And by the way, support these guys. I know several of them, and it is a way to push
...continue Fundraiser for a public space telescope]]> Planetary Resources is raising some of the money for a small space telescope via a Kickstarter and are close to their minimum goal of $1M. That such sums of money can be raised for worthy projects and in such short timescales strikes me as interesting in another way: might we be in the early days of a new way to deal with ‘the commons’? Could technology be delivering us a way to replace much of coercive government funding with true voluntarism?

And by the way, support these guys. I know several of them, and it is a way to push New Space forward in the public perception.

Although I was on the test stand crew,
...continue New Space is taking over (Part 2: The Lynx Engine)]]> Sad to say, the thing about which I know the most is the one about which I can say nothing except point you to what is public domain. Here is the video which XCOR released after we got a 67 second burn out of our LOX/Kerosene engine. That was about the max we could go with the tankage we had for that test series. It is also the first dual reciprocating pump fed rocket engine ever fired. Can you say “reliable” and “low maintenance”? Stay tuned for further developments this summer.

Although I was on the test stand crew, I was not assigned to console duties in the test bunker that day. If you look closely in the background, you will see me with an idiotic grin developing as it becomes obvious we are going all the way with the burn. Had I not known I was on camera I would probably have given a rebel yell at shutdown.

Sometime in the next year four of those engines, in a non-teststand form, will give our pet astronaut a kick in the seat which will put a similar smile on his face.

There are really big things brewing in the world of NewSpace. This is no long the realm of a bunch of cash starved spacers of the wild eyed variety. The recognition that just maybe they were wrong and we were right has
...continue New Space is taking over (Part 1: The Grasshopper)]]> Perhaps I should call this Part II since I recently posted my photos of the first flight of Richard Branson’s SpaceShipTwo: I was even thinking of doing a series to update our readers when I posted that article. Unfortunately the rest of the stories had to wait for these few mostly free hours on a late Sunday afternoon.

There are really big things brewing in the world of NewSpace. This is no long the realm of a bunch of cash starved spacers of the wild eyed variety. The recognition that just maybe they were wrong and we were right has got to be scaring the bejesus out of their financial offices. In some senses there is nothing new under the sun. It the same curve of accelerating technological change that overturned the IT business over 20 years ago. It has just taken a couple more decades to smash into the somewhat more difficult realms of aerospace.

For my first exhibit: SpaceX. By now most of you have heard of them. In about a decade, from a cold start, they have brought 3 different enginesl 2 different expendable launch vehiclel, a two way cargo capsule that is already passenger capable in an emergency; a large production facility in California, launch facilities at Kwajelein Island and at Spaceport Florida, and an engine test stand and test pad in Texas. They have booked enough business in the satellite market to put a serious bite into the competition. I believe three of those fully commercial, non-test flights will be happening this year with the first of them next month in June. In the Falcon 9 a rocket in the lift class needed for many commercial or government jobs, one which has proven operationally that where other vehicles fail, it just keeps going, a regular Duracell bunny of a rocket. Even an engine shutdown and a dynamic pressure caused collapse and spitting out of an engine bell does not slow it down. No one else can turn a launch vehicle around from an a pad abort where engines have fired… within an hour or two. No one. And to top it off they did the entirety of it for less total cost than the big aero guys are spending on their cost-plus throw away escape system.

And as the commercial says… wait, there’s more! They are in the process of certifying their own spaceport at Brownsville, Texas, where they will be having rockets not only launch… but come back and land when done. If you watch the Grasshopper flight below, bear in mind this is a 10 story building that climbs to 263 feet in the air, balances on a pillar of fire, then sets itself down exactly on the intended spot as soft as you please. I have had far rougher landing in commercial airplanes.

