Certainly not me… too old, too poor. However, SpaceX is really just a transportation provider. Elon will soon take anybody with the price of a ticket. So the real issue is not SpaceX, but how to finance that ticket…
Any ideas? Any valuable assets that could pay for transportation?
[Church Lady]: “Is it, SATAN?”
[Marvin the Martian]: “I’ll blast you with my discombobulator 5000”
[Me]: “Trillions of square kilometers of unclaimed real estate.”
[Broken Record]: “Land by itself has value. There’s enough to finance any level of development. It’s just a question of fiddling with the numbers.”
Wait a second:
SpaceX Dragon capsule is set to launch on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia on April 30, 2012.
Say what?
Good catch Rickl,
If true it means they have another launch site to service there manifest, right?
It’s still not enough. Look for other announced sites to pop up as well.
Anyway, it doesn’t bother me that I can’t afford to fly into space. New technology is always rare and expensive. In the early days of the automobile, the only people who had cars were amateur tinkerers who build their own, or rich people who could afford to buy hand-built cars. I remember the first electronic calculators in the early 70s. They were the size of a paperback book and cost over $200. Today calculators the size of a credit card are sometimes given away as promotions.
Once we get several companies competing in the spaceflight field, and assuming that governments don’t throw up too many roadblocks (a risky assumption), the price will come down in a hurry. It probably won’t happen soon enough for me to be able to fly in space in my lifetime, but I’m still anxious to see it get going.
I’m old enough to remember the term “jet set” which described rich and famous celebrities who could afford to fly in jet airliners. They were served champagne and gourmet meals while on board, and they could actually smoke cigarettes without being tasered.
Jet travel nowadays more resembles a Greyhound bus trip. The stewardess may toss a bag of peanuts at you after your ritual groping by the TSA.
Air travel is more democratic today, but I’m not sure whether that counts as progress.
NASA is currently the only customer for advances in commercial spaceflight — no one else needs a cheap way to reach the ISS just yet. The only other customers interested in human transportation to low Earth orbit are the few adventurers with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on a ticket.
I must be missing something. Rich adventurers are “nobodies”?
If SpaceX actually reduced the cost of a ticket to “hundreds of thousands of dollars” — instead of tens of millions — that would be a major accomplishment.
Yeesh.
The only other customers interested in human transportation to low Earth orbit are the few adventurers with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on a ticket.
Oh, I’m pretty sure adventurers and non-adventurers without hundreds of thousand are interested in human transportion to LEO. But I guess they don’t register existence either.
Rusty’s only comment is not the only thing wrong with the article.
Single millions for trips to the ISS would be a game-changer. With ticket prices like that folks like Richard Garriott could make a profit going to space – and conceivably so could other people. Of course, the real question is: will NASA allow “space tourists” onto the US side? It’s never happened before and they have been pretty adamant that they haven’t changed their mind since Tito.
I think there’d be a market for a couple-day trip around the ISS, staying aboard Dragon. Standoff distances would have to be negotiated, but once Dragon docks a few times, that shouldn’t be much of a problem.
The real game changer would be when Bigelow gets an operational station going and opens it to whomever can pay the price. You wouldn’t have to worry anymore about satisfying the ISS consortium. Countries, corporations and even individuals with a reasonable budget could actually have a space program of their own without all the bureaucracy. Let the ISS become the $100 billion white elephant it is – the real stuff would be happening at Bigelow.
Yeah, let’s transfer all the hope of an independent space program from SpaceX to Bigelow.. it’s unthinkable that NASA might show up with a big bag of money and a long long list of requirements for Bigelow too.
If NASA wants to spend the money on Bigelow hardware built to their particular specs, let them. Other customers will still take essentially ‘stock’ versions. In that scenario, NASA merely has *a* Bigelow station. There would ultimately be no such thing as *the* sole Bigelow station, over which they could again have anchor tenancy influence…
And given *sufficient* market for inflatable human-occupied space structures, I have to think ILC Dover would compete for a piece of it as well.
It doesn’t work like that.. once you start taking government money, you never stop. Once they’ve inserted themselves into your development process, you start thinking their way is “better” and refuse customers who just want something that flies.
Once you take govt. money and become dependent on it, your existence becomes tied to govt. whim.
