More Far-Out Space Nuts

Riffing off of Jeff Taylor's mental trip to Titan below, a couple of other recent space clips worthy of note:

*The Christian Science Monitor reports on some geeky pioneers at Atlanta's SpaceWorks Engineering, representing

a new model, trading bureaucracy for entrepreneurship in an enterprise where scientists do everything from propulsion calculations to making copies at Kinko's, and find time to attend Star Trek conventions, too.
…..
To date, they've worked on everything from a military space fighter to a Martian telecom grid that would bounce off the tails of comets - imagining the practical use of space for everything from tourism to burials. While the work is mostly conceptual, it hews to the physical laws of the universe.

Figuring out ways to save Earth from killer asteroids--ways that evade reliance on Bruce Willis--is one of their major concerns. They are partially on the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts dole--I blogged about that program a week or so ago.

*And for those who like their government and space to have a vacuum a universe wide between them, Wired--shaping up to be the Omni of the 21st century lately with an increasing focus on crazy and visionary science outside a more blinkered view of "digital culture"--provides in its January issue a nifty profile of Richard Branson and his plans for commercial space travel (using X-Prize-winner Burt Rutan's designs). How Branson's schemes will play out remains to be seen, as they say, but the wrap-up of this story made me grin in anticipation. Branson:

"I hope we'll get to the moon in my lifetime. The first baby born there - what country will it be a citizen of? Maybe we can put a Virgin bank in space, or maybe a Virgin tax haven. We could pay for all our people to go up there just by depositing their money."…..

The simple fact is that going into space gives Branson a chance to do what a lot of massively successful guys wish they could do: grab the wheel of history and tug. Opening the final frontier to private citizens will ensure Branson's place in the human saga. And if that means fleets of Virgin spaceships soaring through the inky void, serving sip-packs of Virgin Cola on the way to the latest Virgin Clubhouse, so be it. "Space is virgin territory," Branson says, trying out a prospective marketing line and shooting another grin. "Is that 21st-century enough for you?"

Comments

[JonBuck]

Another private company I'd like to draw attention to is SpaceX and their Falcon rocket series.

http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon/050120spacex/

http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon/050120lc36/

The Falcon V is supposed to be man-rated, and the whole series is supposed to drop the cost of launches way, way down.

Go private enterprise!

"Long term plans call for development of a heavy lift product and even a super-heavy, if there is customer demand. We expect that each size increase would result in a meaningful decrease in cost per pound to orbit. For example, dollar cost per pound to orbit dropped from $4,000 to $1,300 between Falcon 1 and Falcon 5. Ultimately, I believe $500 per pound or less is very achievable."

[Warren]

Wired--shaping up to be the Omni of the 21st century lately with an increasing focus on crazy and visionary science outside a more blinkered view of "digital culture"

Oh yes, I remember Omni. The geek wanna-be mag. Chuck full of techno-art and the English department's favorite science fiction masquerading as non-fiction. Real geeks subscribed to Scientific America (although these days they've shown a disheartening tendency to sacrifice science to politics in the global warming debate). Back in my college days, I used to fan my ego by casually pursuing Physics Today. What science periodicals are you Hit and Run geeks reading?

[Akira MacKenzie]

Wired will become like Omni when they start publishing articles that take UFOs, ESP, and other New Age BS seriously...

...or have they already? 🙁

[Captian Awesome]

I'm a fan of "Science News" it's really short, for that nerd on the go.

[Ira Weatheral]

So this guy could be a DD Harriman?

[Grumbler]

Boy, nothing better than being stuck all weekend with a final Friday post, especially one involving space stuff -- as this lively 6-comment thread confirms.

[Arthur C. Larf]

A potentially deadly situation:

-A month long flight to Io...
-Sitting in front of the crying baby...

[Matt Medlin]

What a trip! I used to go to school with the Spaceworks guys when I was studying aero engineering at Ga. Tech. These "geeky engineers" actually do a lot of more serious, down-to-earth analysis work than the CSM article gives them credit for. Their core expertise is really analysis of next-generation launch vehicle systems, but it is always the pie-in-the-sky stuff that grabs the headlines. Nobody wants to hear about more cost effective ways to put satellites in orbit.

CSM also gives them libertarian props that they don't deserve. "Trading bureaucracy for entrepreneurship" sounds great, but I've actually seen the economic analyses that AC Charania has performed in the past. Like every other guy in the business, he recognizes that the only way any of these space dreams are going to come about is with a healthy dose of government money. There is absolutely no way a private company can pay the up front costs of a major space system design and make any money on it.

Its always nice to see old friends in the news, though.