If all goes to plan, we can expect them to flight test these on the three upcoming commercial launches. After the booster separates it is scrap metal just waiting to meet its oceanic junk yard. Elon is going to wring the squeel out of that pig and it is going to fire its engine to attempt a controlled re-entry and it will be brought to a temporary hover some feet over the water. Maybe they will accomplish it on the first flight, maybe not for many flights. However many it takes, they will beat it and the cost of the tests will be a very small marginal cost since they would be dumping it in the water and it is already paid for anyway.

Once they have a handle on that procedure, they will fly it back to Brownsville and land it on a pad, just like in the test video. Then they will check it out, gas up the tanks and fly her again. They will next do something similar with the second stage. This will be a bit more difficult but at the end of their development program is a very big pot of gold. They will be many years ahead of all the competition, even national governments. They will have a fully reusuable, heavy lift, ‘man rated’ launch system that will drop the cost to orbit by anywhere from a factor of 10 to 100.

At that point the rest of the launch vehicle suppliers might as well pack up and go home. SpaceX is going to dominate the commercial launch market.

And then they are going to Mars. After all, you didn’t think Elon was doing this just for the money did you?

After a decade in the making, cost over-runs to the tune of billions of euros, and delays of more than three years, the next generation of European military transport aircraft is finally poised for entry into service.

I was reminded of this from back in 2010:

New RAF transport plane is ‘Euro-wanking makework project’

Quite.

Via Tim Worstall.

I am off to San Francisco for a week’s business and some sightseeing next week. I am flying via Virgin, and the last time I did, the announcement about the destination was not quite so, er, interesting.

- Elon Musk

…if you’re going to ‘give up four billion dollars to avoid a one in seven chance of killing an astronaut, you’re basically saying an astronaut’s life is worth twenty-eight billion dollars.’ He wrote about the same subject earlier this year for Reason magazine, saying, ‘Keeping astronauts safe merits significant expenditure. But how much? There is a potentially unlimited set of testing procedures, precursor missions, technological improvements, and other protective measures that could be implemented before allowing human beings to once again try flying to other worlds. Were we to adopt
...continue The value of an astronaut]]> A Slashdot post considers the value of an astronaut’s life:

…if you’re going to ‘give up four billion dollars to avoid a one in seven chance of killing an astronaut, you’re basically saying an astronaut’s life is worth twenty-eight billion dollars.’ He wrote about the same subject earlier this year for Reason magazine, saying, ‘Keeping astronauts safe merits significant expenditure. But how much? There is a potentially unlimited set of testing procedures, precursor missions, technological improvements, and other protective measures that could be implemented before allowing human beings to once again try flying to other worlds. Were we to adopt all of them, we would wind up with a human spaceflight program of infinite cost and zero accomplishment.

The very first comment:

Market economy to the rescue: As long as the kind of people you need keep queuing up to become astronauts, reduce costs. They are the ones whose asses are on the line, so if they’re OK with it, do it.

This makes sense to me. I wonder how the private space industry will handle this issue. Of course, there will be public relations and politics to consider.

For many years I have made some portion of my mostly meagre living in the Commercial Space arena. Staying in the game has been a costly proposition in terms of what I might have earned by simply forgetting the dream and just going for the gold. Those on the left seem to think that is what Libertarians do; but they are wrong. We are
...continue On the scarcity of one Dale Amon and rumours regarding his whereabouts]]> Long time readers have no doubt wondered why I have become a scarce commodity on the pages of Samizdata; such readers also are aware of my long term connection with things spatial and free market.

For many years I have made some portion of my mostly meagre living in the Commercial Space arena. Staying in the game has been a costly proposition in terms of what I might have earned by simply forgetting the dream and just going for the gold. Those on the left seem to think that is what Libertarians do; but they are wrong. We are not about maximizing our wealth; we are about maximizing our liberty and doing what we want to do to the extent we can manage with our own resources. In my case, lacking much in the way of resource to begin with, that has meant surviving day to day on whatever short term contracts I could manage while I worked by myself or with others to gain a foothold in the then tiny NewSpace economy. I always thought it would be soon, really soon now… but this world for which I was born for took far longer than I had ever imagined to come to pass.