Refusing customers doesn’t sound like something any of these startups would do assuming they had the capacity to serve all their potential customers. I don’t see NASA pushing to take all Bigelow’s capacity either. The only person I’ve heard say they would refuse a customer was Elon when he threatened to drop NASA if they became too onerous. Which is why his company is making money while others are failing.
We will never, ever, have more than a handful of people in space if it’s left up to NASA. The same if real estate ownership is not part of the deal.
Private ownership, in whatever form it takes, is the ONLY thing that will develop space. You don’t get mining on the moon if not to support a greater venture BEO.
Also focusing on “the search for life” is a really bad idea with regard to mars. It’s going to be very difficult learning to live there. Building the infrastructure that makes it easier to live there should be the first and primary goal. Science becomes much easier when staying alive isn’t your main problem.
I never said a damned thing about NASA buying Bigelow hardware. According to Bigelow, several countries have expressed interest in buying space on one of their space stations. What’s Bigelow supposed to do, say no to potentially paying customers? That would be stupid.
I think companies like SpaceX and Bigelow are the most exciting thing happening in the space arena today. They’re working on creating systems that are radically less expensive that what NASA and the legacy cost-plus contractors have produced. There’s a world of difference between having government as a regular customer for already developed products and what NASA is doing with Orion and SLS. NASA has already spend $5 billion on just the Orion capsule. That’s about 5 times what SpaceX has spent on everything put together.
NASA isn’t ever going to show up and say “we’ll have one of those” and then go away. They don’t do that. If there’s no way to control the production, they’re not interested.
Then they’ll become irrelevant as their budgets shrink and they’re left not being able to afford multibillion dollar boondoggles like Orion and SLS.
NASA needs rides. When they buy airline tickets for their employees, they don’t dictate how the planes are designed by Boeing and operated by the airlines. Why should they have any more say over the design and operation of a seat on a spacecraft than they do on an airliner?
NASA needs rides. When they buy airline tickets for their employees, they don’t dictate how the planes are designed by Boeing and operated by the airlines. Why should they have any more say over the design and operation of a seat on a spacecraft than they do on an airliner?
Certainly not me… too old, too poor. However, SpaceX is really just a transportation provider. Elon will soon take anybody with the price of a ticket. So the real issue is not SpaceX, but how to finance that ticket…
Any ideas? Any valuable assets that could pay for transportation?
[Church Lady]: “Is it, SATAN?”
[Marvin the Martian]: “I’ll blast you with my discombobulator 5000”
[Me]: “Trillions of square kilometers of unclaimed real estate.”
[Broken Record]: “Land by itself has value. There’s enough to finance any level of development. It’s just a question of fiddling with the numbers.”
Wait a second:
SpaceX Dragon capsule is set to launch on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia on April 30, 2012.
Say what?
Good catch Rickl,
If true it means they have another launch site to service there manifest, right?
It’s still not enough. Look for other announced sites to pop up as well.
Anyway, it doesn’t bother me that I can’t afford to fly into space. New technology is always rare and expensive. In the early days of the automobile, the only people who had cars were amateur tinkerers who build their own, or rich people who could afford to buy hand-built cars. I remember the first electronic calculators in the early 70s. They were the size of a paperback book and cost over $200. Today calculators the size of a credit card are sometimes given away as promotions.
Once we get several companies competing in the spaceflight field, and assuming that governments don’t throw up too many roadblocks (a risky assumption), the price will come down in a hurry. It probably won’t happen soon enough for me to be able to fly in space in my lifetime, but I’m still anxious to see it get going.
I’m old enough to remember the term “jet set” which described rich and famous celebrities who could afford to fly in jet airliners. They were served champagne and gourmet meals while on board, and they could actually smoke cigarettes without being tasered.
Jet travel nowadays more resembles a Greyhound bus trip. The stewardess may toss a bag of peanuts at you after your ritual groping by the TSA.
Air travel is more democratic today, but I’m not sure whether that counts as progress.
NASA is currently the only customer for advances in commercial spaceflight — no one else needs a cheap way to reach the ISS just yet. The only other customers interested in human transportation to low Earth orbit are the few adventurers with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on a ticket.
I must be missing something. Rich adventurers are “nobodies”?
