NASA Awards Lunar Lander Prizes

Okay, I've been gone for a long while. Here's a brief explanation of why: My workplace has been treating me and those around me so horridly this past year, that I hardly have motivation enough to come to work in the morning, much less update this website a couple of times per week.

However, enough space tourism news has happened recently that I feel compelled to write a few updates. Also, I want to write one of my long-winded rants, this time on the subject of quasars. Take note, though, that I still won't be posting as frequently as before until I get out of this horrid job.

But enough of that. Let's start with this:

I have written before about the Lunar Lander Challenge, which is managed by the X-Prize foundation. Well, this year's challenge has come and gone, and this time, there are two winners.

Masten Space Systems won 1.15 million dollars from Nasa for completing the more difficult Level 2 challenge, to demonstrate a vehicle that can take off to hover at least 150 feet, stay flying while at least 180 seconds, travel 300 meters, lan on a rocky moon-like surface, then repeat the whole process in reverse within 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Armadillo Aerospace won second place, earning $500,000 for doing the same thing; they just didn't do it quite as fast.

It should be noted that the principal goals of each of these companies is not to create landers; they are both interested in actual spaceflight, specifically with the average consumer in mind. Masten is interested in flying your stuff to space on the cheap (though they emphasize vertical takeoff and landing technology), and Armadillo is working toward developing tourist spacecraft. So this good news for space tourism all around.

As an added bonus, these flights represent the first time the Level 2 challenge has been completed.

Oh, another interesting note: I just updated the bars at the bottom of the post. My solar panel savings have caught up with my trip to space savings, exactly. They're both at 6.47%. Weird.

Trip to Space

Progress: 6.47%  Flight Time: 0:09:42

Solar Array

Progress: 6.47%  Power: 65W

Catch-Up: 2008 Lunar Lander Challenge

Last year's Lunar Lander Challenge was apparently quite the event! For those of you who aren't familiar with the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, it's an annual event put on by the X-Prize Foundation challenging companies to create a viable lunar lander type vehicle that can perform certain tasks. This alone has little to do with space tourism. However, every year, one of the most viable entrants is Armadillo Aerospace, a small company dedicated to the advancement of technologies that could be of use in space tourism.

This was the third year of the challenge. In 2006 and 2007, there were no winners, because nobody was able to complete the required tasks. Specifically, there are two challenges. The level 1 challenge, for $350,000 requires a vehicle to lift off, travel laterally to a specified location, land, lift off again, make a return trip, and land, all within a specified amount of time. The level 2 challenge, for $1,000,000, requires additional tasks.

Well, the results are in, and this year, Armadillo Aerospace won the level 1 challenge! They also made an unsuccessful attempt at the level 2 challenge, but indicated they would try again this year. Congratulations to them and to Widget, their funny little armadillo mascot.

Hey, and I found this awesome picture of Armadillo's vehicle during the level 1 challenge:

Progress: 4.03%  Flight Time: 0:06:05

Armadillo Enters Lunar Lander Challenge

Well, Armadillo Aerospace (one of my personal favorite space travel startups) has just announced their entry into the X-Prize foundation's Lunar Lander Challenge.

This comes as no surprise, as Armadillo Aerospace was the only entrant to fly in the 2006 and 2007 X-Prize Cups, similar to this challenge. The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge will take place in the New Mexico desert in late October. The challenge is designed to get people to construct vehicles with lunar-lander-like capabilities. There are two levels to the competition. Level 1 challenges entrants to construct a craft to take off, hover at 50 meters for 90 seconds, land on a spot 50 meters away, then do the entire thing in reverse, all within two and a half hours. Level 2 requires the craft to hover twice as long and land on a simulated lunar surface full of boulders and craters. Level 2 in particular is designed to simulate the capabilities needed for a real lunar mission.

The previous (and very similar) X-Prize Cups have had no winners. However, in the 2007 X-Prize Cup, Armadillo Aerospace only missed winning the Level 1 competition by 7 seconds.

I figure I should talk a little more about this company; I haven't spoken much about them in the past, but I've been following their progress, and they're pretty impressive.

