, I could see a market. How big of a market, I don't know? Also, if they build something in space, like a Hotel people could stay at for a couple of days, I could see it maybe working.
- Cost - Air travel was very expensive in the beginning. I've heard it mentioned that people used to "dress up" to travel on a plane. But if you hop on the Southwest Airline's L.A.-Vegas shuttle now, you might sit next to someone in flip-flops & a wifebeater. That's because it's like $40 for the flight. If the cost of space travel comes down, where the middle-class can afford it, I could see it as profitable.
- Freight - Couriers saw a market for moving products faster than trucking, ships, or trains could. Is there a market for moving packages or products from Singapore to London sameday, via orbital hop? Could you see a Federal Express space ship?
What do you guys think?