Space Prizes
So it is about time for the first of two X-Prize qualifying space launches. (There is a live stream if you are interested from that page.) Also of interest is the work being done by Bigelow Aerospace to put privately funded space stations into orbit. At first these will be for scientific and government purposes, but he really wants tourists up there, and as such is funding a following space prize, an orbital prize of $50 million. (Rather than the $10 million for the X-Prize.) They have already secured launch next year for some test units, and are hoping to have their first full size unit launched by 2008, and manned by 2010.
This has been and will continue to be an exciting decade if nothing else. Wasn’t there some Chinese saying about that?
Update: it was a bit of a wild ride, but they made it! Melville (the pilot) was actually asked to abort the mission when the space ship started to roll, but he decided to keep the engine on until they cleared the required height. Balls. Of course when he was spinning he was already in space, so the space ship was safe as long as they had enough RCS fuel to damp the spin. He said he had a good time. The best thing is that the lack of stresses on the ship means that they can probably do the second launch as planned if they can figure out why the ship spun.