Private rocketeer decides to follow a path NASA abandoned: reusable rockets.
Gotta go for the weekend, but want to at least recognize the news from SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp, and its CEO Elon Musk that it plans in the medium-future to build reusable rocket ships, many even reusable space ships for people. That’s the road shuttle started down. It saved no money. But Musk said yesterday at the National Press Club that the idea may yet be sound.
I’ll list the stories, but do have two observations. First, SpaceX has been tightroping for awhile now, and hasn’t fallen off yet. So this ambition is plausible. Second, the proposal would build rockets and capsules that, upon return to Earth for reuse, would land on their tails using remaining fuel to slow, hover at ground level, and land on legs. Stories treat this a little bit as revelatory. Somebody ought to mention other space start-ups, including Armadillo Space in Texas, and Blue Origin in Washington State – both founded by wealthy entrepreneurs in the same mold as Musk – are pursuing the same general idea. This was a news conference by a glamorous company riding high for the moment. But the topic deserves a trend-feature treatment. It is more than spot news.
Sample Stories:
- Aviation Week – Frank Morring, Jr: SpaceX To Try Reusable Launch ;
- Space.com – Mike Wall: SpaceX Unveils Plan for World’s First Fully Reusable Rocket ;
- SpaceNews – Dan Leone: SpaceX Working on Falcon 9 Fly-back boosters ;
- AFP – Kerry Sheridan: SpaceX says ‘reusable rocket’ could help colonize Mars ;
- AP – John Antczak: SpaceX to attempt fully reusable orbital booster ;
One is sure there is a press kit out there somewhere. If a link is provided, we’ll add it. Have a good weekend.
- Charlie Petit
September 30th, 2011 at 5:29 pm
And then of course there’s Delta Clipper-X, which apparently escaped the notice of all the folks writing these articles. It would be useful to shine a light on why DC-X was not fully developed and contrast those reasons with what SpaceX is saying publicly. For the record: I am super hopeful that SpaceX will be able to accomplish this, and I am enthusiastic about the ferment in the private-space industry. But reportage covering it needs to acknowledge what’s gone before a bit more than it currently does IMHO.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:38 am
Yep, Delta Clipper-X and assorted predecessors!
From 1983-1985, I was editor of a trade publication called Space Business News, and I wrote about numerous commercial space-launch start-ups – water-launching, VTOL, etc. Though The Reagan administration gave a lot of lip service to commercial development of space, none of the launch start-ups survived. (Orbital Sciences is now a Big Aerospace Company – but Orbital did not start out with plans to build launchers.)
I suspect that a major challenge reporters face in researching the First Wave of Commercialization is that it predated the Internet (as we know it) – thus little info is available online.
For information on NASA’s Reagan-era Office of Commercial Programs, see Chapter 6 in this NASA History Division publication, available free online:
NASA Historical Data Books (SP-4012), Volume VI: NASA Space Applications, Aeronautics and Space Research and Technology, Tracking and Data Acquisition/Support Operations, Commercial Programs, and Resources, 1979-1988 (Compiled by Judy A. Rumerman 1999)
Link: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/vol6/ch5.pdf
I would be happy to turn over my two-year archive of Space Business News issues to anyone who’s willing to resolve any copyright issues, digitize the material, and make it freely available online!