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Space Technology

t/Space Demonstrates New Air-Launch Method 117

Posted by samzenpus from the get-it-up-there dept.
FleaPlus writes "Last month t/Space, an organization with plans for constructing a simple, low-cost successor to the Space Shuttle, was mentioned on Slashdot. Recently t/Space used a portion of the concept study funds it had been awarded by NASA to also build and test actual hardware. They performed three weeks of drop tests of a 23%-scale model from a Scaled Composites Proteus carrier aircraft to demonstrate the feasibility of a new air launch method they had devised, dubbed 'Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop.' The new method eliminates the need for wings on air-launched rockets, potentially leading to improved safety and cost-effectiveness. Last month at a space conference they also displayed a full-scale model of their vehicle. Unfortunately, with the recent selection of Boeing/Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin as the two competing teams for the contract to build the Shuttle's successor, t/Space's future path is somewhat uncertain."
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t/Space Demonstrates New Air-Launch Method More

t/Space Demonstrates New Air-Launch Method

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  • 'Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop.' (Score:5, Funny)

    by ShaniaTwain ( 197446 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @10:41PM (#12829455) Homepage
    ..dubbed 'Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop.'

    ..I'm pretty sure I saw this on Jackass..

    • Re:'Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop.' (Score:5, Informative)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @10:55PM (#12829536) Homepage
      And the abort mode for a stuck cable or bad chute is....? :)

      Not that it's not an interesting deployment concept, mind you. There are lots of interesting airbreathing assisted methods, although none of them scale up to very large orbital craft. In addition to this and standard belly-dropped rockets, there's also wing-dropped (doesn't usually need a custom aircraft, but is geometrically constrained and offbalances the craft), roof-launched (the whole "tail" thing tends to get in the way unless you have a custom craft, but you can handle almost any geometry), tow-launch (you pay a penalty in carrying heavy landing gear, but the modifications to the towing craft are minimal), unfuelled tow launch (you fuel midair from lines attached to the craft at liftoff), docking and fuelling (taking off with just enough fuel to get to altitude - allows for multiple reentries and possibly powered landing), and carrying the craft inside the carrier, launching with a drogue chute (very geometrically constraining, but almost no modifications to the carrier needed).

      The problem with scaling up is that airplanes get tougher to scale up beyond a point. It's really only realistic for small satellites and humans to LEO.
      • It's really only realistic for small satellites and humans to LEO.
        Human craft tend to be relatively big and heavy? Did you mean to implyl "and small humans" to orbit?

        I seem to recall reading some speculation that a spacefareing race would evolve to be smaller.
        • ?

          No. I didn't think my phrasing was hard to understand, but let me rephrase:

          It's really only realistic for humans and small satellites to LEO

          A craft carrying, say, three people will have only, perhaps, 300kg of human cargo (plus life support, backup systems, supplies, etc). Many satellites are even smaller than the human portion of the mass alone. Large satellites, probes, and modules for things like ISS, however, are often measured in metric tonnes and are physically quite large.
      • tow-launch (you pay a penalty in carrying heavy landing gear, but the modifications to the towing craft are minimal)

        The spacecraft does need some kind of landing gear, unless a disposable sled is used for takeoff. Consider a cart strapped to the vehicle and dropped at liftoff

        But the real problem is that the spacecraft has to fly from the word go, and (unless we assume your next option) needs to do so fully fuled.

        This works surprisingly well for sailplanes but spacraft have the opposite problem. They are

        • The heavier the craft at takeoff, the stronger (and thus heavier) the landing gear that you need. The big mass elements of a spacecraft are its tanks and any structural support; the landing gear is a critical structural support. When you factor in that even a couple kilograms extra mass at takeoff will cost you dozens of kilograms of payload, it makes a huge difference.
          • You don't need landing gear in orbit hell you don't need them above 50 feet so you could easly have 2 sets the "fuel tank empty we are back from orbit type" and the "we need to get off the runway type" which could fall off. Using a system like this much of the weight at takeoff need not go above 50 feet in the air which means the fuel costs are vary minimal.
      • It's really only realistic for small satellites and humans to LEO.

        And a net in LEO to catch the humans.

      • You can air launch a pretty good sized vehical. A 747-400F can lift over 120,000kg A mission specific aircraft could probably do much better.
        I don't know about manned but for sats it may be the way to go.
        • Which means you can put 5-10,0000 kg in LEO, depending upon how good your rocket guys are. Which is decent. But chances are you are going to have to structurally reinforce that 747-400F to carry the rocket, which will reduce the weight, etc... its a system of trades. But even still no reason it couldn't be used as a launch platform for an ISS ferry vehicle.

