DailyDirt: Going To Space
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Only three countries have developed manned space vehicles: Russia, US and China. However, since the retirement of NASA's space shuttle program, the US has not had a vehicle (of its own) ready to take astronauts to space. The European Union, Japan, and India have plans to develop manned space programs, and several commercial ventures are working on various ways to get people into space (or at least close to the edge of space). Here are a few ways Americans might get into space in the not-too-distant future.- NASA will be sending astronauts into space on Boeing and SpaceX rockets in a few years. By 2017 (if everything goes right), NASA won't need to rely on the Russian Federation Space Agency to get astronauts to the International Space Station. [url]
- There's a relatively cheap way for tourists to visit the edge of space -- in a helium balloon. For the bargain price of just $75,000, World View Enterprises will take a passenger on a 5-hour ride up to 100,000 feet in a pressurized capsule hanging from a giant balloon. The first launch is planned for 2016. (For comparison, Virgin Galactic tickets cost about $250,000 and a trip on a Soyuz to the ISS can cost anywhere from $20-70 million.) [url]
- NASA has been working on its own Orion Space Capsule vehicle designed to take astronauts to various destinations in our solar system. The Orion spacecraft system is planning an unmanned test launch in December 2014, and it could be sending astronauts back to the moon (or beyond) by the 2030s. [url]
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: astronauts, iss, manned missions, orion, soyuz, space exploration, space vehicles
Companies: boeing, nasa, spacex, virgin galactic, world view enterprises
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: generally considered to be 62 miles up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: generally considered to be 62 miles up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
One Three Countries Have Ever Achieved Manned Space Flight ...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]