Will humans ever be a space-faring civilization?

[nec207]

There are number of private space companies researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost.

Boeing is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space.

Space x is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space. With lower stage rocket to land on ship port and be reused!!

Airbus is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space. With space capsule to glide it's way down to land on runway.

Dream chaser is developing a space plane to send people and cargo into space.

Skylon is developing a SSTO space plane to send people and cargo into space.

Lynx  is developing space plane to send people and cargo into space.

Virgin Galactic researching ways to get people and cargo into space.


Blue Origin New Shepard is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space.

XCOR a space plane.

HOTOL Horizontal Take-Off and Landing space plane


 Rocketplane Kistler,Space Transport Corp so on.  Some of these are rockets some ares SSTO and others space planes.


My question is do any of these private space companies that are researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost. And assuming everything works out really well for them do not go for bankruptcy and get people and cargo into space safe!! How much do they claim they can lower space cost?

I'm getting really frustrated and sad we are not going to the moon and mars and beyond!! We are stuck and have been stuck in low earth orbit because it is cheaper to send space probes than people beyond low earth orbit. Even doing low earth orbit is very costly.

We are not colonizing space and doing space mining because it would be prohibitively expensive!!

I know NASA and congress hopes private space companies would take over researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost.

But with all the private space companies researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost.  And assuming everything works out really well for them!! Could they really pull it off? Or lower the cost enough that a average middle class family could go into space?

Or if it is not possible they will lower space cost that much it is time to abandoned rockets , SSTO and space planes using chemical propulsion and get government funding to be researching ways to get people and cargo into space using other propulsion systems like laser so on.

I'm getting so frustrated and sad we are not going any where in space!! With the biggest problem need to be solved first is getting researching ways to get people and cargo into space at a lower cost that it would take off like the steam engine and the automobile!! And the average middle class can start colonizing space and doing space mining and so on.

When this first problem is solved first is getting researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost!! Than we can move on to other problems like space radiation,space debris,meteorite to the ship, zero gravity and going from one star system to other star system so on.

[bholt]

Patience. Space technology takes a long time to develop. "Space is hard" as people have been saying lately. If the human race survives the next 50-100 years, I think we will colonize other worlds and places. We need to if we want to survive long-term as a species, in my opinion.

I think the primary focus right now should be on developing reliable and economical access to space. But politics is getting in the way. The SLS (unofficially the Senate Launch System) is a giant white elephant that will cost too much to fly, fly too little and will become politically unsustainable. It also has no real destination.

Throwing aside political realities, SLS should be scrapped and that money transferred to developing technologies to achieve the goal of affordable access to space. After that we can move beyond Earth orbit.

But Congress recently slashed the funding for commercial crew. Sigh........

Brent

[john smith 19]

There are number of private space companies researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost.

True

Boeing is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space.

No

Airbus is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space. With space capsule to glide it's way down to land on runway.

Not in any meaningful sense.

Lynx  is developing space plane to send people and cargo into space.

Virgin Galactic researching ways to get people and cargo into space.

Wrong.

Blue Origin New Shepard is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space.

XCOR a space plane.

Called  Lynx.

HOTOL Horizontal Take-Off and Landing space plane

 Rocketplane Kistler,Space Transport Corp so on.  Some of these are rockets some ares SSTO and others space planes.

Historical or bankrupt.

My question is do any of these private space companies that are researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost.

And the question is?

BTW that list is quite poorly researched. If you don't know what is actively being developed and what is sub orbital versus orbital do you know what you're actually asking to begin with?

[Kansan52]

You cover a huge area.

As was pointed out before, some of your examples are already bankrupt.

So let's narrow a bit.

We are in a revolution of launch vehicles with everyone looking to the same work for less money. The hope is they all succeed because it would enable us to go back to the Moon, go to Mars, and elsewhere. Every government program is hobbled by the budgets they have. Lower costs to orbit means they can do more with existing budgets. Lower costs to orbit could also see an explosion of commerce in space. Remember, No Bucks, No Buck Rogers!

The sub-orbital vehicles are not likely to have much impact on human space travel. They are simply a way for people with lots of money to have a few moments in space for the thrill.

The carrier vehicles maybe be able to launch a small orbital rocket with a microsat or some cube sats. But not much help for human space travel.

Space X gets a lot of attention because they have publicly stated they want to go to Mars. Everyone else leaves it to someone else.

As for the other barriers you mention, they are being worked on now and have been for decades. We could have used 70's tech to have a Moon base and be at Mars in the 80's. The government did not want to spend the money. The risks would have been higher then as we did not have as much information as we do now.

