DailyDirt: Rocket Science Is Still Pretty Hard...
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Rockets fail all the time. There are just a lot of things that can go wrong, and if everything doesn't go right, the usual result is that the rocket and its payload self-destructs to prevent further damage (or just explodes all on its own). Fortunately, the hardware is getting cheaper with time, and more and more people are able to play with launch systems to get beyond Earth's gravity well. Here are just a few more examples of rocket projects that are trying to do more with less.- Building a 22-ton rocket to reach the moon isn't easy, and a Kickstarter project to get some seed funding just ended. The Moonspike project didn't achieve its Kickstarter goal, but it's not totally dead yet. They still have their rocket designs, and the moon isn't going anywhere.... [url]
- Moon Express is a private moon landing mission to get a robot on the moon in 2017. The company has teamed up with Rocket Labs and received over $1 million in funding from Google/Xprize to get its mission off the ground and into space. [url]
- Smaller teams building rockets (instead of huge aerospace companies) are becoming a trend -- making innovative delivery systems for less than "billions and billions" of dollars. The Northwest Indian College Space Center didn't have the resources to actually get anything into space, just a grandiose name. That was enough, though, to get some additional funding. The school now participates in national competitions with some NASA guidance, and it's possible that a student-built rocket could make it into space someday. [url]
Filed Under: lunar robots, moonspike, northwest indian college space center, propulsion, rockets, space, space exploration
Companies: kickstarter, moon express, nasa, rocket labs
