Private Space Travel: Our Ticket off the Planet?

It maybe worth noting that there's often a difference between setting out a goal - i.e., achieve commercial space flight viability - and the exact method of doing so - which may depend on a host of conflicting interests in the same company.

Either way, to echo the spirit of the first post, this is all great news as the controversial move by the USA to push on the private sector to move us into space continues to deliver results.

Then again perhaps we shouldn't be, in case these private enterprises are going to grow into evil conglomerates that own complete star systems. :D
 
Brian Turner said:
It maybe worth noting that there's often a difference between setting out a goal - i.e., achieve commercial space flight viability - and the exact method of doing so - which may depend on a host of conflicting interests in the same company.

Either way, to echo the spirit of the first post, this is all great news as the controversial move by the USA to push on the private sector to move us into space continues to deliver results.

Then again perhaps we shouldn't be, in case these private enterprises are going to grow into evil conglomerates that own complete star systems. :D
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If SpaceX eventually becomes another Evil Empire, a Rebel Alliance will arise to bring it down. Regardless of which side of The Force we support, at least we'll be out there.:LOL:
 
mosaix said:
The internet can a be a difficult place to put across one's ideas without being misunderstood, misinterpreted or generally putting people's backs up
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Indeed. I apologise if I seem dogmatic on this. There are of course a wide spectrum of management and governance styles in Industry. I often don't express myself as I'd wish.

It's of course purely my opinion that Elon Musk decided on the pure rocket engine landing as a goal (the idea of course isn't his or any of his team, it goes back to 1920s and several organisations have done it before, but not with a rocket stage that reached as high an altitude). Time will tell how useful and commercial it is. There is always a huge amount of PR spin on American announcements. Musk's operations are highly subsidised with grants, government subsidies (Tesla) and government funded contracts. So not "commercial" in the sense of Apple or a non-State airline company. I've also no idea what sort of personality Elon Musk is or his style of management, so I was too dogmatic. (I know a little bit of Alan Sugar, Clive Sinclair, Steve Jobs, Dyson from reading about them and following the progress of their companies, I first encountered Sinclair's marketing in 1960s.).

Have a good holiday :)
 
Ray McCarthy said:
Indeed. I apologise if I seem dogmatic on this. There are of course a wide spectrum of management and governance styles in Industry. I often don't express myself as I'd wish.

It's of course purely my opinion that Elon Musk decided on the pure rocket engine landing as a goal (the idea of course isn't his or any of his team, it goes back to 1920s and several organisations have done it before, but not with a rocket stage that reached as high an altitude). Time will tell how useful and commercial it is. There is always a huge amount of PR spin on American announcements. Musk's operations are highly subsidised with grants, government subsidies (Tesla) and government funded contracts. So not "commercial" in the sense of Apple or a non-State airline company. I've also no idea what sort of personality Elon Musk is or his style of management, so I was too dogmatic. (I know a little bit of Alan Sugar, Clive Sinclair, Steve Jobs, Dyson from reading about them and following the progress of their companies, I first encountered Sinclair's marketing in 1960s.).

Have a good holiday :)
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Excellent post, Ray. Thanks ever so much. Have a great holiday, yourself. :)
 
REBerg said:
If SpaceX eventually becomes another Evil Empire, a Rebel Alliance will arise to bring it down. Regardless of which side of The Force we support, at least we'll be out there.:LOL:
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At least we might get Space tourism.;)
 
Despite this Spacex rocket crashing whilst attempting a soft landing yesterday it would appear the fault was caused by a leg collapsing and not buy the soft landing technology itself. Not only that but I'm so impressed by the accuracy of it all. The video shows the rocket coming down exactly on 'X marks the spot'.

SpaceX rocket explodes while trying to land on drone ship
 
I'd not realised this before:
It has a purpose-built unmanned “drone ship” built for the purpose (named “Just Read the Instructions” in honour of the science fiction author Iain M Banks)
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and being very much a Banks fan I think that's really neat - not to mention a great name for a 'drone' ship.

It's a shame the landing failed but it sounds like a relatively easy problem to fix.
 
Vertigo said:
I'd not realised this before:

and being very much a Banks fan I think that's really neat - not to mention a great name for a 'drone' ship.

It's a shame the landing failed but it sounds like a relatively easy problem to fix.
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I wonder of the drone ship and rocket co-ordinate movements to improve the accuracy of the landing?
 
mosaix said:
I wonder of the drone ship and rocket co-ordinate movements to improve the accuracy of the landing?
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Must admit I wondered that. I suppose, within limits, if there's a bit of wind blowing it's maybe easier to reposition the boat than to try and steer the rocket against that wind.
 
We will be landing at Mars terminal very soon.:)
 
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