          The downside is, now you are launching from a moving platform. And the savings, while there are some, arent **that** great... IE, you aren't going to b
        • Should be able to put it into a relatively gentle parabola and simply kick your 56.7t load out the tail.

          Small disposable drogue goes first to make sure payload points the right way throughout (would be the world's most expensive air-air missile if it destabilised and happened to point the wrong way when it went whoosh), slide out back end, (roll and?) send C5A into negative gees to miss the payload, light blue touch-paper, home time.
      • And the abort method for a cracked wing on the space shuttle is...?

    • 'Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop.'

      Famous last words: "Hey, guys, watch what I can do!"

  • Down with combustion! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mister_llah ( 891540 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @10:42PM (#12829458) Homepage Journal
    If we could just get rid of combustion and the need for incredibly expensive fuels... we'd be set.

    Elecromagnetism? Superheated water / water reclamation?

    ===

    http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/backgrou nd/facts/vcd.html [nasa.gov]

    • Oops wrong link.. check this... (Score:4, Informative)

      by mister_llah ( 891540 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @10:45PM (#12829481) Homepage Journal
      Damn it, Beautrice... that's something different :)

      http://www.eng.titech.ac.jp/jyosei/t_yabe.pdf [titech.ac.jp]

      That is more along the lines of what I meant!
      • 1. Intentionally post wrong link 2. Reply to oneself with correct link 3. ???? 4. Karma!

      • Myrabo (Score:3, Interesting)

        by krysith ( 648105 )
        I'm sure you are already familiar with the work of Leik Myrabo [rpi.edu], but in case you aren't, you ought to check out his stuff. He is the big pioneer in this area (ref. 3 on your correct link).

        You are right that huge savings can be had by separating the power source from the vehicle - Myrabo was writing about this 20 years ago. Most of the energy used by a rocket is used to elevate the fuel to the altitude at which it is burned. If the energy is supplied to energize a propellant (such as vaporized water as s
    • Both of which would require the same amount of energy as just burning the fossile fuels to begin with. From where would you get that energy? A power plant that burns fossil fuels?

      Fossil fuels are the cheapest way to go. If they weren't, we'd be using electromagnetism to fling ships into space (but we dont).

      • Takes much less energy (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @11:43PM (#12829708)
        Both of which would require the same amount of energy as just burning the fossile fuels to begin with. From where would you get that energy? A power plant that burns fossil fuels?

        The overwhelming majority of fuel used to launch spacecraft is spent accelerating the rest of the fuel. If you don't carry the fuel with you, it will take much less energy to reach orbit. Consider the European Union's Hopper [wikipedia.org] which will accelerate spacecraft on magnetic rails. They already have a prototype [wikipedia.org].

      • As we learn how to make lower and lower temperature superconductors, the need for fossil fuel use in propulsion will slip away.

        We need to realize this, however, in order to try to develop that technology...

        ===

        Fossil fuels are cheapest because we've already got it, but it may be cheaper in the long run to research something else, not to mention there are speed limitations to combustion (which they try to work around by make the spacecraft lighter and lighter) ... [not that there wouldn't be limits to othe

  • Uncertain future.. but not in space tourism.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by guyfromindia ( 812078 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @10:42PM (#12829460) Homepage
    t/Space's future path is somewhat uncertain."
    Given the possible boom in space tourism, I dont see t/Space going out of business anytime, especially if they have a viable technology.
    • I'm not sure how much of a boom one can expect for 200,000$ hops for 3 minutes of weightlessness... the combination of "affluent", "thrill-seeker", and "finding 3 minutes not to be a bit low" doesn't seem like you'd have a "boom" market. Sure, you'll find customers, and it's great for promotional contents... but it's still niche. Picture even your average wealthy thrillseeker - if it's 3 minutes of weightlessness, or a 10,000$ ride on a vomit comet plus one or two uber-nice sports cars, what do you think
      • Remember that PC's started as very VERY expensive and very VERY weak pieces of hardware with not much software that retailed for lots of money. Now I've got more computing power in my handheld than I could have had in a desktop machine 20 years ago.