Armadillo Aerospace was founded in the year 2000 by a group of volunteers dedicated to developing the technology to allow tourists to fly into space (which is, of course, why I talk about them here). They are still a very small group of (mostly) volunteers, operating out of Dallas, Texas. However, their group is very specialized, and they've done some very impressive things considering their size.

Their philosophy on rocket design is inspired from typical software design (not surprising, since one of their members, Jack Carmack, is a well known computer game designer). They design a simple rocket, build it and test it relatively quickly, then design the next one to weed out the bugs and add new features. This method seems to have been serving them well, as it has allowed them to test many, many designs and arrive at relatively advanced rockets without years of research and feasibility studies. They have even done work for NASA and the Air Force, whose methods they have poo-pooed for being way too slow (this is the common argument that most space tourism start-ups use about the government). Also, they have a philosophy of completely admitting it and talking about it when they screw up, which does happen quite often. I think this serves them well.

After the Lunar Lander challenge, Armadillo Aerospace plans on beginning design and construction of its first modular rocket prototype, a later generation of which they hope will take people into space. At about $200,000 a pop, of course.

Progress: 4.03%  Flight Time: 0:06:05

Even More Space Tourism Companies

I can hardly believe it myself, but after the two lists of space tourism companies that I originally wrote up, I still missed a few! I'm completely astounded at the sheer number of these companies that I have found since starting research for this site! You can see my original list of nine here, and my additional list of five here. So without further ado, in no particular order this time:

PlanetSpace
PlanetSpace is a Chicago-based company that intends to provide many different kinds of spaceflight services, including satellite launches, crew and supply transfer to the International Space Station, (interestingly) global travel, and last but not least, space tourism. They have a very unique and cool-looking spacecraft design in mind called the Silver Dart, which will have the capability to be reconfigured for a variety of purposes, from payload delivery to extended manned orbital missions. Their space tourism craft, however, is called the Arrow. The Arrow is a two-stage rocket that will carry passengers to the brink of space, then will re-enter the atmosphere and slow itself with parachutes and a two-stage descent system. I could find few details on any sort of timeline or development progress, but they claim they will be taking reservations soon.

Alltra
Alltra (short for All Transport) is a German company interested in constructing a huge space habitat called The Space Hotel Berlin. Currently, they only appear to be involved in promoting space tourism, and in a hybrid rocket propulsion project, but if ambition is a driving force of innovation, who knows? They really could put their plans to practice.

The da Vinci Project and The DreamSpace Group
The da Vinci Project was founded in 1996 to participate in the Ansari X-Prize competition. They had a unique design involving lifting a rocket to 70,000 feet with a helium balloon before igniting it. Their vision has always involved a goal of space tourism. They now participate in the annual X-Prize Cup. Their planned design involved a nine-person sub-orbital craft, with future aspirations of orbital flight and beyond. More recently, they partnered with the DreamSpace Group, a company founded by the founder of The da Vinci Project, to design the XF1, a realization of The da Vinci Project's original design. However, no new news has come out of these companies recently; the 2007 expected test date for the XF1 has come and gone without a peep, and DreamSpace's website seems to have disappeared.

G.A.P Adventures
This us a rather unorthodox space tourism company. Most space tourism endeavors begin with a company that already has some sort of atmospheric or spaceflight capabilities to build from. G.A.P Adventures takes the opposite approach; they're a tourism company seeking to add space to their extensive list of destinations. They announced these intentions last November, and they are starting with three options that simulate spaceflight in various ways (though they don't offer true spaceflight yet). They plan to allow passengers to fly to 60,000 of space aboard a Russian MIG-31 fighter jet, they will take passengers on parabolic flights to simulate zero-gravity, and they will send tourists through five days of Cosmonaut training. These may be good options for those who have no wish to shell out the money for true spaceflight, but are still interested in a similar experience.

Incredible Adventures
So long as we're going to mention companies offering simulated spaceflight experiences, we should mention Incredible Adventures. Like G.A.P Adventures, they offer several forms of space-like experiences, including parabolic flights simulating zero gravity, cosmonaut training, and aircraft flights to the upper atmosphere. However, they have current plans to offer suborbital spaceflight as well, via the Rocketplane XP spacecraft currently being developed.

