Tag Archives: NASA
Billionaires back ambitious space projects
A new era in space exploration, the billionaire age, seems to have dawned.
Consider:
•The SpaceX ship scheduled to launch May 19 from Cape Canaveral as the first privately financed cargo delivery vehicle to the International Space Station is powered not only by liquid fuel but by millions from PayPal mogul Elon Musk.
•Paul Allen, billionaire Microsoft co-founder, announced last year that his Stratolaunch Systems firm would build a jet with a 385-foot wingspan — longer than a football field — to launch light rockets from high altitudes into space. Allen funded aerospace designer Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004.
•Last month, X Prize foundation chief
SpaceX’s mission is to pick up where NASA left off
SpaceX founder Elon Musk‘s goals to dramatically lower launch costs and eventually send people to Mars remain ambitious for a company that has reached orbit only four times — the last time nearly 17 months ago.
But many believe a successful launch from Cape Canaveral, targeted now for May 7, and docking at the ISS would represent a paradigm shift in spaceflight operations and validate Musk’s conviction that a small, entrepreneurial company could upset the status quo.
-
PHOTOS: SpaceX reaches for the stars
“They’re coming in and saying we can do this better, we can do this cheaper, and we’re going to make a go of it,” said Jim Muncy, a space-policy analyst whose clients include SpaceX. “It is absolutely the quintessential American business story.”
Riding on
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/igL2bKLz3WM/1
Planetary Resources wants to mine asteroids
The answer is a rousing yes, according to backers of an astounding asteroid-mining scheme unveiled Tuesday by Planetary Resources, a Bellevue, Wash.-based start-up.
The idea: Land robots on selected asteroids in orbit between Mars and Jupiter; figure out how to tap water and minerals as fuel for long-distance spacecraft; and bring home platinum and other precious materials to make it all a profitable venture.
“Since my early teenage years, I’ve wanted to be an asteroid miner. I always viewed it as a glamorous vision of where we could go,” Peter Diamandis, the visionary behind Planetary Resources, told a news conference at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.
The project is on a fast track. By 2014, the group plans to launch the first of a series of laundry-basket-size private telescopes that would search the asteroid belt for high-value targets.
Eventually, mass-produced robotic ships will
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/wfLOxh_uJCY/1
Company plans to mine asteroids for riches
Outside experts are skeptical about the project because it would probably require untold millions or perhaps billions of dollars and huge advances in technology. But the same entrepreneurs pioneered the selling of space rides to tourists — a notion that seemed fanciful not long ago, too.
“Since my early teenage years, I’ve wanted to be an asteroid miner. I always viewed it as a glamorous vision of where we could go,” Peter Diamandis, one of the founders of Planetary Resources, told a news conference Tuesday at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The company’s vision “is to make the resources of space available to humanity.”
The inaugural step, to be achieved in the next 18 to 24 months, would be launching the first in a series of private telescopes that would search for the right type of asteroids.
The plan is to
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/wfLOxh_uJCY/1
Tech tycoons form company to mine asteroids
The mega-million dollar plan is to use commercially built robotic ships to squeeze rocket fuel and valuable minerals like platinum and gold out of the lifeless rocks that routinely whiz by Earth. One of the company founders predicts they could have their version of a space-based gas station up and running by 2020.
The inaugural step, to be achieved in the next 18 to 24 months, would be launching the first in a series of private telescopes that would search for rich asteroid targets.
Several scientists not involved in the project said they were simultaneously thrilled and skeptical, calling the plan daring, difficult — and highly expensive. They struggle to see how it could be cost-effective, even with platinum and gold worth nearly $1,600 an ounce. An upcoming NASA mission to return just 2 ounces (60 grams) of an asteroid to Earth will
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/QNSNU_R9feg/1
