DailyDirt: Spaceships On The Drawing Board

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, Feb 23rd 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Getting into space isn't cheap or easy. However, the technology to get into orbit is making some awesome progress and getting more reliable -- and getting a little cheaper, bit by bit. There are lots of designs for rockets and spaceships, and some are more like science fiction than anything that'll actually fly. Here are a few more spaceships that might have a shot at taking off.

As an alternative propulsion technology, lasers could help boost payloads into space. The nice part is that such a system could be safer since there wouldn't necessarily need to be explosive fuels on board, but on the downside, it would be limited to cargo that weighs about 200 pounds. [url]
NASA's Nautilus-X plans would create a re-usable deep-space vehicle with inflatable components. It would be constructed in space over about 5 years and cost at least $3.7 billion... and it was designed to be affordable. [url]
The Russians are developing a re-usable space plane that might match the US Air Force's X-37B. Is there really a need for a nationalistic space race nowadays? [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: lasers, nasa, russia, space

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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 23 Feb 2011 @ 5:43pm

There Are Just Two Gee-Whiz-Wow Ideas Left ...
1. Space Elevator;
2. Project Orion.
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TechDan (profile), 23 Feb 2011 @ 8:18pm

I would argue that the only way to significantly advance space technology at this point would be another nationalistic space race, at least until the fledgling private space industry can do a bit more than put a human in low orbit for 6 minutes.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2011 @ 2:51am

I would just like to add that the stumbleupon related posts, beside been americo-science-centrist always reveal OLD technology - many of these news are old news... do try to keep up ok?
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