Interorbital Systems
Interorbital Systems is a company based in Mojave, California, and is currently in the process of developing systems capable of carrying tourists into orbit. They have been working with various spaceflight technologies since their founding in 1996, and they believe they have sufficient technology to construct an orbital spacecraft and begin regular tourist orbital operations by late 2009. Their starting cost is $2 million, but to infuse some extra money in their development project, they have a special "free trip to space" offer. The deal is this: you give them $250,000 now (an eighth of the expected standard price), they take you to space when they begin operations, and two years after your flight, they give your money back. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me! If I was able to get my hands on hat kind of money, I would seriously consider going for it. There's only 9 more tickets available in this offer, so if you like the idea, you had better contact them soon.
Price:
Proposed orbital flights: $2,000,000

Masten Space
How could I forget Masten Space? And twice, no less? I've been following this company for ages! Masten Space is a company that has a very organized planned process for designing spacecraft for multiple applications, including extra-orbital activities, extra-planetary landing and takeoff, and of course, space tourism. Specifically, they have an interest in transferring crew to the International Space Station for governments and tourists to the space complex being designed by Bigelow Aerospace. Currently, they are designing the systems necessary for the vertical takeoff and landing capabilities that their spacecraft are planned to have.

Micro-Space
The details I've managed to gather about this one are rather sketchy, but in short, Micro-Space fully intends to develop technologies to bring space travel (specifically orbital and deep-space travel) down to the $10-$20 million range. Though the details, again, are sketchy, they do seem to have something to back their claims, because they successfully tested two of the ultra-light rockets that they plan on using for these purposes back in 2004.

I'm afraid I'll have to end it here; I've stumbled across so many more companies, I've literally run out of room to label this post with all their names! Probably best that I break this up into two posts anyway, so look for more tomorrow!

Progress: 3.24%  Flight Time: 0:04:51

My College Years

Yes, it's that time, boys and girls; it's time for another installment of boring you with my personal history!

I had finally made it! I had made it out of the prison that was my high school and clawed my way up into college. So it's going to get better, I thought to myself! It's going to be more about practical experience and less about rote memorization and repetition, right? Right?

These are the kinds of things I laugh about today.

No, it turns out that the teaching through experience bit only happens in the higher level courses, and not so much in my field even then. So it was back to the drudgery of the rote memorization that I despised so very very much. I resigned myself to this life, at least for the moment, and turned my attention to more pressing matters; I was broke.

I needed a job! I need to feed myself and buy textbooks and such! I was lucky, though. A family friend was in charge of hiring for a local factory, and I got hired there easily. I believe her exact words were, "Don't worry, I know who you are. If you don't work, I'll fire you." It wasn't pretty work. The factory made miscellaneous plastic parts, and my highly important job was to stack up the parts and put them in boxes. But it was work, and the people there were good, and that helped.

This went on for a couple of years, but then I started to falter in school. My grades dropped, and one term, I actually managed to fail three out of four classes! I've pondered the reasons for this ever since. The symptoms were a lack of interest in school. I started skipping classes and failing to do my homework. But it wasn't that I didn't want to learn; that's not it at all. I would often skip a class so I could spend some time taking something apart to find out how it works, or so I could go to the library and read up on some interesting subject. The problem behind this was that I was sick and tired of learning on the school's terms! Hate is a strong word, but it applies; I had come to hate the school's method of teaching, the same method that I had been struggling with all my life! Rote memorization and repetition works for some people, but our school system, and even our colleges and universities seem to think that it applies to everyone. It does not! I have seen close friends who were complete geniuses drop out of school and fade into obscurity because they couldn't learn this way! I was very lucky in that I could, but it was an extraordinary struggle! I literally started getting nauseous when I was given a big assignment. However, several things happened that helped me turn the ship around.

That was around the time of the incident in which the Columbia space shuttle burned up on re-entry. What a terrible tragedy that was! Incidentally, I have a cousin who is a smoke jumper, and she was on one of the teams gathering the wreckage. She's one of the coolest people I know. But I digress. This really wasn't much of a blow to my spaceflight aspirations; I was always aware of the dangers of spaceflight, and I'm willing to take the risk. In fact, my philosophy has always been that blowing up in a spacecraft would be a hell of a way to go! But I digress.

Again.

I do that a lot.