But, for me, I'm as excited about the revolution that is occurring because it appears to create a path to bases on various moons and planetary bodies. That could lead to the space habitats and stations.

[high road]

Well, the only problem there is, is money. How much have you given to space exploration other than your tax money? If we would all spend as much on our hobby as the average soccer/football/baseball/etc fan does on their favourite team, we'd get a long way to a human presence in space. Private companies might find ways to motivate us to spend this money on them.

Don't forget: developing the technology for a Mars mission in about fifteen years, costs less than organizing the olympics every four years over the same time frame.

[NovaSilisko]

I remember the days before I found this site and was generally less informed about spaceflight, and actually thought I would live to see humans on mars and beyond. It was nice.

[john smith 19]

I remember the days before I found this site and was generally less informed about spaceflight, and actually thought I would live to see humans on mars and beyond. It was nice.

I guess it depends on your life expectancy.

In the next month? Probably not.

In a decade? Little more possible, but unlikely.

Two decades? FH or above vehicles should be available. With Skylon's flying pretty much all ideas about a Mars mission go out the window.

[tchernik]

Yes, if we don't stop being human.

The universe is much older than us. It will be there for a long, long time, almost assuredly way more that we as a species will be alive.

Also we don't really need to go there. We could live on Earth for many, many years. Many more than we have lived so far, and continue doing it as we have up to now, digging and building our castles in the sand of this Earth and seeing them grow old and big as a overgrown snail's carapace.

But some of us still watch the sky and the stars and dream with seeing humans going there. The sky is transparent and our eyes can see the twinkling lights, regardless of the era, regardless of the mores and customs and the whims of economy and politics.

It's very likely those of us now dreaming with going, poor fools, will be dead long before that happens. But if humans remain being what they are, yearning for the open spaces and uncharted territories, seeing to the skies and as long as the ability to do science doesn't die, someone, somewhere eventually will do it.

We just need to let go of the illusion that science and technical advance follows our exponential, life-expectancy related wishes. The universe and history really owes us nothing.

But it also has no agenda, no prohibition for us to try. History just needs that someone finally finds a way and actually does it. It may be a genius discovering that 'magic' technology allowing us to finally go. Or it can be a long process of slow development and glacial pace of advance.

But time is the most abundant thing  for the universe (not for us), the tides of history are usually too long for people's lives, but they are made of them. As long as anyone lives, works and yearns, and science still advances, it will come.

[nec207]

But, for me, I'm as excited about the revolution that is occurring because it appears to create a path to bases on various moons and planetary bodies. That could lead to the space habitats and stations.

But the questions is there are number of private space companies that are researching ways to send people into space at lower cost, than the next goal of sending people to mars and probably a space hotel too and else where. But can they lower the cost enough for average middle class American.

One of the big things holding back space colonization and space mining is cost.

When the Spaniards and British found America going by sea would not have been possible at cost similar to going into space. It was only possible because it was cheap for poor immigrants and working class immigrants to go by sea!!

At the present time space colonization is prohibitive costly. Well Billionaires may be able to pull it off but not the average middle class.

That is the big question there are number of private space companies that are researching ways to send people into space at lower cost but can they lower it that much for the average middle class American to go into space?

[nec207]

There are number of private space companies researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost.

True

Boeing is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space.

No

Airbus is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space. With space capsule to glide it's way down to land on runway.

Not in any meaningful sense.

Lynx  is developing space plane to send people and cargo into space.

Virgin Galactic researching ways to get people and cargo into space.

Wrong.

Blue Origin New Shepard is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space.

XCOR a space plane.

Called  Lynx.

HOTOL Horizontal Take-Off and Landing space plane

 Rocketplane Kistler,Space Transport Corp so on.  Some of these are rockets some ares SSTO and others space planes.

Historical or bankrupt.

My question is do any of these private space companies that are researching ways to get people and cargo into space at lower cost.

And the question is?

BTW that list is quite poorly researched. If you don't know what is actively being developed and what is sub orbital versus orbital do you know what you're actually asking to begin with?