        More on topic, how about air travel in the 40's and 50's? Look at the cost and technology at the time, and compare it to modern jet technology. Sure, it started as an affluent method of travel for the "jet-setters", but now, anyone can travel by air from LA t

        • Re:Uncertain future.. but not in space tourism.. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Rei ( 128717 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @03:35AM (#12830481) Homepage
          Computers have been halving in cost for the same power every 3 years for most of the past century. Rockets have hardly dropped in price since the 1960s, *despite* the increased amount of private industry development. Despite the satellite boom of the 1990s. Etc.

          PCs kept dropping in price because simpler (and higher power) manufacturing techniques kept being developed - and there was a clear path layed out for the next decade at almost all times, with research laying clear foundations for the every-three-year doublings of the next several decades. Nothing even close to this exists for rocketry. The only major thing that can do an order-of-magnitude reduction in prices are huge materials leaps forward (we'll get incremental improvements, of course - there's some nice ones due soon).

          How about air travel in the 40's and 50's?

          Driven almost entirely by people who needed to travel, paying the equivalent of several thousand dollars per ticket (not several hundred thousand), and getting to a destination that they had a strong need to arrive at. Very little of it was "joy riding", even if travelling places by plane was somewhat of a status symbol.

          Give commercial space travel it's start

          Private industry developed almost everything NASA ever built. Private companies like SeaLaunch and Orbital successfully built their own privately funded rockets; there was no leap forward, just incremental improvements. Several dozen companies outrght failed. It's not a "private industry" thing; it's a "technology thing". And no, a rocket that goes a tiny fraction of orbital velocity isn't a step forward; it's a big leap backwards. If you're going to hawk a "private enterprise" technology with promise, you should be hawking SpaceX or whatnot. The "100km straight up and then down" companies are as close to real space travel as a person who makes a go-cart out of a lawnmower engine is to making a car to race in the Indy 500. Seriously. The ISPs are awful, the payload fractions are awful (because of the low ISP engines and high tank/structural masses), they don't deal with much TPS if any, etc. I.e., they don't deal with the real engineering problems of spaceflight, and thus aren't advancing anything. Cheer for those who are actually advancing technology.

          And no, before you state it, let me head it off: they're not helping parts be "mass produced" and thus cheaper. The materials that they use are generally all wrong (far more in common with aircraft) and the low performance engine designs share little to nothing in common with real rocket engines, which are more like jet engines. And of course, since they don't need much of any TPS, they don't advance TPS research/costs (most of which are labor, anyways)
          • Rockets have hardly dropped in price since the 1960s, *despite* the increased amount of private industry development.

            What are these privately funded rockets of which you speak? I work with OSC on a regular basis and have evaluated SeaLaunch capabilities in an AF source selection and neither have "privately funded" development on their rockets. Perhaps you allude to Pegasus who's motors are derivative of the Minuteman upperstage motors. SeaLaunch uses derivatives of the Russian Zenit rocket. This of course
            • Perhaps you refer to the Pegasus, whose motors are derivative of the Minuteman engine.

              I do. By the way, my home computer is an Athlon XP, which is a derivative of the Athlon, which is a derivative of the Pentium, which is a derivative of the 486... (etc). The fact remains that Pegasus was funded by private development dollars, and not a dime of government funding.

              SeaLaunch uses derivatives

              I think stopping that quote right there says it all. "Derivatives". I.e., changes to an extant system. Did th
              • There was no direct public money spent on the development of the Pegasus (or the SeaLaunch Zenit for that matter) but that doesn't mean there was no public money spent on the rocket. I assure you that Aerospace support is not free and while it is technically an independant corporation the public money that supports it does mean that public money did support development. At any rate its getting into splitting hairs now so lets agree to disagree. Actually, I was involved in going over the technical details o
            • USAflt2003, I'm hesitant to post my email address out for public consumption, but you and I need to talk. Any suggestions?
        • Yes, but PC's and Jet aircraft solved problems everyday people had.

          I can't think of the last time I, or anyone in my family, have needed to get into LEO.

          In fact, after 50 years neither the Soviets nor NASA have been able to come up with a "Killer Application" for space. There are some nifty pure science items for sure, but nothing that is going to make Joe Sixpack want to be there or buy something from there.

          You gotta think, nobody bothered with the Americas until there was money involved. Well, exc

        • "...how about air travel in the 40's and 50's? Look at the cost and technology at the time, and compare it to modern jet technology. Sure, it started as an affluent method of travel for the "jet-setters", but now, anyone can travel by air from LA to NYC for less than $500."

          And while technology has gotten better, there are now far fewer private aircraft in the Untited States. I suspect this has more to do with "safety" regulations and licensing requirements than with economics.

