DailyDirt: Commercial Space

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Tue, Dec 20th 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Now that the Space Shuttle has been retired, NASA temporarily has no vehicle of its own to send astronauts into space. The plan is to encourage commercial entities to be more interested in manned spaceflight, and there are a handful of companies that are taking a shot at putting people on rocketships. Here are just a few interesting links on the future of commercial space missions.

NASA is handing off low-Earth orbit to commercial enterprises and taking a look at longer-range missions for itself. The space race has essentially turned into America's Next Top Space Model... or American Space Idol... [url]
Paul Allen and Burt Rutan have developed an enormous mothership that will launch rockets from the stratosphere. Stratolaunch Systems hasn't built it yet, but they plan to launch the first rocket in 2016. [url]
So far, SpaceX is the only commercial company to successfully return a spacecraft from orbit. This capability is only shared by five nations and the European Space Agency. [url]
To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: burt rutan, low earth orbit, manned missions, mothership, paul allen, space shuttle, spacecraft
Companies: nasa, spacex, stratolaunch systems

3 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2011 @ 5:27pm

2 suppliers for NASA?
Is NASA supposed to require two commercial suppliers? SpaceX shouldn't be the only company able to fly to space.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
AdamBv1 (profile), 20 Dec 2011 @ 6:24pm

Re: 2 suppliers for NASA?
They will still be looking for and helping fund 2 out of the 4 competitors now but SpaceX is the furthest ahead.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Ho (profile), 20 Dec 2011 @ 6:50pm

Re: Re: 2 suppliers for NASA?
Nice to know, AdamBv1.
[ link to this | view in thread ]