You are very misinformed


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic

Virgin Galactic is an American-based spaceflight company within the British Virgin Group. It is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists, suborbital launches for space science missions, and orbital launches of small satellites



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XCOR_Lynx


The XCOR Lynx is a suborbital horizontal-takeoff, horizontal-landing (HTHL), rocket-powered spaceplane under development by the California-based company XCOR Aerospace to compete in the emerging suborbital spaceflight market. The Lynx is projected to carry one pilot, a ticketed passenger, and/or a payload above 100 km altitude. As of March 2014, the passenger ticket was projected to cost $95,000

http://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-lockheed-venture-developing-reusable-engine-for-satellite-launches-1428958267

Boeing-Lockheed Venture Plans New Rocket With Reusable Engine
 Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. announced plans on Monday to defend their profitable Pentagon space rocket business with an all-new rocket equipped with reusable engines that could slash satellite-launch costs and provide a steppingstone to various commercial space ventures.



http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a15078/ulas-new-rocket-vulcan/

The Vulcan rocket seems to be gunning for SpaceX, which is grabbing headlines for its reusable rocket tests that are meant to slash the price of spaceflight. The Vulcan team is working on a first stage descent that can be grabbed by helicopter rather than landing upright, a la SpaceX's Falcon 9. It combines features of the Atlas and Delta rockets into a new class that ULA says will lead to more affordable space launches.

ULA's long-term goals are ambitious. Beyond the new rocket, it envisions a new crew capsule and eventually a plan for human habitation in space and asteroid mining. Space Policy Online has the details of the enormous plan.

 



Airbus' Adeline Project Aims to Build Reusable Rockets and Space Tugs


http://www.space.com/29620-airbus-adeline-reusable-rocket-space-tug.html

 Europe wants reusable rockets, too.

European aerospace company Airbus has revealed its plans to develop rocket engines that fly back to a runway and a reusable upper stage that acts as a space tug — reusability concepts that mirror those being developed by American spaceflight companies SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA).

[nec207]

Historical or bankrupt.

I don't know what you mean by Historical or bankrupt. A bankruptcy would be a space company researching ways to send people into space at a lower cost and putting xx money into it!! Than it turns out they are not profiting on it or running into engineering problems and losing money and the space company goes under thus go for bankruptcy.

You could have 10 to 15 space company researching ways to send people into space but may be only two or three of them can pull it off.

That want I was saying by assuming everything works out really well for them!! And thus don't go for bankruptcy but profit and stay in business!!

[john smith 19]

I don't know what you mean by Historical or bankrupt.

In this context HOTOL was a historical study which lead to the setting up of Reaction Engines to mfg the SABRE engine and being the process of constructing the Skylon space plane.  BTW there is no "Skylon" company as such.

Rocketplane Kistler went bankrupt. They are by definition no longer developing anything.

A bankruptcy would be a space company researching ways to send people into space at a lower cost and putting xx money into it!! Than it turns out they are not profiting on it or running into engineering problems and losing money and the space company goes under thus go for bankruptcy.

So you do understand what bankruptcy means. Good.

You could have 10 to 15 space company researching ways to send people into space but may be only two or three of them can pull it off.

That want I was saying by assuming everything works out really well for them!! And thus don't go for bankruptcy but profit and stay in business!!

Some of the companies on your list are only looking at sub orbital flight. Yes it will be "space" but it won't stay there. Sub orbital needs M3 (for no more than a few minutes) Orbital needs M23.

There's quite a difference.

In answer to the thread title yes, if we don't destroy ourselves first and enough of the human race decides it wants to try life on another world.

[Paul451]

Boeing is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space.

Boeing is developing a manned capsule (called CTS-100) under the Commercial Crew program. But it is not developing a new "space rocket" to launch that capsule. They are, however, developing the first stage for NASA's SLS program.

You are probably getting confused with ULA, which announced that it is developing Vulcan to replace Atlas V.

Airbus is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space. With space capsule to glide it's way down to land on runway.

Airbus is developing a new launcher for Arianespace (Ariane V). But it will not carry people, it's just a satellite launcher. Nor will it have a "space capsule" that lands on a runway.

You may be getting several concepts confused: Airbus is playing with the concept of recovering the engine-module on a first stage of a launcher (called Adeline) that might be developed after Ariane V; ESA once wanted to build a small manned space shuttle in the late 1980's, early 1990's (called Hermes); and ESA is currently testing a very small recoverable unmanned spaceplane (called IXV). I think you've got all three, Adeline, Hermes and IXV, jumbled up in your head.

Dream chaser is developing a space plane to send people and cargo into space.

Dream Chaser is the name of the spaceplane. The company developing the spaceplane is called Sierra Nevada Corporation (or SNC).

Skylon is developing a SSTO space plane to send people and cargo into space.

Skylon is the name of the spaceplane. The company developing the spaceplane is called Reaction Engines Ltd (or REL).

Lynx  is developing space plane to send people and cargo into space.
...
XCOR a space plane.

Lynx is the name of the spaceplane being developed by the company called XCOR. Lynx is a suborbital hopper, it will not reach orbit. It will go straight up, touch the Kármán Line, come straight down.

Virgin Galactic researching ways to get people and cargo into space.

