Got to get past the FAA before it can happen. Any day now …
Well at least they didn’t say April 1st.
My understanding is, as soon as FAA issues the license, Sierra Club is poised to ask for an injunction from the local Democrat judges. Supposedly, the majority of the 19,000 public comments opposing the launch site were Sierra Club spam. The other main opponent is an environmental “group” in Virginia with one member.
I wonder if it will ever be possible to buy a Starship for off-earth use? SF always visualized something like the tramp freighter era (1820s until now in shipping). SpaceX is handling Dragon with what are called voyage charters (to NASA, Axiom, and Isaacman, so far), but I wonder if you could get something like a demise charter (kind of rent to own for ships) for Starships? The ships would probably have to be outside cislunar space for rental or purchase, at least. Maybe outside the 2mln km definition of “deep space” currently in use. I’ve always thought there will one day be a station called Stardock at SEL1, just at that limit.
April 17th?
Anyone know anything about the Chinese government’s plan to go toe-to-toe with Space-X?
This article claims that the Chinese have successfully tested a suborbital version of their spaceplane, but there are no pictures of it.
They claim have a prototype space-plane that has supposedly flown and in the next incantation will be something that can deliver payload to orbit at a cost per kg equivalent to Starship.
What I say is that they are doing what any smart entrepreneur would do when you don’t yet have an answer to SpaceX. You build a Potemkin Space program around PowerPoint slides until you have something ready to go. In the meantime maybe you provide commercial launch services at below cost whilst staying afloat via government subsidy until you have something that can compete and then monopolize.
Got to get past the FAA before it can happen. Any day now …
Well at least they didn’t say April 1st.
My understanding is, as soon as FAA issues the license, Sierra Club is poised to ask for an injunction from the local Democrat judges. Supposedly, the majority of the 19,000 public comments opposing the launch site were Sierra Club spam. The other main opponent is an environmental “group” in Virginia with one member.
I wonder if it will ever be possible to buy a Starship for off-earth use? SF always visualized something like the tramp freighter era (1820s until now in shipping). SpaceX is handling Dragon with what are called voyage charters (to NASA, Axiom, and Isaacman, so far), but I wonder if you could get something like a demise charter (kind of rent to own for ships) for Starships? The ships would probably have to be outside cislunar space for rental or purchase, at least. Maybe outside the 2mln km definition of “deep space” currently in use. I’ve always thought there will one day be a station called Stardock at SEL1, just at that limit.
April 17th?
Anyone know anything about the Chinese government’s plan to go toe-to-toe with Space-X?
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3216170/china-declares-price-war-spacex-reusable-rockets-economy-driving-new-aerospace-programme
This article claims that the Chinese have successfully tested a suborbital version of their spaceplane, but there are no pictures of it.
They claim have a prototype space-plane that has supposedly flown and in the next incantation will be something that can deliver payload to orbit at a cost per kg equivalent to Starship.
What I say is that they are doing what any smart entrepreneur would do when you don’t yet have an answer to SpaceX. You build a Potemkin Space program around PowerPoint slides until you have something ready to go. In the meantime maybe you provide commercial launch services at below cost whilst staying afloat via government subsidy until you have something that can compete and then monopolize.
Gee, where I have seen that done before?