NASA may have shelved the space shuttle program, but it doesn’t seem to have any trouble finding new projects to invest in.
Just a few days after the U.S. space agency announced plans to fund 30 new space-research projects, NASA directed additional funding to the private sector for development of space-travel initiatives.
According to Space.com, NASA awarded $10 million in contracts to seven private companies developing commercial spaceships. The companies will be tasked with sending research payloads into space on manned and unmanned missions, though the flights will remain suborbital (flying into space but not orbiting the Earth).
The two-year contracts are part of NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, and essentially put the the companies on retainer for an indefinite number of flights.
“This is a big day for commercial space,” Commercial Spaceflight Federation executive director John Gedmark said in a statement. “Just as 1920s airmail purchases helped jumpstart the airline industry, we expect that NASA’s purchases of flights on commercial suborbital vehicles will help accelerate this new industry. Hundreds of scientists, engineers, and educators have attended CSF workshops on the topic of using commercial suborbital vehicles, and we are thrilled to see that the R&D community will now be able to get rides to space.”
Many of the companies awarded contracts already have experience exploring the edge of space, or have worked with NASA in the past to develop high-altitude projects.
One of the companies benefiting from a grant is Armadillo Aerospace, an aerospace start-up founded by Id Software (developers of Doom and Quake) co-founder John Carmack. Armadillo is currently developing a vertical-launching ship capable of carrying passengers and payloads to altitudes above 62 miles.
Also among the contracted companies is Virgin Galactic, whose SpaceShipTwo commercial space plane aims to fly up to eight passengers (including two pilots pilots) to the edge of space. The company has already sold hundreds of tickets for upcoming flights, which are expected to begin in the next few years, carrying space tourists as well as research payloads.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.