2015-07-20, 23:05 | Link #1 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Commercial Space Developments
Planetary Resources' First Spacecraft Successfully Deployed, Testing
Asteroid Prospecting Technology on Orbit: "Planetary Resources, Inc., the asteroid mining company, announced today that its Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) spacecraft deployed successfully from the International Space Station's (ISS) Kibo airlock and has begun its 90-day mission. The demonstration vehicle will validate several core technologies including the avionics, control systems and software, which the company will incorporate into future spacecraft that will venture into the Solar System and prospect for resource-rich near-Earth asteroids." See: http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/07/pla...pacecraft.html ================================================== == Possible future target: Asteroid worth £3 TRILLION in precious metals passed Earth on Sunday: "The space rock has attracted the attention of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, because it is thought to have a 100 million ton core of platinum that the company might one day want to exploit." See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...atch-live.html |
2015-11-18, 22:48 | Link #3 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Congress says it's time to start mining the solar
system: "Congress has approved a bill to regulate space commerce and – for the first time – space mining." See: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Upd...e-solar-system |
2015-12-22, 00:24 | Link #6 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
SpaceX Makes History: Successfully Launches, Lands
Falcon 9 Rocket: "SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Monday night, the first from the private spaceflight company since its rocket exploded on liftoff in June. The first stage of the rocket, used to propel the payload to 100km (62 miles) or so until the second stage takes over, then successfully landed on Earth again at a prepared landing zone. This is the first time SpaceX has ever attempted to land a rocket on land, and the first successful attempt to recover a rocket from an orbital flight. Previous attempts, all unsuccessful, were attempted on floating landing pads." See: http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovati...rocket-n483921 |
2015-12-28, 05:42 | Link #8 |
Wait for it...
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: In between time and space.
|
Now that'll make space mining more viable, along with colonizing mars cause even if we do make a mistake on our tests, at least we can recover the rocket and don't have to spend millions building a new one, and instead just refuel for $ 200,000, analyze what went wrong, make corrections, and then try again.
__________________
|
2016-01-09, 23:00 | Link #9 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Emerging Small-Satellite Launch Vehicles:
"An expanding market for cubesats and other small satellites is driving development of low-cost launch vehicles." See: http://aviationweek.com/space/emergi...images-1389141 =============================== Quite a few small launchers in development, I wonder how many will make it? |
2016-03-16, 22:25 | Link #10 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Spiderfab, Expandable stations and Reusable rockets could
make affordable Bezos vision of millions working in orbit: "Amazon.com and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos envisions “millions” of people living in orbit as his exploration company, Blue Origin, and other commercial ventures develop spacecraft to make travel more widely available. Investment from wealthy entrepreneurs with a passion for space will usher in a new era that makes leaving the Earth’s atmosphere accessible to anyone, Bezos said Tuesday. Earlier, he announced that Blue Origin will put $200 million into a new rocket assembly facility and launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida. "Our ultimate vision is millions of people living and working in space," Bezos said during a rare, 30-minute interview in Florida with reporters after the Blue Origin announcement. "We have a long way to go."" See: http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/03/spi...tions-and.html |
2016-04-24, 23:27 | Link #12 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
When the International Space Station Goes Kaput
in 2024, What Comes Next?: "Moving day is fast approaching. Sometime in 2023 or 2024, the Russians have said they will abandon the International Space Station. Assuming they carry through on this plan, detaching their modules from ISS and using them to build an all-Russian station, the station could soon become uninhabitable. That's then, however. For now, the International Space Station is still growing -- thanks to Bigelow Aerospace." "Now, Bigelow's BEAM is just a prototype, and it remains to be proved that an "inflatable" space station will stand up to the hardships of space as well as a "real" space station. But that's why BEAM is up there. NASA will evaluate BEAM's performance over the next two years to see if BEAM offers a more economical way to build real estate in space. And longer term, if all goes well, BEAM could provide the blueprint for a whole new way of building space stations, permitting America, and the companies that conduct experiments aboard the International Space Station today, to continue operating in space long after the Russians have departed." See: http://www.fool.com/investing/genera...source=yahoo-2 |
2016-04-25, 02:50 | Link #14 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Quote:
the Chinese are having a go at it too: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ch...-idUSKCN0XI07Y Quote: "China will launch a "core module" for its first space station some time around 2018, a senior official told the state-run Xinhua news agency on Thursday, part of a plan to have a permanent manned space station in service around 2022." |
|
2016-08-24, 01:27 | Link #16 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Deep Space Industries announces Prospector-1- First
Commercial Interplanetary Mining Mission with target date by 2020: "Deep Space Industries announced its plans to fly the world’s first commercial interplanetary mining mission. Prospector-1™ will fly to and rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid, and investigate the object to determine its value as a source of space resources. This mission is an important step in the company’s overall plans to harvest and supply in-space resources to support the growing space economy." See: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/08...announces.html |
2016-10-30, 21:06 | Link #18 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
The Solar System is big enough to hold the space plans of Elon
Musk and Jeff Bezos which combined look like Babylon 5: "Jeff Bezos talks about the need for humanity to go to space and how his company Blue Origin will accomplish this goal. He also discusses the unique culture and motto of Blue Origin. This talk was given at the 2016 Pathfinder Awards at Seattle's Museum of Flight. Bezos is interviewed by Steve Taylor, chief pilot for Boeing Flight Services Blue Origin has launched a reusable rocket ship called New Shepard on uncrewed suborbital test flights. But Bezos has much bigger ambitions, for an orbital launch system called New Glenn and a super-rocket called New Armstrong. During last weekend’s Pathfinder Awards banquet at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, Bezos referred to his long-term goal of having millions of people living and working in space, as well as his enabling goal of creating the “heavy lifting infrastructure” to make that happen. In Bezos’ view, dramatically reducing the cost of access to space is a key step toward those goals. “Then we get to see Gerard O’Neill’s ideas start to come to life, and many of the other ideas from science fiction,” Bezos said. “The dreamers come first. It’s always the science-fiction guys: They think of everything first, and then the builders come along and they make it happen. But it takes time.”" See: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10...h-to-hold.html |
2016-12-05, 00:45 | Link #19 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
|
Moon Express targets trips to the moon at $10,000 per
person by 2026 and will use rocket with 3D printed parts: "In mid-2016, the U.S. Government authorized Moon Express to travel beyond Earth’s orbit and land on the Moon in 2017. This breakthrough U.S. policy decision provides authorization to Moon Express for a maiden flight of its robotic spacecraft onto the Moon’s surface, beginning a new era of ongoing commercial lunar exploration and discovery, unlocking the immense potential of the Moon’s valuable resources. Moon Express received the green light for pursuing its 2017 lunar mission following in depth consultations with the FAA, the White House, the State Department, NASA and other federal agencies. With a launch date goal for 2017, Moon Express plans to send a rover to the moon’s surface to begin surveying its surface for the best locations for further operations to mine iron ore, water, rare Earth minerals, metals, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and helium-3. Jain believes that because the challenges presented by moon exploration are similar to those presented by Mars – challenges such as high radiation and vast temperature differences – SpaceX and Moon Express have plenty of reasons to work together." See: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12...o-moon-at.html |
|
|