Anyway, This was also around the time the Ansari X-Prize was really heating up. Two or three of the competitors were performing flight tests and were coming very close to their initial launches. This was inspirational for me; that in the face of the space shuttle disaster, these private companies could still be competing so diligently toward the goal of manned spaceflight, with much less money and fewer resources than the U.S. government. A better story of persistence in the face of complete disaster I have rarely heard! This helped my morale quite a bit, and then when SpaceShipOne made its three spectacular flights, and I learned the story of its development, well, I was hooked. It really gave me new drive to accomplish my ultimate goal, and helped me choke down the bile brought on by the horrid learning techniques that I had to endure.

The last thing that happened about that time is that I got laid off from the factory. This sounds pretty bad, but it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. It got me to look into getting a job in my field, and two weeks later, I had landed a great student job at the university. It paid more, it was two blocks from the dorms, and it was a heck of a lot more fun! Nothing motivates like having a job you like. And I have no doubt that part of the reason I got that job was those hard years I had put in at the factory, and the great references I earned there. This brings me to my second rule for getting into space:

Rule 2: Get a Job.

Any job. And early. Get a part-time job in high school if you can. Even if the only job you can get is the most disgusting, wretched, horrid job you can think of, take it, do the job like you mean it, and don't quit. About now, you're wondering how you could possibly get to space with the money from a job like that. You can't. However, having any kind of job on your resume will help you get a better job later on, and that one will help you get an even better job. Then you can start making the kind of money you need to get to space. A pattern I've found in observing my friends and family is that the people who stick with the awful job and never give up are the ones who go on to bigger and better things later in life. The people who get tired of their job, give up, quit, and look for another are the ones who struggle to get anywhere in life. If you want to get into space, it's almost a requirement that no matter what you do, do it well and don't quit! Slogging through a crap job for a few years will do wonders for you in the long run.

So I had a great job, and new motivation, and that helped push me through. It took me five and a half years to get that four-year degree, but I didn't give up, and now I have a piece of paper on my wall to prove it. Unfortunately, my graduation presented me with a whole new bucket of problems. Remember how I oh-so-casually mentioned that my new, great job was a student job? Well, I was no longer a student, so they kicked me out. I submitted application after application to companies all over the area, but I had few bites. I had to get yet another job and get it fast. My rent was due and the clock was ticking.

But that, my friends, is a long-winded story for another day.

Progress: 3.24%  Flight Time: 0:04:51

More Potential Space Tourism Companies

Okay, okay, I missed a few, I admit it! There are just so (surprisingly) many space tourism companies out there, it's hard not to miss a few. If you want to read my original list, it's here, but here's details on a few more companies that might have a future interest in sending you to space!

LiftPort Group
The LiftPort group is a corporation that is affiliated with several companies with the common interest in building a space elevator. That's right, folks, a space elevator! They plan on developing the technology required to suspend a satellite in orbit and tether it to a platform floating in the South Pacific with a couple of ribbons made from carbon nanotubes thousands of miles long. These ribbons will support lifters (powered by ground-based lasers) that will be able to carry loads into orbit and back. Quite an endeavor! However, they have most of the physics worked out, and it seems quite feasible. So far, they have successfully suspended a tethered platform a mile up (via propellants) and had prototype lifters climb up and down the tether. They plan to have their first full-scale lift launch on October 27, 3031. Tickets are available now! (However, each ticket is only good to have one ounce lifted into orbit.)
Price:
Proposed orbital lifts: $25 per ounce

Armadillo Aerospace
Armadillo Aerospace was founded in the year 2000, and has a stated goal of sub-orbital space tourism, and log-term goals of orbital manned space flight. Their organization is relatively small, but they have had some success in the design and construction of proof-of-concept space vehicle components. They were a competitor in the original Ansari X-Prize, and they compete today in the X-Prize Cup. Armadillo's creations rely on computer-controlled stabilization systems instead of being aerodynamic, and can therefore be quite unique in design. In 2004, they demonstrated the third unmanned vehicle in history capable of vertical takeoff and landing. They are currently researching solutions for lunar-lander and orbital launch vehicles. And they have a really cool little mascot named Widget.