          Truth is that aircraft and
    • There is enough money around for space tourism to be at least a short term fad, leading to some significant technical developments. It does seem thar bigelow will launch something by the end of the year. It also seems that Virgin air has has several million dollars in sales for it sub orbital flights. The Hilton people have some far fetched plan to build space hotels in the next decade.

      What Rutan did was admirable, but it was really less than the soviets did 44 years ago,about equal to what the US did

  • No future ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by McGiraf ( 196030 )
    If NASA will not fund it , they can find private investors and start the private space industry ...
    • until it's banned.
      • until it's banned.

        Only in the US. If they want to live in the dark ages, the rest of the world is happy to let them.

        Remember, we (rest of world) will at that stage have a cheap, reliable nuke delivery system. Not wise to be making threats.
    • Just because space travel is costly for NASA doesn't mean it must be for the rest of us. As soon as it's profitable to do without NASA level budgeting, companies will scoop up the benjamins like there's no tomorrow.

      The question is: was that 23% the size or 23% scale model, because those are two vastly different volumes.

      And the corollary question is: was it an empty shell? or did it have the same mass distribution that the rocket will have?
    • The private space industry is alive and well. Did you really think the government was providing the satellites you use to receive The Cartoon Network?

  • Although... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TheKidWho ( 705796 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @10:47PM (#12829490)
    Although Boeing-Northrop-Lockheed are the big boys right now, I dont see why one of thsoe teams wouldnt be capable of choosing t/space for crew-space transfer =) Then again Boeing-Northrop probablly wouldnt since Northrop is only involved in spiral 1, but Lockheed might.

    Also, Griffin has made it quite clear that he wouldnt probablly fund t/space, BUT if they do get a vehicle built and it is cheap, he will gladly use it for crew and cargo transfers to the ISS.
    • Also, I personally would definetly invest in this company if such an opportunity arose =)
    • Also AFAIK T/space never submitted a proposal for the CEV, they have been talking with NASA about the CXV instead =)

      NASA is planning on spending around 400-500million over the next 4 years for cargo transportation capabilities for the ISS... Guess how much the t/space guys need to build their whole system? Thats right, 400million.

  • Starcraft? (Score:1, Funny)

    by SignalFreq ( 580297 )
    Was it just me, or did anyone else read that as a Scaled Composites Protoss Carrier [battle.net] aircraft? I guess we better start building our Science Vessels [battle.net]!
    • Was it just me, or did anyone else read that as a Scaled Composites Protoss Carrier aircraft?

      Funny thing is, now that I think about it, just about all of Burt Rutan's designs [scaled.com] actually end up looking like Protoss aircraft. ;)
  • This gradual progression of space technology is ok, but we really need to step it up a notch. And we all know the coolest tech is made during times of war. So how about it? How can we start this space war we so desperately need? Hell I will have no problem joining the army if I get a space fighter.

    • Re:Mmm war (Score:3, Funny)

      by TheKidWho ( 705796 )
      Nor do I =)

      Which is why the dark part of me WISHES for a war with China, in SPACE!!

      Of course its just a foolish thought, but wouldnt it be awesome, I mean after all the death and destruction, just think of all the new technological advancements that would come! Heck, even a Cold War would be good. Very few die, and we still get the good tech!!!
    • Heck, I don't even need a space fighter, just an R2 unit will do for me...
  • Missile technology is basically a guided, long range bullet.

    • Re:Missiles (Score:3, Informative)

      by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 )
      Er, no.

      Yes, there are ballistics involved, but Missile technology is a helluva a lot more complicated because you are accellerating a mass that is constantly shrinking through an atmosphere that is constantly thinning to a speed that is so fast that the "bullet" enters a state of perpetually falling.

      New branches of mathematics and numerical analysis have been fleshed out just to describe the problem properly. You know all those Differential equations you High School math teacher told you were impossibl

  • i wonder how many days (weeks?) are spent on training astronauts to use this throne [thespacereview.com]?
  • Whatever happened to launching from lighter-than-air platforms? With conventional rockets, so much weight goes into fuel to move the fuel you'll burn later to move the fuel that comes even later. Surely someone's doing something with a straightforward idea like this?

    • Re:What you saw was a weather balloon! (Score:4, Informative)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @11:24PM (#12829660) Journal
      Whatever happened to launching from lighter-than-air platforms? With conventional rockets, so much weight goes into fuel to move the fuel you'll burn later to move the fuel that comes even later. Surely someone's doing something with a straightforward idea like this?

