I was wondering what everyones thoughts were on private space exploration?

I think it will become the new internet, if allowed to and funded well enough.

I keep hearing people refer to you would need a lot of money, but let me ask you something. How much would you pay to get to go into space? This is something many of us litterally only dream about, but with private space ventures it's a serious possibility.

I for one can't wait for the chance, and plane to one day take a ride outside our world. :P :P :P

I actually doubt it. The cost of doing it currently is way to high so that only the very rich would be able to afford it, and most of those that would really like to go aren't multi-millionaires. And that's the rub. Private companies won't touch it because it isn't worth it, and Governments won't do it, except Russia perhaps with a few more one offs on scheduled flights, because they wouldn't be willing to fund a private company, nor spend the huge amount to do it themselves and face losing the votes it would cost.

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

The only problem with that analogy is that the internet was built on an existing infastructure of phone lines and an increasing popular PC market.

The russian tour company has an advantage with the Soyuz vehicles and a place to go (ISS).

So for a private business to start from scratch would be difficult, but we'll see what Mr. Rhutan will come up with.

I'd be willing to pay $50,000 for a trip in space

On a related topic:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994994

Won't be long until there is a private company offering trips into space, though only sub orbital at the moment....

I just don't see how the private sector can make any money from doing this. Russia is probably collecting a tidy profit, but they've already paid all the development costs for their booster and spacecraft. Unless Paul Allen or someone similar pays for all the R&D as a vanity project, or NASA sells off a couple of used shuttles, I don't think it's going to happen.

I'd like to see the classifed ads for the used shuttles though (One owner, runs well, driven by a little old lady to take her groceries to the ISS...)

Currently it costs US$4,500 per kg to put humans in orbit (slightly less if the ride is only sub-orbital). For me that cost is US$2.5M.

Even if the cost per kg is cut by an order of magnitude it would still be way too expensive for me to consider. The cost per kg would have to decreased by 2 orders of magnitude for civilian space flight to be considered viable by the general population of the 1st-world countries.

Economies of scale might cut the cost per kg by a factor of 2 to 5, but that is not enough. Lifting restrictions on space-grade, high reliability, radiation hardened components might cut costs by a factor of 2, but I would not take the risk flying in a spacecraft built to those specifications.

Some major technological breakthroughs in propulsion must be accomplished before spaceflight is available to more of the general population. Sorry folks, those are the hard facts.

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I'm guessing the capsule to take you up and bring you back would weigh about a ton, so you're talking maybe $50/kg--that's about three orders of magnitude off from the current prices.

$10,000,000 reasons that have motivated 26 companies to try and attain this. Orbit, maybe not... but I would pay 50k for a view like that. I don't think these companies would be trying to achieve this if the 10m wasn't going to cover costs. Lastly once the model has been made it will become cheaper. I might have to wait a few years for the price to come down, but it will be worth it. I feel confident space visits will be here & financially feasable within 10-15 years.

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Calvin: Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak.
Hobbes: Probably so we can think twice.

~Calvin & Hobbes~

Suborbital flights are a lot cheaper than orbital ones; it may be that the companies can find enough customers to be profitable, but I think most of them are doing it for the glory.

I can maybe see FedEx using unmanned suborbital craft for deliveries within 50 years. Tourism, though, probably wouldn't be profitable even then.

"FedEx: When it absolutely, positively, needs to be there in twenty minutes."

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Actually, as the technology gets improved upon and cheapened, I think you'll see it eventually work it's way down to be affordable for most everyone. Well, affordable in the same sense that air travel is. I think you'll see a fair number of suborbital flights for long distance hops around the globe.

Wanna go from New York to Tokyo for that major meeting? Hop on your plane in the afternoon in New York, get to Tokyo, attend the early morning meeting there, then be back in New York that meeting for your kid's bday party. :-)

I doubt it would be that cheap within 20-30 years, but maybe within 30-40 it will be. Look at air travel. How many people thought THAT would be affordable for the common man when people were flying around in biplanes that tended to fall apart as often as not?

Umm, maybe. Someone will likely have to make some major improvements in airsick drugs in the meantime.

A skip trajectory (an updated version of the Sanger bomber) would have a lower energy requirement, a reduced TPS system, and a vastly increased need for the anti-nausea drugs.

It boils down to the bucks. The Concord is a good example of that issue.

Still, Asia is growing as a tremondus trade partner so semi-frictionless sub-orbital 12,000 mile hops in a couple of hours would be great (at the right price).

[Note: if you know anyone going up, I have a small S.A.D. that needs someone up there to operate and determine something for me]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

Hey good responses by everyone!

I tend to look at things and ask why not. I was thinking that the privatizing of space would lower prices, increase competition and get these companies interested in being the first private company to give space rides.

The pricing structure would be funny:

$5000 per person, $3000 for kids or elderly.

$1000 per UFO photo, screened and brushed out by NASA.

That isn't feasible.

Here, assuming you could build your space plane for $500M let's have a look at how long it would take to pay it off.

Currently the Shuttle can carry 7 people all crew, but let's say that your space plane can carry 30 paying passangers.

We'll say that a launch costs you the rediculously low figure of $500k to have your crew paid, the flight techs check the spacecraft (remember safety is a bigger thing here then at NASA because you have paying passangers and killing them ruins your business) all the flight control people, fuel, etc.

Okay we are going to charge $50,000 a ride. (That's 10 times your figures Planetside) so that nets us $1.5M per trip.

Our expenses are $500k so we have a profit of $1M per trip.

To pay off our plane and start making a profit we need to launch 500 times.

So, how often can we launch? Well assuming a 3 day trip, then the rest of the week to get the plane back, strip it fix problems service and get it back to the launch pad in another 2, that gives us a 3 week launch period and with 52 weeks in the year thats 17 launches a year. Divide 500 by 17 and we get a grand total of......


29.4 years.


Now my figures are on the conservative side, but it shows the point. What company is going to wait 30 odd years to show a profit?????

Note that this doesn't include the fact that you'd most likely have had to replace your space plane inside that 30 year period anyways meaning you'd never make a profit.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Oh crap I don't know how much it would cost. What I wrote were just guesses. Try not to take me to seriously

Well, yeah. Mine were "guesses too" because I was aiming low.

The Space Shuttle Endeavour cost $2.1 Billion, so........

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Interesting article on who is looking into sub-orbital space. This thread has really got me looking for good info on how feasable this might be and what kind of time frame we're looking at. The more I read, the more convinced I am becoming this is going to be here sooner than later. Either way it will be around in my lifetime for sure and I will sell my plasma (and the wife's too) for 10 years if needed to go! :wink:

Oh I almost forgot, I have contacted the PR folks of most of the companies participating in the X prize asking for any information involving costs, both R&D as well as expected trip costs. I am not expecting much will come of it, but nothing ventured...

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Calvin: Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak.
Hobbes: Probably so we can think twice.

~Calvin & Hobbes~

Ultimately, I would expect these craft to be as safe and need no more maintenance than current commercial jetliners. Not to mention an ability to carry more passengers. If you could carry 300 passengers instead of 30, your costs go up somewhat, but the cost per passenger goes down.

It WILL happen. Maybe not in the next few years, probably not even in the next couple of decades, but it will happen (hopefully with the lifetimes of some of the younger of us on here).

I would spend up to 50K. I hope to be around then. 8-[