Commercial Spaceport In Texas

Scothoser writes "CNN has this article on a rocket that was launched on a ranch site near Stockton, Texas. Their hope is that it will become a commercial launch site for anything, as long as it is legal. The major reason for this move is that using NASA launch sites are prohibitively expensive. This way someone can launch their home-made satellites for much less than approaching NASA. Now I am just waiting for the HOW-TO on a Linux-run micro-satellite!"

Liability issues could be enormous

[Ryu2]

What if your private rocket has a malfunction and goes slamming into a major city, killing thousands? With space technology so new compared to all other forms of transportation, I'm guessing that it would be an insurance nightmare, I think, for any private individual or even single company to afford.

This isn't new

[wyopittsa]

According to this article [spacer.com] there is a spaceport in California that has been launching since the year 2000. Does anyone know anymore about it?

yay for them

[ehlo]

This is an excellent idea. The government controlled [nasa] launch sites want a small fortune ($1mil+) to jetisson a can of coke into space. These private foundations can only cost a fraction of that.. and im sure more of these privately owned sites will spring forth around the globe pretty quickly. And as we all know only with competition can something really be accomplished. Nasa has proven that without due such all they can accomplish is launch dates in the 3000's. A round of applause to the people of Rancho de Stockton.
Props to Gene Lyda for letting them use the land free-of-charge!

Re:Legal?

[Meridun]

As funny as it is, this is actually pretty much the heart of why it costs so much to launch satellites: any rocket capable of putting something into orbit is realistically an ICBM.

Near the anniversary of Sputnik (which I think was last week), I'd remind everyone that it was this fact that was why Sputnik was so frightening to Americans; if the Soviets could put a beeping piece of metal into orbit, they could just as easily have made it come down near us instead.

Therefore, any company that is capable of putting cargo into space is very likely to find itself under strict regulation, due to the potential for that cargo to be miss orbit either accidentally or purposely.

Re:Legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

but if you think about it, commerical aviation isn't that much different with regard to this potential hazard. planes crash (or can be crashed on purpose).

-ac

Legal? FAA?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the FAA more or less controlled the skies, more or less, even over privately owned land. Rocketry included. Did they get waivers? Furthermore, I thought the launch vehicle also had to be "approved" by them. This is unlike some other launches covered on /., where the site is government run and is largely a testing ground or it's a small hob, or they got an excemption for that particular launch.

Carmack's info (armadilloaerospace.com, if I recall) had some information a while back (I haven't read it for about 8 months now) about some difficulty getting permissions from the local FAA. They were talking to folks in Oklahoma, last I heard. Did something suddenly change re the FAA?

Or are these people just doing this thinking it's legal because it's on private land?

John Powell is a great guy

[PhantomHarlock]

JP Aerospace is a great little company, partially run by volunteers. Their main specialty is extremely high altitude balloon platforms (edge of space) from which they can conduct experiments and launch rockets. John does a lot of work with kids and education, including taking up "Pong-Sats", which are ping pong balls cut open and stuffed with what ever the kids want to put in them, sans live animals. One person put some digital camera memory in it with all the bits set to zero, and then when it came back got a very accurate radiation measurement by counting all the bits that had flipped.

I had the pleasure of meeting John at the last Space Access Society meeting in Arizona and talking to him for several hours about high altitude photography from balloon and kite platforms.

---Mike

Re:Legal?

[John Sullivan]

In reality, one only has to achieve slightly more than 9.8m/s^2 acceleration and maintain that for the duration of the trip to space.

Actually, any positive acceleration no matter how small will do - though the higher the more efficient the launch will be. This means you have to generate a force of at least 9.8 N per kg of rocket at the surface though.

Granted, the shuttle uses a LOT more than just 9.8 m/s^2 acceleration, but it still never reached speeds of 9,000 mph.

Indeed, but the shuttle is not an ICBM. The difference being not the launch, but the landing. The shuttle has to land in one piece and keep its human cargo in one piece too. The ICBM may well go up at the same speed, but on the way down you want it to be going as fast as possible precisely because you want to give the target as little time as possible, so you make it aerodynamic and throw it down from low earth orbit.

As for the figures, to maintain geostationary orbit you need to travel at just under 7000 mph. You wouldn't want the rocket to go anywhere near that on the way up - because you don't want it to reach or pass geostationary orbit, you want it to come back down again. However on the way down it it going to be going a lot faster than Mach 1.

insurance companies: corporate politics Vs math.

[guybarr]

Like most people you are forgetting that insurance is one of the few industries run entirely on logic and mathematics -- their actuaries calculate the risk and the cost and multiple it out to get your premium.

actually, not quite exact: I met a man whose sole livelihood depends on insurance companies NOT familiar with the law of large numbers ...

to explain: his company is a middleman between the large insurance companies and single insurance agents.

Now, this company's sole service is being a medium-scale repository of agents for the large companies, and for this they take 10% commision.

Why do the agents do this ? because the large companies treat every account as a profit-making unit, so even if the single agent is very succesful, just one large insurance claim causes him to be unprofitable some fiscal year (or several years), which means this agent will be out of a job. For the medium-sized company, however, fluctuations are much smaller, hence they have little risk, they are almost allways a "profitable unit" .

This causes the absurd situation that large insurance companies lose 10% of gross-profit (more for real profit) because they ignore the law of large numbers !!

now, I asked this man wether they didn't know the absurdity of this, and he said of course they did, but they needed to justify every account to the board as profitable, so they did not try to change it.

And the morals of the story: like every industry, the insurance industry is not allways run solely on math and logic ... corporate politics takes its toll here as well.