      That's pretty much what JP Aerospace [jpaerospace.com] is doing, "airship to orbit." RLV News has some additional info and news items [hobbyspace.com] on them.

    • rockoons (Score:4, Interesting)

      by nounderscores ( 246517 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @11:31PM (#12829678)
      http://www.hobbyspace.com/NearSpace/index.html#Roc koons [hobbyspace.com]

      I think you're thinking of these. They do work, it's just that you have to deal with the time and danger involved with a baloon ride before firing the rocket, while going up in a powered aircraft like a plane gives you more control.

      A blimp like thing (lighter than air, powered and with a lifting body profile) that might be nice. That's a whole nother aerospace engineering project in itself.
      • Yep, that was the first thing I thought of. Why bother sending up a complex piloted aircraft to lift a rocket into the upper atmosphere? All you need is the altitude. Just float it up on a baloon, when it gets up high enough, blast off.
        I poked around the research papers and it doesn't look like anyone's launched any serious rockoons since the first 1957-60 experiments by Van Allen. I guess baloons don't have enough Right Stuff compared to piloted aircraft and air-launch platforms.

    • Re:What you saw was a weather balloon! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DerekLyons ( 302214 ) <fairwater@@@gmail...com> on Thursday June 16, 2005 @02:02AM (#12830240) Homepage
      Whatever happened to launching from lighter-than-air platforms? With conventional rockets, so much weight goes into fuel to move the fuel you'll burn later to move the fuel that comes even later. Surely someone's doing something with a straightforward idea like this?
      It's one of those ideas that seems straightforward... Until you do the actual math.

      It turns out that it only takes about 5% of the fuel (or less) to get to the altitude that a typical airship flies - and that a reasonable size payload requires an airship twice the size of the Hindenburg to carry it. Given that a) fuel costs are down in the noise and b) the (extremely fragile) airship costs hundreds to thousands of times more than is saved in the costs of tankage - it suddenly seems like a much less nifty idea.

      Anyhow, the main problem in getting to orbit isn't about altitude, it's about speed.

      • If the main problem is speed, then what the hell good is launching from an extremely slow (relative to orbital speed...) aircraft? Also why is it more expensive to launch into high orbits, those require less orbital speed, more altitude.
      • It turns out that it only takes about 5% of the fuel (or less) to get to the altitude that a typical airship flies - and that a reasonable size payload requires an airship twice the size of the Hindenburg to carry it.

        But reducing fuel mass by 5% allows you to increase your payload mass by at least a factor of two for many launch vehicles. I'm not sure balloon-launch is the way to go, because as you say speed is the issue, but rockets are so enormously inefficient that relatively small percentage savings
      • But, you do get a major savings. No need for the first stage rocket motor. The first stage is designed to fly through the thick atmosphere. The upper stages are designed to fly through thin atmosphere or space. So, a four stage design can become a two stage design. That makes it easier to engineer, and the fuel saving from not having to lug two rocket motors are certainly not in the noise.

        Another idea is to strap an ion engine to your blimp. In the high altitude you may actually be able to get to orb
    • If at all plausible from a technical standpont, space elevators [spaceelevator.com] are probably the most sensible way for sending humans or loads to space. If you can't beat gravity, use it. Armchair engineers can send in their entries [elevator2010.org].

  • article (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @11:20PM (#12829646)
    If I read the article correctly, tspace and scaled composites are after the crew transport vehicle portion of the new nasa vision. That is, the capsule to get to the crew exploration vehicle or the iss space station. The sole purpose of the ctv is to get people in low earth orbit from an in atmosphere launch using a pre-existing capsule design.

    I think the contracts for cev were awarded to northrop/grumman and boeing for a 2 party competition. That is, the crew exploration vehicle which resides in space.

    Though, nasa might fund them $400m for a alternate/creative role in the process. Who knows, now wouldn't be funny if they could pull it off with the limited funding? That would prod the bigger companies which would be good.

    The beauty is if they can get rid of shuttle the savings will pay to get to the moon. The moon has its own resources which could be used to create launches/refueling from the moon and not earth.