ARCA
ARCA (Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association) is an organization financed by a group of European companies. Like Armadillo Aerospace, they were one of the participants in the original Ansari X-Prize competition, and they are competitors today in the X-Prize cup. Like Scaled Composites, they specialize partly in composite materials, and in fact built and launched the first rocket constructed of composite materials. They have a couple of manned space-related projects in the works, and while I haven't seen any officially announced plans for them to venture into space tourism, it remains a possibility.

Rocketplane Global
Rocketplane Global was founded in Oklahoma in 2001. The company's sole purpose is the development of commercial space travel. They are currently developing the XP, a spacecraft that looks strikingly like a business jet; the main difference is the giant rocket built into the back. It will carry a pilot and five passengers, and unlike SpaceShipTwo, it will be capable of powered flight after re-entry. The vehicle's design was announced late last year, along with a rough timeline of flight tests in 2009 and initial tourist flights in 2010.
Price:
Proposed sub-orbital flights: $250,000

XCOR Aerospace
XCOR designs rockets and vehicles for space agencies all over the world. Among their current projects is a design for a methane rocket engine to be installed on the lunar return vehicle that will be used by NASA when they return to the moon. More to the point, though, they are developing the Xerus, a low-budget sub-orbital space plane that will carry one pilot and one passenger to the edge of space and back. They intend this vehicle to be used for space tourism.

And well, those are all of the potential space tourism companies I am aware of. Those, along with my original list of nine, bring the number up to no less than fourteen companies actively developing systems that could enable tourists to take to space! Imagine, if even two or three of these companies succeed in their efforts, we could have all sorts of options for different forms of spaceflight, and a lot of competition four our space tourism dollars. These are exciting times indeed!

Progress: 3.24%  Flight Time: 0:04:51

Virgin Galactic

Well, I was hoping to bring you all some sort of interesting space tourism news this week, but it seems to be a slow week for that sort of thing, so I'll start profiling some of the space tourism companies (as promised) instead.

I'll start with Virgin Galactic. They're the second on my original list, but they're my personal favorite, so I'm beginning with them.

It all started with a company named Scaled Composites, led by a man named Burt Rutan. Scaled Composites was founded in 1982, and focused primarily on designing and building unique aircraft from non-metal composite materials, and on designing the fabrication processes needed to do so.

Then came the arrival of the Ansari X-Prize. In May of 1996, a competition was announced to give $10,000,000 to the first private company to launch a single craft carrying three people into space twice within a week, without replacing more than 10% of the vehicle's mass in between. Burt Rutan and the fine people at Scaled thought they just might have the resources and expertise necessary to pull it off.

Well, they did. A group of about 120 people developed a successful space program in eight years' time, on a budget of twenty million dollars, with the first manned spacecraft capable of re-entering Earth's atmosphere without a heat shield! Those aren't the only feats they pulled off; SpaceShipOne was only the second mechanically-controlled aircraft capable of breaking the sound barrier, it became the fastest mechanically-controlled aircraft ever at speeds exceeding Mach 3, and it did so while flying straight up! Also, it broke the record altitude for a rocket plane by a few thousand feet, beating out the U.S. military's X-15. Scaled Composites' budget required them to get very creative during the development and testing of SpaceShipOne. For example, they didn't have money for wind tunnel tests, so they put pieces of the craft on the back of a pickup and drove really fast down a runway instead! And during the whole process of building and testing SpaceShipOne, they came close to disaster no less than three times! Again, if you haven't seen it, I recommend the Discovery Channel documentary on this process (on the right); it's highly entertaining. And here's a cool picture.


And another.


Anyway, I'm rambling. SpaceShipOne successfully won the Ansari X-Prize on October 4, 2004. Shortly thereafter, Virgin Galactic was founded by Sir Richard Branson, a (somewhat amusingly named) member of his Virgin group of companies. He then announced plans to team up with Burt Rutan to found The Spaceship Company, the company that is responsible for the design and construction of SpaceShipTwo, and its "mothership", WhiteKnightTwo. Virgin Galactic then contracted The Spaceship Company to deliver five SpaceShipTwos and two WhiteKnightTwos for their initial operations. Just a couple of weeks ago, designs and pictures of the first SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo (named Enterprise and Eve, respectively) were released to the general public. Here are a couple of those pictures!



