Building the Private Space Ships of the Future!

It's been a while since I've posted anything space related... I've been reading up on all things private space sector and there are a few folks I'm keeping my eye on:

Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace, Ad Astra Rocket Company, and Blue Origin (This last one is pretty mysterious and not much is known about their progress.)

I completely believe that these private aerospace companies are what's really going to get humanity into space in a big way in the next couple of decades. I admit most of these companies are in their infancy, but they're developing relatively quickly and cutting deals with NASA and finding funding... I have no doubt that most if not all will grow into major players in space. We're in the space version of the late 70s just before the big Internet boom of the early 90s. Trust me, once these guys take off (or blast off) they're going to play off each other and compete and it's going to snowball.

It's not a huge stretch of the imagination to envision a near future with ships routinely flying around the solar system made up of standardized components developed by these different companies. The ship could have a version of SpaceX's Dragon command module as the bridge, Bigelow's BA 330 habitats for crew and cargo, Ad Astra's powerful VASIMR ion drives propelling them to distant targets, and once there dropping down with Armadillo landers!

I, for one, am looking forward to my retirement cruise to Mars on one of these ships.

Armadillo Aerospace News

Armadillo Aerospace has won the first level of the Lunar Lander Challenge X Prize! I’ve been a big fan of these challenges and for the past three years I’ve seen Armadillo almost make it. Tomorrow they try for the second level so if all goes well, when Americans go back to the moon, they’ll be touching down on the regolith with Armadillo landers.

In other news, Armadillo Aerospace has teamed up with the Rocket Racing League to not only build a fleet of racers that will streak through the atmosphere, but to also design and build a new craft (with a transparent bubble-shaped cockpit) that will shoot out into space! I can already envision rocket drag races with orbit as the finish line.



Update on the Lunar Lander Challenge: Armadillo Aerospace wasn't able to win the second level of the event because their lander stalled and fell over. Still, they won $350,000 from the first level and they'll try again sometime in early 2009.