Another Private Space Startup

An anonymous reader writes "Wired has a story about former PayPal owner Elon Musk who has his own rocket company, SpaceX, trying to lower the cost of getting into space. They just tested the rocket engine, and hope to fly a test by the end of the year. Not bad for less than a year's worth of work so far." We mentioned this guy last year.

Go Go GO!!!!!

[raygundan]

The more the merrier. NASA is busy launching (or lately, not launching) shuttles that cost roughly 30X the cost of launching a Soyuz, and has cancelled the latest of its "shuttle replacement" programs (the X-33/Venturestar). The sooner somebody else gets their foot in the door, the sooner we can get on with the exciting stuff in space. Cheaper. Some of these nuts will blow themselves up. Some will fail less catastrophically. A few will make it, and it will be a damn good thing to have somebody besides NASA pushing out for a change.

I heartily welcome and cheer for anybody willing to try. Build it and go, you crazy rich bastards!!

X Prize

[stratjakt]

What's the deal with this anyways?

I mean the purse is 10 million. It seems to me you'd have spent that many times over to develop a rocket ship. So I doubt the winner recoups his investment, let alone makes any profit.

So I assume it's more about bragging rights? And if so, why not donate the 10 million to charity, and just give out a fancy trophy?

Re:John Carmack

[ChuckDivine]

There's quite a bit going on with regard to private space. Just check out The X Prize [xprize.org] for information on Carmack, Rutan and others. The most recent story [scaled.com] about Rutan's work is attracting quite a bit of attention.

Personally, I think the next crewed orbital vehicle will be coming out of one of these startups, not out of NASA. Of course, NASA could get back into the picture if they decided to help independents rather than try to run the whole damned show.

This actually could work...

[bittmann]

What this fellow seems to be promoting is nothing more than a "Big Dumb Booster"-based launch system. He's not worried about building a reusable launch vehicle a-la X-Prize [xprize.org], or an orbiter/re-entry vehicle, or a hypersonic jet engine. Kerosene, LOX, and a good pumping system...not necessarily elegant, but could be pretty effective.

Big thrust, low weight, "cheap" to manufacture, limited exposure to the "risky" science of re-entry (leave that to the folks worrying about the payload)...

These guys may be on to something.

What's that old saying?

[Some Dumbass...]

"Flying is easy... it's the landing that's hard."

As long as they're only claiming that they can get stuff into space, I'm inclined to believe them. All you need for that is a powerful rocket and some good mathematicians. But when some random rich guy claims that he can bring stuff back safely when even NASA is having problems with that... that's when I stop buying it.

Oh look, another one

[bluesnowmonkey]

It seems like quite a few groups have gotten to the "engine test in the desert" phase. Not too many have actually flown something around. Don't think I'll get my hopes up until I see some of that from these guys.