So there you have it! Flight tests are expected to begin this summer, with actual tourist flights beginning in 2009. For a the mere $200,000 price tag, you too can touch the sky! Or... something sappy like that.

Wait, you don't think it ends there, do you? Not at all! Burt Rutan has a three-tiered solution to the space tourism problem. SpaceShipOne and Two are part of his Tier One vision, consisting of sub-orbital tourism. There are still two tiers left! Tier Two will be orbital tourism. There are already rough plans in the works for the Tier Two craft, which will likely be loosely based on SpaceShipTwo. Tier Three? Well, that's where you get to leave the Earth's orbit altogether and visit the Moon, or perhaps L2, the gravitational "balance point" on the opposite side of the Earth from the sun (more on Lagrange points here). There are exciting times ahead, so stay tuned!

Images credit Scaled Composites, LLC (first two), Virgin Galactic (third), and Reuters (fourth)

Progress: 3.24% Flight Time: 0:04:51

I'm going to space!

Welcome one and all!

My name (well, my name here) is Joe Space Tourist. And let me tell you why:

When I was in high school (about ten years or so ago; I'm 26), I decided that someday, I would go to space. I was just a regular kid in a regular school among the regular masses, silent and vocal, repressed and excited, optimistic and beaten-down. But I had watched the shuttle launches. I had watched the old Mercury and Apollo, and Soyuz capsules fly into space, circle the Earth, bring people from this planet safely to the Moon and back again, and Touch The Sky. I knew; I knew that I had to be part of this. That I had to, somehow, in some way, bring myself to the edge of human exploration, of human thought and dreams and imagination. I wanted to do something fantastic, and I still do.

In short, I fully intend to light a rocket under my butt and shoot myself out of the atmosphere.

I had a problem though; I simply was not cut out for the astronaut corps. I (frankly) sucked at school, I have bad eyesight in one eye, and I wasn't willing to join the military, for reasons that I may or may not get into later. I knew back then, and I fully admitted to myself, that I would never be an astronaut in the traditional sense. So even back in high school, I put my hopes on private companies to eventually help me find a way to fulfill my dream.

Then came the Ansari X-Prize. What a great idea! To promise $20 million dollars to the first private company that could launch three people into space twice within a week. Practically the definition of space tourism! And the results were spectacular. In the year 2004, there were exactly four manned launches into space. One was a Russian Soyuz capsule sending new personnel and supplies to the International Space Station. The other three were SpaceShipOne.

SpaceShipOne and the whole team at Scaled Composites are amazing. A hundred and twenty people created a successful space program with only $10 million in funds. How incredible is that? Not only that, but the ship they designed only had a few moving parts, was mechanically controlled, was capable of re-entering the atmosphere without a heat shield and was first piloted by a 60 year old high school dropout! There is nothing about SpaceShipOne's story that isn't incredible! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the Discovery Channel documentary on the design, construction, and testing of SpaceShipOne (on the right). It's very entertaining and thought-provoking, and they come very close to complete disaster no less than three times!

After SpaceShipOne's three successful flights, it was retired (it now hangs from the ceiling at the Smithsonian), and Scaled Composites partnered with the newly-founded Virgin Galactic to create SpaceShipTwo and sell flights to the general public. They're not the only ones; today, there are no fewer than five companies around the world with serious plans to provide similar flights. Virgin Galactic even set a price: $200,000 per flight.

$200,000? That's a bit of a stickler. Most people assume that this prohibitive price sets space tourism firmly in the realm of the obscenely wealthy.

Well, that is why I'm writing this blog. I'm going to prove them wrong, and I'm going to share my journey with you.

The $200,000 price tag gave me three choices. I could give up on my dream, but for me, that's not an option. I could wait for more companies to enter the arena and prices to drop; this could very well happen, but I don't want to rely on it. So my third option is to spend my life working toward this. That is what I have decided to do.

In other words, I'm not here to say that anyone can do this. Not everyone can. It's going to take a hell of a lot of drive, determination, careful planning, and above all, the ability to turn nay-sayers into fuel for the fire. Anyone who tells me I can't do this only makes me more determined to prove them wrong. In other words, what I am saying is that anyone with these qualities can do this. You, too, can go to space.

And I'm going to prove it.