  • Google Add (Score:4, Funny)

    by McGiraf ( 196030 ) on Wednesday June 15, 2005 @11:48PM (#12829725)
    Google Add on top of page:
    ________________
    Space Ship
    Save on new and used items. Search for space ship now!
    www.ebay.com
    _________________

    eh eh they think they have everything ...
    • oups I ment ad not add. why do they keep moving the preview button? :)
    • That ad cracks me up all the time, with things like the infamous "new and used japanese sushi", or "new and used linux news". Can be scary on occasion though, while doing some research I saw an ad for "new and used W80 warhead on ebay". I certainly hope not.
  • "Unfortunately, with the recent selection of Boeing/Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin as the two competing teams for the contract to build the Shuttle's successor, t/Space's future path is somewhat uncertain.""

    All t/Space needs is to get a couple dozen congressmen in its pocket and boom! ...in like Flint.

    Let's face it...the manned space program is a slush fund for well-connected defense contractors.

    P.S. Did I mention the "word in image" thing still sucks donkey balls?

  • "Unfortunately, with the recent selection of Boeing/Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin as the two competing teams for the contract to build the Shuttle's successor, t/Space's future path is somewhat uncertain."

    That's baloney. The US military loves the air launch thing. Back in the '70s there was a pathfinder-type mission that air launched a Minuteman [siloworld.com]. And the MDA is heavily invested in air launched targets for the various interceptor programs. There was the LRALT [crc.com] program and a newer target [spaceref.com] launched

    • Spoken like someone who has -never- tried to land a gov't contract.

      In the usual scenario, innovation gets purchased, but not without the Northrop-Grumman getting a big, no -giant-, chunk of the contract.

      If you only had the slightest idea exactly how RFP's and RFQ's get written you would understand the powerball-lottery-like odds of the entrepreneur landing the big contract.

      Don't B.S. me about company X or Y who did it either. They had to make a big deal with the bigger guy to be a small part of the pr
  • Not sure if this is routine but apparently it's been done on a larger scale

    http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=16610 [spaceref.com]

    wonder how hi proteus was when it dropped the capsule
  • That trapeze system looks like something used in the 50s and 60s for large missle launches off USAF jets. I think the Genie used a trapeze to launch from an F104.
  • now if they could only design some 23% scale modeled astronauts t/Space would be in business.

  • Gary, Burt and a long way from here... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by J05H ( 5625 ) on Thursday June 16, 2005 @01:51AM (#12830202)
    Gary Hudson, the chief scientist at t/Space, has been trying to spark the spaceflight revolution for 30 years. He had a rocket called Conestoga in the 80s that ran into the infamous "brother-in-law problem" at NASA. He was also the driving force behind another Mojave airport first: the Roton demonstrator. Now he's back with the world's most famous aircraft designer and a bunch of other people from the space activist community.

    Burt needs no introduction: he's da man. Burt builds the coolest planes in the world and has finally started building spaceships.

    So, t/space has been doing droptests, excellent! They have a great capsule demo and seem to be trying to stretch their funding as far as possible. I'm pretty sure they said that the "CXV" was proposed specifically outside the CEV RFP, because they refuse to fill out that much extra paperwork. You can see what Mr. Hudson was working on in the early 00's here: http://hmx.com/ [hmx.com] The pdf is his proposal for a capsule (manned/cargo) for the old Alternative Access to Station program, gives a good idea of where the CXV's heritage is.

    t/space is an amazing team. If they can keep the funding coming, they will deliver on this craft.

    Josh
    • Do you work for t-space? Christ did I just read a press release?
      • No, just a huge fan. I've met Gary at a conference and followed his career. I was at the September SpaceShipOne launch, too. That was FREAKING AWESOME.

        I am what you might call a space advocate. Space freak? Space geek! I'm for space development and colonies and all that. I just think that companies like t/space, SpaceDev, SpaceX etc are going to get us there while NASA spins their wheels.

        Whore for the private spaceflight industry? Yes, please.

        Josh
  • the tether held on to the package until after the motors had achieved sufficient thrust and then released it... that way, if the engines don't make it, they can be shut down and the very expensive package retrieved by means of a winch... if needs be, jettison the motor bit and just retrieve the payload.
  • Unfortunately, with the recent selection of Boeing/Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed-Martin as the two competing teams for the contract to build the Shuttle's successor, t/Space's future path is somewhat uncertain.

    I would think their path is clear: Get one of those other two to buy them!
  • > t/Space's future path is somewhat uncertain

    If the idea is that good, one or both of the contractors could license it from them. Could be very profitable for t/Space. Also likely: they get bought up by one of the big guys.
  • t/Space recently released a paper with more details of the air-launch method and the flight tests here:

    http://transformspace.com/document_library/media/t LAD_Test_Program.pdf [transformspace.com]

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