First Private Manned Orbital Flight Announced 165
Miroslav Ambrus-Kis wrote in to tell us that Inter-orbital Systems has announced that Nebojsa Stanojevic and Miroslav Ambrus-Kis will be the astronauts aboard the first completely private orbital flight. This is part of their bid for the Google Lunar X-Prize.
Re:Not Astronauts! (Score:5, Informative)
Nebojsa is a perfect name for someone attempting a feat like this - it translates as "Fear not".
Re:Not Astronauts! (Score:1, Informative)
Ah, Slashdot, hater and destroyer of non-ASCII characters since the dawn of time.
Let's transliterate: "Nebojsha".
Re:hypergolic main engines? (Score:4, Informative)
SpaceX is already profitable (Score:5, Informative)
OrbitalSciences also looks as though its been profitable for a while (NYSE:ORB)
The space industry is going to move faster than I think anyone expects. We have China and India getting into the mix pretty heavily now as well. I think we could see space become bigger than it was in the 60's both politically and commercially.
Don't think so... (Score:5, Informative)
This company managed to launch one high powered amateur rocket in the 1990s. That's it. Nothing since then. Complete vapor. The only serious orbital launch company is currently SpaceX. The only serious near term suborbital launch companies are XCOR and Virgin Galactic, with the various VTVL / lunar X-Prize people (Masten, Armadillo, etc.) filling in a different but useful niche down the road.
SpaceX finally succeeded in orbital launch after many millions of dollars of hardware and testing. XCOR has 66 manned rocket flights to its credit (the largest share of manned rocket flights worldwide since 2000.) Virgin/Scaled has SS1, Armadillo and Masten have a large number of VTVL flights under their belt and years of hardware development.
Interorbital has paper and mockups.
Re:and NASA (Score:5, Informative)
Re:and NASA (Score:4, Informative)
Trust me on this, NASA is dying laughing on the inside. 'Interorbital Systems' are a joke amongst serious minds in the space industry; they are constantly making grandiose claims yet have never fielded any hardware that couldn't simply be bought off the shelf. They are always a short amount of time from some 'amazing' breakthrough - but to put this in perspective, their nominated 'first teenager in space' is now in his twenties.
The idea that private enteprise is simply 'better' - an idea rubbished by experiences with healthcare, banking, transport, energy supply, and many other things - is blinding you to how clearly absurd these people are.
Re:and NASA (Score:5, Informative)
I was going to respond but you cleared it up better than I ever could.
Space travel is inherently dangerous. (Do I have to spell out why on Slashdot?). By trying to force enginears to eliminate rather thasn mitigate the danger NASA has taken far longer than it should to design an improved replacement for the shuttle.
By Improved I mean:
0. lower Construction cost
1. lower cost for throwaway components (boosters etc...)
2. Lower fuel consumption per payload/passenger pound.
3. Lower cost of serviceing between missions.
4. Shorter prep time for flight.
5. Larger cargo bay.
6. Less likely to blow up under stress. etc...
It's not that nobody came up with anything better than the existing shuttle in those years. It's just that none of the improved models met NASA's upgraded standards. Put another way, You are stuck driving an old Corolla because the best replacement anyone has proposed is Camry and your bosses want nothing less than an Armored Roles Royce Limousine that runs on solar and has a self driving AI.
Re:Don't think so... (Score:5, Informative)
The companies that have been launching commercial payloads into orbit for years (Orbital Sciences) or decades (Boeing, Lockheed), might beg to differ.
Re:Subject: LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIP IN BUSINESS (Score:3, Informative)
That's hilarious. At first I just thought it was a mildly amusing bit of unsubtle satire. But that was before I glanced around the IOS web site and found that this is actually directly quoted from there. That makes it hilarious.
Re:It'll never get off the ground, Orville..... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
A 2.5MW plant running at capacity a month produces 1.8 GWh of energy (roughly $180,000 worth where I live).
shipping (Score:3, Informative)
in the old days it was tough to stay in the shipping business after your ship sank.
This is why corporations were created, because shipping was a risky business. Way back when, before 1600, if a cargo ship or any of it's cargo was lost the ship's owners were liable. They were also liable for the crews. If a ship sank because of a hurricane or was attacked by pirates too bad for the owners. So in 1600 the British crown granted a corporate charter to the East India Company [wikipedia.org]. The corporate charter gave the owners of the corporation limited liability. Whereas someone who owned a ship could lose everything, including their home, the most a share or stockholder in a corporation can lose is the amount they paid for the shares. Corporations also allow the pooling of a lot of people's money for a business. The next corporate charter was granted to the Dutch East India Company [wikipedia.org] by the Dutch crown in 1602.
However something has been lost in the years since. Corporations were only granted charters if they served the common or public good, and shipping was considered a good. If a corporation no longer did serve the good it's charter could be revoked [multinationalmonitor.org]. Those charters aren't revoked in the US anymore.
Falcon