Private space travel companies set to make big leaps in 2013

[Rick Modena]

Weyland

lol!

[jdgregory84]

I looked at the careers list for Virgin Galactic...

...I'm not qualified.

[Tannerm]

WEYLAND comment
^^^ stay the fuck away from lv426!!!

[Ratt]

WEYLAND comment
^^^ stay the fuck away from lv426!!!

lol

[Strychnine]

Two days ago SpaceX upped the bar even more with a "divert test"

Launch, move sideways, hover, move back over the pad and set down.

SpaceX's New 'Sideways' Rocket Launch Must Be Seen To Be Believed
Joe Weisenthal
Aug. 15, 2013, 10:53 AM 13,528 15

SpaceX, the private rocket company founded by Elon Musk, is doing stuff that looks like it must be done with special effects. It's just so cool.

Back in early July, the company released a video showing one of its rockets shooting up into the air, briefly stalling, and then perfectly gracefully returning to its launchpad.

But now the company has one-upped itself, going beyond a mere vertical launch.

This time SpaceX was able to launch a rocket, have it move sideways, and then have it return to its original path.

Here's the description from the company (via NPR):

On August 13th, the Falcon 9 test rig (code name Grasshopper) completed a divert test, flying to a 250m altitude with a 100m lateral maneuver before returning to the center of the pad. The test demonstrated the vehicle's ability to perform more aggressive steering maneuvers than have been attempted in previous flights. Grasshopper is taller than a ten story building, which makes the control problem particularly challenging. Diverts like this are an important part of the trajectory in order to land the rocket precisely back at the launch site after reentering from space at hypersonic velocity.

Check this out.

[talisman]

That video defies what we've seen from rockets so much that it looks fake. Incredible.

[slow99]

QIK46 with a list of screaming space buys in 3 ... 2 ...

[Rick Modena]

QIK46 with a list of screaming space buys in 3 ... 2 ...

lol.

[Strychnine]

That video defies what we've seen from rockets so much that it looks fake. Incredible.

If I had any sort of usable brainpower (à la Slow99) I'd be fighting for a job under Elon Musk at SpaceX. The stuff they're doing is so awesome.

He's like a real-life Tony Stark - double undergrad degrees in economics and physics, started Paypal, sold it to E-bay to fund and co-found Tesla Motors where he is head of product design and SpaceX where he is CEO and CTO... oh and he's also chariman of the board for Solar City (renewable energy firm).

I mean the dude is behind the first private rocket to reach orbit and then the first commercial spacecraft docking at the ISS.

"It's a great business. They look to be the future of the U.S. space program," he says. "They're inspiring a nation and they're going to colonize Mars. They're literally going to make humanity a multi-planetary species. That's something you can't say about any other start-up."

For now SpaceX is sticking to the prosaic work of taking over NASA's old stomping grounds of launching satellites and shipping cargo and crude to the Space Station. Jurvetson isn't in the business of funding dreams. He's a venture capitalist and his record suggests he is very, very good at it.

Jurvetson worked with Steve Jobs at NeXT and later Apple (AAPL). He knew Steve Jobs, and in his view, Elon Musk is no Steve Jobs.

"Elon Musk is even more amazing as an individual. Imagine if Steve Jobs did everything he did and also revolutionized agriculture and commercial banking," Jurveston says, "that's the kind of thing Elon has done."

You guys have seen his new Hyperloop train concept, right?

[Torinoman]

You guys have seen his new Hyperloop train concept, right?

Looks like a really flawed half assed idea. Why do you think he "doesn't have time for it" after working on the concept for a year.

[Sgt Beavis]

Looks like a really flawed half assed idea. Why do you think he "doesn't have time for it" after working on the concept for a year.

Yup, flawed and half assed, just like his rockets. How on Earth would he have time to do it? He runs Tesla, Solar City, and SpaceX at the same time.

[Sgt Beavis]

Two days ago SpaceX upped the bar even more with a "divert test"

Launch, move sideways, hover, move back over the pad and set down.

Knowing what I know about this rocket, that blew my mind. Elon and his crew are really onto something with Grasshopper.

[Strychnine]

Looks like a really flawed half assed idea. Why do you think he "doesn't have time for it" after working on the concept for a year.

Tesla Motors where he is head of product design and SpaceX where he is CEO and CTO... oh and he's also chariman of the board for Solar City

Just imagine the possibilities!




I do think it's cool that he threw the entire concept out there as an "open source" thing and just basically said "someone step up."

"...I kind of shot myself by ever mentioning the Hyperloop because I'm too strong I mean obviously have to focus on core business and SpaceX business and that's more than enough. But I did commit to publishing a design and provide quite a detailed design I think on Monday and then invite critical feedback and see if the people can find ways to improve it and then you can just be out there it's kind of like a open source design that maybe you can keep improving."

Quite contrary to what other companies out there are doing.
Example:

[Bill] Gates has been prolific in filing patent applications over the past few years, mostly through a partnership with friends at Intellectual Ventures (IV). That's one of the world's largest patent holding companies, typically described as a patent troll because of its practice of acquiring patents and using them to file lawsuits (notably against Motorola), despite not using the patents to make technology of its own.

IV's brainstorming sessions and Gates's involvement in them have been well known for a few years.

"Bill Gates, whose company, Microsoft, is one of the major investors in Intellectual Ventures, says, 'I can give you 50 examples of ideas they’ve had where, if you take just one of them, you’d have a startup company right there,'" the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell wrote in a glowing profile of IV in 2008. "Gates has participated in a number of invention sessions, and, with other members of the Gates Foundation, meets every few months with Myhrvold to brainstorm about things like malaria or HIV."

The brainstorming sessions have obviously led to numerous patent applications, even though IV never makes any products of its own.

As Ars wrote in 2011, "Like all patent trolls, [IV] has been careful not to commercialize any of those inventions. That means that IV is not vulnerable to the threat of retaliatory lawsuits that has helped keep litigation among large technology firms in check."

Here's the whole press release: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/f...a-20130812.pdf

I haven't read all 57 pages yet, but Musk appears to have at least thought about everything from station connections, to earthquakes and expansion joints, and power outages.

[Torinoman]

Yup, flawed and half assed, just like his rockets. How on Earth would he have time to do it? He runs Tesla, Solar City, and SpaceX at the same time.

Thousands of miles of completely sealed steel vacuum tubes with trains traveling near the speed of sound inside them seems pretty reasonable to me, my mistake. Oh, its all solar powered too

[Strychnine]

LOL. Duuuuuuuuude...