If SpaceX actually reduced the cost of a ticket to “hundreds of thousands of dollars” — instead of tens of millions — that would be a major accomplishment.
Yeesh.
The only other customers interested in human transportation to low Earth orbit are the few adventurers with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on a ticket.
Oh, I’m pretty sure adventurers and non-adventurers without hundreds of thousand are interested in human transportion to LEO. But I guess they don’t register existence either.
Rusty’s only comment is not the only thing wrong with the article.
Single millions for trips to the ISS would be a game-changer. With ticket prices like that folks like Richard Garriott could make a profit going to space – and conceivably so could other people. Of course, the real question is: will NASA allow “space tourists” onto the US side? It’s never happened before and they have been pretty adamant that they haven’t changed their mind since Tito.
I think there’d be a market for a couple-day trip around the ISS, staying aboard Dragon. Standoff distances would have to be negotiated, but once Dragon docks a few times, that shouldn’t be much of a problem.
The real game changer would be when Bigelow gets an operational station going and opens it to whomever can pay the price. You wouldn’t have to worry anymore about satisfying the ISS consortium. Countries, corporations and even individuals with a reasonable budget could actually have a space program of their own without all the bureaucracy. Let the ISS become the $100 billion white elephant it is – the real stuff would be happening at Bigelow.
Yeah, let’s transfer all the hope of an independent space program from SpaceX to Bigelow.. it’s unthinkable that NASA might show up with a big bag of money and a long long list of requirements for Bigelow too.
If NASA wants to spend the money on Bigelow hardware built to their particular specs, let them. Other customers will still take essentially ‘stock’ versions. In that scenario, NASA merely has *a* Bigelow station. There would ultimately be no such thing as *the* sole Bigelow station, over which they could again have anchor tenancy influence…
And given *sufficient* market for inflatable human-occupied space structures, I have to think ILC Dover would compete for a piece of it as well.
It doesn’t work like that.. once you start taking government money, you never stop. Once they’ve inserted themselves into your development process, you start thinking their way is “better” and refuse customers who just want something that flies.
Once you take govt. money and become dependent on it, your existence becomes tied to govt. whim.
Refusing customers doesn’t sound like something any of these startups would do assuming they had the capacity to serve all their potential customers. I don’t see NASA pushing to take all Bigelow’s capacity either. The only person I’ve heard say they would refuse a customer was Elon when he threatened to drop NASA if they became too onerous. Which is why his company is making money while others are failing.
We will never, ever, have more than a handful of people in space if it’s left up to NASA. The same if real estate ownership is not part of the deal.
Private ownership, in whatever form it takes, is the ONLY thing that will develop space. You don’t get mining on the moon if not to support a greater venture BEO.
Also focusing on “the search for life” is a really bad idea with regard to mars. It’s going to be very difficult learning to live there. Building the infrastructure that makes it easier to live there should be the first and primary goal. Science becomes much easier when staying alive isn’t your main problem.
I never said a damned thing about NASA buying Bigelow hardware. According to Bigelow, several countries have expressed interest in buying space on one of their space stations. What’s Bigelow supposed to do, say no to potentially paying customers? That would be stupid.
I think companies like SpaceX and Bigelow are the most exciting thing happening in the space arena today. They’re working on creating systems that are radically less expensive that what NASA and the legacy cost-plus contractors have produced. There’s a world of difference between having government as a regular customer for already developed products and what NASA is doing with Orion and SLS. NASA has already spend $5 billion on just the Orion capsule. That’s about 5 times what SpaceX has spent on everything put together.
NASA isn’t ever going to show up and say “we’ll have one of those” and then go away. They don’t do that. If there’s no way to control the production, they’re not interested.
Then they’ll become irrelevant as their budgets shrink and they’re left not being able to afford multibillion dollar boondoggles like Orion and SLS.
NASA needs rides. When they buy airline tickets for their employees, they don’t dictate how the planes are designed by Boeing and operated by the airlines. Why should they have any more say over the design and operation of a seat on a spacecraft than they do on an airliner?
NASA needs rides. When they buy airline tickets for their employees, they don’t dictate how the planes are designed by Boeing and operated by the airlines. Why should they have any more say over the design and operation of a seat on a spacecraft than they do on an airliner?
Thread winner.