SpaceDev, a subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corporation, is developing a very cool looking seven-seater spacecraft called Dream Chaser, designed to launch astronauts into space using the by now well-established Atlas 5 rocket. Think of the spacecraft as a mini-shuttle – it’s about four times smaller and based on designs that NASA and Russian engineers experimented … Read More “The Cost Of Space Travel; Watch Out For Here Be Dragons…” »
Space travel will become a reality soon, so let’s have a look at what it would cost to, even for a brief moment, go above 100km (where space officially starts) and become an astronaut. Virgin Galactic‘s WhiteKnightTwo airplane will carry SpaceShipTwo with two pilots and six passengers to an altitude of 16 km (or 50.000 … Read More “The Cost Of Space Travel, As Virgin Galactic Ups Prices…” »
Blue Origin is a privately funded aerospace company set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, the man who made his billions – that’s billions, not millions – proving to the world that e-commerce was a viable business model. The secretive company has since 2000 been working on a suborbital crew capsule, conducting tests under NASA’s … Read More “Blue Origin” »
Spaceport America can be found in New Mexico, United States and is the world’s first purpose-built, commercial spaceport. It opened for business in October 2011 and since then has already signed up several permanent tenants: UP Aerospace was the first, Sir Richard Branson‘s Virgin Galactic WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo fleet, and just this May Elon Musk‘s … Read More “Spaceport America” »
Let’s take a closer look at SpaceX. If the fact that it was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk (aka “the real Tony Stark“) doesn’t guarantee it success (he did after all start PayPal and Tesla Motors amongst others!), the numbers do most of the talking: with nearly 50 launches on its manifest, representing more … Read More “SpaceX” »
The launch vehicle that Virgin Galactic will be using as part of its two-stage approach to sub-orbital spaceflight is the WhiteKnightTwo (also known as WK2), with the first one christened VMS Eve after Richard Branson‘s mother and the second one will be named after Steve Fossett, that other adventurer who sadly had a less than … Read More “WhiteKnightTwo” »
Tracing back the technology used by Virgin Galactic, we have to check in with Scaled Composites, the company founded by Burt Rutan. As you can tell by this video they know how to not take everything too seriously but make no mistake, this team is working on cutting edge technology to get commercial spaceflight off … Read More “Virgin Galactic & The Spaceship Company” »
To start our series of company profiles, there’s none better than Virgin Galactic. Led by the charismatic Sir Richard Branson who built out his Virgin empire through a variety of different industries and ideas, they are planning to provide sub-orbital spaceflights to the paying public, along with suborbital space science missions and orbital launches of … Read More “Virgin Galactic” »
Virgin Galactic‘s SpaceShipTwo breaks sound barrier in first rocket-powered flight – check out the video: SpaceShipTwo firing its engines Sir Richard said in a statement: “For the first time, we were able to prove the key components of the system, fully integrated and in flight. Today’s supersonic success opens the way for a rapid expansion … Read More “Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo breaks the sound barrier for the first time” »