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Private enterprise or govt sponsored space flights are going to be dangerous no matter how you split it. The question is, will private enterprise be willing to continue the investment of space flight seeing how truly risky that endeavor is?
Ask Elon Musk - he seems pretty committed, and SpaceX appear to be doing it right. If they can crack the nut of soft-landing first stages, it will drop prices more than a little and serve as a much-needed kick in the seat to ULA and the other guys who have grown way too comfortable with doing business as usual.
What US spacecraft haven't been built by private enterprise?
NASA spacecraft and rockets were designed by government, paid for with taxpayer money, with construction and other functions farmed out to private contractors.
I think that whole idea of space tourism is doomed. It is like a suicide mission, I might as well go to Iraq and die for a good cause by fighting those IS neanderthals and donate the ticket money to disease research ...
Virgin Galactic barely operates in space, incidentally - they've pretty much recreated an X-15 style craft, capable of reaching the edge of space, but nothing approaching orbit. It's not usable for much but joyrides, and that's all sorts of fine - but it's not serious spaceflight.
ETA: First flight using a new fuel - I didn't know that. Wonder if that's a coincidence.
I believe one ultimate objective was to be a low-cost high-altitude launch platform low earth orbit satellites - but it still seems to be dead end approach.
Apparently flights to date only reached 1/2 the speed needed to carry passengers to the edge of space - hence this experiment with a new plastic based fuel type.
Ask Elon Musk - he seems pretty committed, and SpaceX appear to be doing it right. If they can crack the nut of soft-landing first stages, it will drop prices more than a little and serve as a much-needed kick in the seat to ULA and the other guys who have grown way too comfortable with doing business as usual.
Dec 9th they're going to try and land on a floating platform and reuse the rocket.
NASA spacecraft and rockets were designed by government, paid for with taxpayer money, with construction and other functions farmed out to private contractors.
They really weren't. Rough designs and specs to form the basis for an RFP, yes.
But NASA didn't design the Shuttle, for instance - they picked from four (IIRC) competing designs.
The Lunar Module chief engineer worked for Grumman, and it wasn't NASA's design decision to have the astronauts standing rather than sitting. That was 100% Grumman, coming up with a way of meeting the mass requirements. But we can credit NASA with the Lunar Rendezvous mission profile that laid the basis for for the Lunar Module design spec.
I believe one ultimate objective was to be a low-cost high-altitude launch platform low earth orbit satellites - but it still seems to be dead end approach.
I guess White Knight could carry something akin to a Pegasus aloft, but it would have to a radically different craft to SpaceShipOne.
They really weren't. Rough designs and specs to form the basis for an RFP, yes.
But NASA didn't design the Shuttle, for instance - they picked from four (IIRC) competing designs.
The Lunar Module chief engineer worked for Grumman, and it wasn't NASA's design decision to have the astronauts standing rather than sitting. That was 100% Grumman, coming up with a way of meeting the mass requirements. But we can credit NASA with the Lunar Rendezvous mission profile that laid the basis for for the Lunar Module design spec.
Beat me to it.
I'll add the U.S. military was designing and building rockets before NASA came into existence. Design work was also done by civilians who worked for the Department of Defense, not NASA.
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