[extropy-chat] SPACE: The next race: America's space Prize

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> > With the current deadline, there is a very high
> risk
> > that no one will even seriously try to claim the
> > prize by 2010 (if anyone does, it will be
> > semi-obvious fraudsters like the da Vinci team was
> > on the first X Prize: putting out press releases
> and
> > promises but little if any actual flights and
> > hardware).  The resulting disappointment will
> likely
> > leave the task undone through 2015, assuming no
> other
> > funding effort comes to the rescue.
> 
> I don't agree. I know that Rutan has been working on
> his Tier Two
> program for some time, and other projects under way
> for a while, like
> Kistler, Kelly, XCOR, Pioneer, et al demonstrate
> that Bigelow's market
> is clearly a next step that is possible.

Possible, yes.  The disagreement is on how much
technical effort is necessary: is getting there by
2010 feasable?

> The
> ballistic sub-orbital
> market is certainly another one, but isn't one that
> will contribute any
> new knowledge base to anyone pursuing Bigelow's
> prize that doesn't
> already exist in NASA archives or research
> facilities.

If that was all that was needed, we'd have cheap
access to orbit today.  The problem is the development
effort: even if the knowledge is there, it takes time
- years, even - to assemble it into a specific
manufacturing team and rocket design, tool up, test
the rocket, and get it certified for use.

> The flight regieme of a ballistic shuttle is so
> inconsequentially
> indifferent from that of what Bigelow needs, that it
> is in Bigelow's
> interest to demand the full boat.

Orbit requires achieving roughly 8 km/s.  A ballistic
shuttle can get good distance while achieving
significantly less than that (and disappating less
energy upon atmospheric reentry).

> One thing that
> annoyed me about the
> X-Prize were all the pissant projects from backyard
> BS artists acting
> like real competitors with nothing to back up their
> bs.

I predict the same artists will be pretending to go
for Bigelow's prize as well.  The change in flight
regime doesn't change this one bit - but one can hope
that the press will have learned from its experience
here, and not cover nearly as much those who don't
have any flying hardware.  The pretenders annoyed me
too.