But it is finally happening and that is why there has been so little heard from me. I am now working under contract for XCOR, a number of whose members are long time Samzidata readers, out at the Mojave Spaceport in California. The future looks very bright for XCOR and many others in this industry. The big milestones are starting to get ticked off. SpaceX has had a stunning launch record and flew its Dragon to-be-manned reusable capsule in ProxOps [Proximity Operations] with the space station; Armadillo will probably bust the Von Karman line this year.

SpaceX is bending metal on the Falcon Heavy which will launch next year and will have the biggest lift capacity in the world. Of all the launchers that ever existed, only the Saturn V moon rocket was bigger. I suspect SpaceX will surpass even that before this decade is out. Bigelow has launch contracts in place and customers for his inflatable habitats that should be up around the mid-decade and will have a significant fraction of the capabilities and volume of the government owned space station. By the end of the decade or earlier in the next he will almost certainly have surpassed them.

By the end of this year or early next year the XCOR Lynx suborbital space plane will see air under its wings. As to when it will see vacuum under its tail, I could not tell you even if I knew for sure. It will happen when it happens and it will not be all that far in the future.

At first blush, Mojave is a speck in a vast desert, an old Western town that grew up into something not far removed from what you saw in old 1950′s SciFi movies. It is so much so I would not be at all surprised to find that the folks from 2 hours drive West in Hollywood did some of those movies here. At night when I drop into the local gas station, there is usually a Sheriff and several troopers hanging out talking with the woman who runs the store: just like it was in those old films.

No gunfighters, but it looks the part.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

The current day town has three main industries. Wind farms and the railyards. If you are a train buff you would love the view from my motel as mile long freights go by just about every hour of the day.

The alien hordes, I mean the nuclear mutated porcupine quills, er would you believe windmills… are multiplying faster than Australian bunnies.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

If you were ever a model railroader you would love the view.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

And yes, I once was a model railroader…
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

The main attraction is the Spaceport. If you are in Big Aero, this place is probably not your cup of tea. It is filled with people who are more interested in getting off the planet than in maximizing shareholder value or selling a goldplated urinal (experimental) to the Defense Department.

Yep, I am in the right place…
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

The place is filled with aviation goodies and it starts right at the ‘gate’, about a half mile or so from the old control tower. Few will recognize it, but this old airliner is an extremely rarebird, possibly one of the few Convair 990A´s that has not been turned into sets of household aluminum measuring cups.

This pretty ‘little’ thing is from the dawn of commercial jet transport.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Mojave has had a fairly long association with the F4 Phantom, one of my favorite aircraft. As one flyer I know put it, every one of those funny little bends was put there to solve an aerodynamic problem. This is one of the former target drones of what was once Tracor and is now BAE I believe. It used to sit directly in front of the old tower on the ground side but they moved it way out here sometime in the last decade.

There are a lot of F4′s around. This is the long time Gate Guardian which could use a bit of love.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

This pylon mounted F4 in Lancaster, about 30 miles west, is somewhat better cared for.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

The Spaceport is quite large and I will not even attempt to show how large. Mostly it is just lots and lots of hangars and trailers with things going on inside them that I could not tell you about even for the few where I actually know.

The old control tower.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

This is where I usually go for lunch. Where else on earth will you find a place where all around you people are talking about their rocketships and engine test firings?

It is named after the plane used by Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager for their historic non-stop un-refueled around the world flight.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

I might add that Dick Rutan was a Vietnam F-100 fighter pilot and will soon be my CFI as I start taking flying lessons again after a couple of decades hiatus in Ireland.

Aviation and space ships is not everything in life. There is astronomy as well! A bunch of us from XCOR took a work break to watch the Venus transit last month.

It was only a tiny black dot on the face of the sun, and when you consider that dot is the size of Earth…
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Another one of the field’s claims to fame is the boneyard. This is where old airliners go to die.

