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12 Comments
- thejadedmonkey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Good! It's about time we saw someone in America besides that PoS organization called NASA taking an interest in space.
- gonzo1773, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As long as it doesnt say "Intel Inside", I think I can live with it. :)
- dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2With commercial viability, you can sure as hell bet to find corporate vultures dive in. Such it is with space.
- gonzo1773, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I thought that vertical take-off craft were finally broken away from in terms of getting into space (space ship 1 was pure genius in its method). As an engineer, I can think of half a dozen better ways to get into space other than strapping a rocket onto your ass.
Still, its neat that amazon bankrolled this. Sad though that a giant logo will probably be pasted on the side. But if thats what it takes to get humanity into space, than thats fine by me. - Solidcell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There will still be a US Flag, I'm sure of it.
- evilTak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Eh, a giant logo will be pasted on the side either way. In this case it'll just be Amazon instead of NASA and a US flag.
- Syzygion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This sounds a lot like the Delta Clipper concept that McDonnel Douglas did. Lessee if I can find a link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X. One of my personal heroes, Pete Conrad, worked very hard to make this a reality, taking it through a series of successful test flights of a scale model as part of an attempt to win a NASA development project. NASA instead chose a project that pushed the technology more, which ultimately was cancelled because the technology didn't work.
BTW, the thing that would fix NASA, in my opinion, would be to force them to contract for services on orbit, not build stuff themselves. As long as NASA is building and flying their own hardware the infrastructure and industry will not grow. (off soap box) - DanaG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-X is a better link. I've heard that at least two of the engineers from the DC-X project have gone to work for Blue Origin. Good luck to them.
NASA has at least two problems. One, it's a mature bureaucracy. Which means it's A) highly resistant to change and B) actually accomplishing anything requires jumping through numerous bureaucratic hoops (ha, Wernher von Braun once said, "We can conquer gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming").
And two, shuttle and ISS are two 800-pound gorillas in NASA's budget. Everything else is a distant third-place; basic research, development, exploration, everything.
It's a damn shame because some of the smartest and most enthusiastic aerospace engineers in the world work for NASA and you might as well put them in shackles for all the progress they can accomplish.
That's why I say three cheers for Jeff Bezos for putting his money where his mouth is and actually _doing_ something. - ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Good! It's about time we saw someone in America besides that PoS organization called NASA taking an interest in space."
You totally forgot about Space Ship One and so forth... - vmerc, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Hahaha, I read the title as "Pirate Spaceport Ban"
Other than that this is a damn cool idea. It's only a matter of time before space gets commercialized. Too bad I won't get there before the billboards. - Lanser84, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hope the "corporate vultures" give us cool new stuff for cheap because of this. Space tourism is a nice foot in the door to more overtly industrial and commercial ventures to come.
- iceblademan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've always wanted to be an astronaut. But then I realized to actually physically get into space I'd need to go to Texas.
/Format brain