Likewise, VG's SpaceShipTwo is also suborbital hopper, current expectations are that it won't even reach the Kármán Line.

Blue Origin New Shepard is developing a space rocket to send people and cargo into space.

Blue Origin is the company. New Shepard is the launch system they are developing. Like Lynx and SpaceShipTwo, it is a suborbital hopper and, like those two examples, will not come close to orbit.

HOTOL Horizontal Take-Off and Landing space plane

This project was cancelled twenty years ago. (Three of the project's researchers founded REL with ideas they'd developed.)

Rocketplane Kistler,Space Transport Corp so on.

Both of these companies have gone out of business years ago. STC in 2006, RPK in 2010.

[high road]

But, for me, I'm as excited about the revolution that is occurring because it appears to create a path to bases on various moons and planetary bodies. That could lead to the space habitats and stations.

But the questions is there are number of private space companies that are researching ways to send people into space at lower cost, than the next goal of sending people to mars and probably a space hotel too and else where. But can they lower the cost enough for average middle class American.

One of the big things holding back space colonization and space mining is cost.

When the Spaniards and British found America going by sea would not have been possible at cost similar to going into space. It was only possible because it was cheap for poor immigrants and working class immigrants to go by sea!!

At the present time space colonization is prohibitive costly. Well Billionaires may be able to pull it off but not the average middle class.

That is the big question there are number of private space companies that are researching ways to send people into space at lower cost but can they lower it that much for the average middle class American to go into space?

You do know that plane tickets are still quite outside what the average American middle classer could afford in the early 1900's when the plane was invented? That doesn't stop the American middle classer today from taking the plane several times per year. Wages have increased over time. And as more and more people take the plane, fixed costs are spread out, competition increases, and prices drop further. Economics 1.0.1.

Eh, ever heard about slavery and indentured labour? People could not pay for their own trip. People with money paid the trip for people who couldn't do so themselves. In return, they would work for them for several years, without being paid. (food and shelter being part of the deal). As those lazy white trash European sods got too greedy/expensive and those good-for-nothing natives kept dying, it started to be worthwile to import cheap labour from a third continent.

The only thing that outer space misses, up to this point, is a clear and apparently easy way to make more money than back home. That is what lured people to the Americas. A hundred billion dollar investment isn't that extraordinary nowadays, as long as you're confident that it's going to pay off.

Once big corporations find a way to make money in space, their efforts will pay for the infrastructure needed to make the cost of going into space plumet into the range of what the average middle classer can afford (whatever that means. Water at a few bucks a gallon is usually called unaffordable, while an 'affordable luxury car' still costs more than all the water you consume in a lifetime)

[nec207]

Some of the companies on your list are only looking at sub orbital flight. Yes it will be "space" but it won't stay there. Sub orbital needs M3 (for no more than a few minutes) Orbital needs M23.

Okay I get that some of the private space companies on my list are sub orbital flight only. But there is still hope that some of the private space companies that are doing sub orbital flight only if they pull it off and make profit they may try to expand business plans into the future for low earth orbit,sending people to moon and mars so on. If they don't do well with orbital flights where only the really rich can go up than how would they make next step putting people into space than deep space.

Look if private space companies can't do sub orbital flight or better yet low earth orbit there is no way people are going to be going to moon,mars and beyond. Unless some how we all become billionaires for the flight ticket!!

Going into space is very costly and unless private space companies can really bring down the price there is no way human race will colonization space!! At least 99% of the human race if you don't count 1% billionaires.

A flight ticket to the moon or mars would be too costly. If you want space colonization and space commerce the cost of a flight ticket would have to really come down in price for the average middle class.

And I don't think private space companies could bring the cost down that much. I don't think that is possible with chemical propulsion.

[john smith 19]

Look if private space companies can't do sub orbital flight or better yet low earth orbit there is no way people are going to be going to moon,mars and beyond. Unless some how we all become billionaires for the flight ticket!!

Correct.

Going into space is very costly and unless private space companies can really bring down the price there is no way human race will colonization space!! At least 99% of the human race if you don't count 1% billionaires.

Also correct.

And I don't think private space companies could bring the cost down that much. I don't think that is possible with chemical propulsion.

despite the amount used propellant is not that expensive.  It's been known since the late 1960's that the energy to put a unit of mass into LEO is exactly the same amount needed to fly a round trip jet flight from roughly London to Sydney and back.

Musk has stated the total cost of propellant for an F9 flight is $120K, versus a total cost of abut $61m, about 1/488 of the cost of a launch.