This is a tiny portion of the old airliner population, and I do believe those are the bouncing 747s of YouTube fame.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

The field is also a delight to lovers of airplanes. You just never know what will show up next.

This Rutan Long-EZ belongs to a former C-130 driver I work with. Besides being smaller, no one has shot at it yet that he is aware of.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

[CORRECTION: One of the long time denizens of the XCOR hangar pointed out that this particular Long-EZ is not the one I thought it was, it was just parked in roughly the same place! The one in the photo belongs to Mike Melville, one of the test pilots who flew SpaceShipOne into space in 2004.]

I am not quite sure what it is off the top of my head, but the paint job is… unique.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

There is at least one F4 still flying regularly here and sometimes I see the pilot playing with it. A week or so ago I saw him do a steep climb with a roll out on top and that was just the take off.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Never saw one of these up close before: the Kristen Husky.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

A friend of mine in Florida has one of these too. It is an old Czech trainer called an L29.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

There is a small legacy park on the field as well, and it is dedicated to the Spaceport. Besides being a very pretty little
desert garden and picnic area, it is there to remind us of the efforts of those who went before us, a few of which made
the ultimate sacrifice.

These are the engineers who died when an N2O oxidizer flow test went very wrong.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

I first saw Roton in Gary Hudson’s Rotary Rocket Vertical Assembly Building in 1999. It was an awesome bit of work then but they ran out of funding just as the dotcrash began. The building to the right houses a SpaceShipOne Replica.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Yes, the Roton is big.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

They have a replica of SpaceShipOne in a protective building. It seems so small now. I was here in 2004 to cheer on its first space flight.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Carrying on from the SpaceShipTwo theme, Scaled Composites main development hangar is next door to us, so I
walk under the wing on the way to lunch on a regular basis; we have seen it flying quite a bit lately. Although I did
not get advance warning and thus did not see it, they did two drop tests last week. After months of quiet and a new
strake added to the architecture, I think they are building up for the big one now. They just have to get their engine
issues sorted out and they are golden.

Our neighboring spaceship company has this big white thing.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Doug Weathers and Doug Jones watch WhiteKnightTwo with an underslung SpaceShipTwo coming to a halt after a captive carry. You can see it reflected in the XCOR hangar window behind them.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

This is a more direct shot of what was in the reflection.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

Later on it taxied past our hangar. It passed rather close to me but I did not get my camera unslung fast enough.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

A few days later I got this shot of SpaceShipTwo being towed past us along the taxiway.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

There are quite a few companies on the flight line and I have not even mentioned most of them. This 747 is notable though as it is one of the two being stripped for parts to build the Stratolaunch carrier airplane which will drop a SpaceX vehicle and allow flight to any orbit at any time. And it will also be the largest airplane every built. Besides SpaceX, Dynetics is also involved, doing much integration work, and some friends of mine are on that side of the project in Huntsville.

This is a before shot, in April.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

If you look closely you can see that the engines have all been pulled now… they are going to power the monster plane that is under construction.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

You may have noticed how little I have said about XCOR and the Lynx spaceplane. Since I am working on it, I now can only tell you to check out their website. The NewSpace world is now real and that means those who talk do not know and those who know do not talk. I will let you guess which category I am in.

There are billions rolling around in NewSpace these days and by next decade it will be tens of billions or more. We are on our way, and if governments do not like it… well, screw ‘em. It is too late. We are going whether they like it or not.

The XCOR hangar. There are big things brewing, but if I told you I would have to shred you. And then Doug, Dan, Aleta and Jeff would shred me. So watch this space. The future is a *lot* closer than you ever imagined.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved

I am getting ready for the morning sessions; we should have this on the screens here this morning, just before General Bolden does the opening session of our ISDC.

The berthing is due tomorrow. Apparently there are sensitivities about using the word’s docking versus berthing to the ISS docking collar. Berthing means they use the robot arm to pull it in the last few feet; docking is intended to mean the approaching craft flies into contact itself.