Building a very large piece of precision machinery that is then thrown away after one use, and which can not be refined by getting it back to study how much actual damage was done to it when run under flight conditions, is more likely to be keeping launch prices high.

[Giovanni DS]

I think no, there is not money to be done nor resources to be harvested in the tiny part of "space" we can realistically reach. Except for satellites in Earth orbit there is no business case.

Unless there will be a real breakthrough, and that is unlikely as far we know, we are just toying with chemical rockets and that is a dead end.

[high road]

Look if private space companies can't do sub orbital flight or better yet low earth orbit there is no way people are going to be going to moon,mars and beyond. Unless some how we all become billionaires for the flight ticket!!

Going into space is very costly and unless private space companies can really bring down the price there is no way human race will colonization space!! At least 99% of the human race if you don't count 1% billionaires.

A flight ticket to the moon or mars would be too costly. If you want space colonization and space commerce the cost of a flight ticket would have to really come down in price for the average middle class.

And I don't think private space companies could bring the cost down that much. I don't think that is possible with chemical propulsion.

1% of 7 billion is 700 million. Get 1% of those rich people (7 million) to be willing to pay for the infrastructure, where only 1% of those people (70 thousand) wants to go and only 1% of those get to go (700), that's still 10 times more than what you need to have a decent colony. And that's without employees.

Next question: why the hell would rich people pay for this? And don't try to convince me, I'm all for it. Try to convince the rich guys. What do they get out of it? They're not going to pay billions of dollars until they get something that's worth billions of dollars on Earth. No tin cans and dried food, but comfortable living conditions. We'll need decades to develop that kind of technology.

The problem is that you're not adding a timeframe. When do you want this to happen? During our lifetime? Not really likely. But without a timeframe? As long as there's money to be made by getting stuff into space (and there are plenty of people and institutions that want to put things into space, especially if the prices drop), new launch companies will continue to spring up out of the rotting corpses of their predecessors. Sooner or later, they will succeed. Especially if they find space related services that people want to pay for. And wages will continue to increase, if we get through climate change without too many social conflicts.

The problem with non-chemical launches is that they require massive infrastructures. The average launch cost can only drop if the demand increases enough. There's no guarantee that this will happen, until people are willing to pay to get stuff into space. Chicken and egg. Most people aren't interested in space, no matter how much (or little) it costs. Otherwise, there would be no problem with increasing budgets to increase the number and complexity of missions.

The problem with chemical launchers is not that they are chemical, but that they're highly complex, they're a relatively low quantity product that is at the same time a throw-away item, the companies that have historically built them are inefficient government mastodonts, they have a pretty high failure rate, and the cargo they carry is also pretty expensive. Most of these problems can be solved, and even more of them are interconnected. There's plenty of room to make prices drop gradually.

We're only at the very beginning. The past twelve months have shown we haven't really figured out how to get cargo into space safely. Let alone human beings. This risk is very costly. But I'm confident this will be resolved (well, mitigated) within the following decade. Once institutions can get experiments into space more affordably and reliably, demand will increase, progress will increase, general interest will increase because of faster progress, which increases demand yet again, and we're off to a glorious future.

[high road]

I think no, there is not money to be done nor resources to be harvested in the tiny part of "space" we can realistically reach. Except for satellites in Earth orbit there is no business case.

Unless there will be a real breakthrough, and that is unlikely as far we know, we are just toying with rockets and that is a dead end.

'Toying', as in buying stuff we don't actually need, is a very lucrative business. About 99% of our economy, by some definitions. Coming up with luxuries that people want to pay for, that's the hard part.

A few examples of taglines:
- Exclusive gemstones from other planets: Just because YOU can afford it.
- Water from meteors, good for your health because no dinosaur ever peed in it, which can't be said for a single drop of water on Earth. What you say? Kemikali identikal to earth water? Speak English dude.
- Come enjoy the sun without that pesky atmosphere in the way.

These could all be modified taglines for services that people are paying good money for, while orders of magnitude less expensive goods are available.

[john smith 19]

We're only at the very beginning. The past twelve months have shown we haven't really figured out how to get cargo into space safely. Let alone human beings.

We have. The problem is that you can't reuse a "perfect" launcher once it's demonstrated itself.

This risk is very costly. But I'm confident this will be resolved (well, mitigated) within the following decade.

With the right design the word you're looking for is eliminated from routine service.

Once institutions can get experiments into space more affordably and reliably, demand will increase, progress will increase, general interest will increase because of faster progress, which increases demand yet again, and we're off to a glorious future.

The question is what is the price point that cause that step change?

People have tried to halve the price of launch.

Makes no major increase in number of payloads launched.

Belief is it needs to be around 1/10 of current levels.