

Tracking the progress of the commercial space industry.



If you've read Arthur C Clarke's Fountains of Paradise or Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy then you are no doubt familiar with the concept of the Space Elevator. Constructed of super tensile materials and stretching 100,000 km into space - until now the elevator has been a thing of science fiction. However, a Seattle-based team, LaserMotive aims to change all that, and has recently won $900,000 dollars in the Space Elevator Games - a competition set up by NASA to see if machines powered by laser beams could climb cables into the sky. So what did LaserMotive accomplish to win the prize?
LM's cable climber actually managed to ascend a 3000 ft long cable suspended from a helicopter at a speed of around 8mph. This was accomplished some four times in two days. The best ascent time was 3 minutes 48 seconds.
The next stage of the competition involves the team beaming power up a 1/4 inch steel cable to power their platform. If LaserMotive can accomplish this at around 11mph then they stand to win the second level prize of $2M. NASA's Centenial Challenges director Andy Petro commented: "Power beaming is truly a 21st century technology"
Image: Space.com






An Isle of Man company are looking into ways of using secret Soviet era space vehicle technology to send paying passengers on week long orbital trips. Excalibur Almaz has bought 'several' of NPO Mashinostroyenia's Almaz Reusable Re-entry vehicles - spacecraft that were developed to provide the Soviet Union with a manned space station capability. Excalibur Almaz are purportedly working with NPO Mashinostroyenia to reconfigure the company's stock of existing space hardware. EA's officials have told reporters: "A critical feature of the RRVs is their reusability, which will reduce logistical, overhead and program costs for commercial access to space". Changes are also being made to the Almaz vehicles that will bring them up to standard for future customer requirements.
Originally designed to be flown aboard Chelomei's UR-500 rocket, EA intends to adopt the Almaz system to be lofted aboard other launch vehicles. With the history of the NPO Almaz stations (christened Salyut) stretching as far back as the early 1970s, EA will now have to convince potential investors that Soviet era technology can be sucessfully adapted to provide a viable basis for a tourist/commercial vehicle. However,the task may be bolstered due to the fact that EA boasts some impressive names and expertise at its helm including former NASA astronauts Leroy Chiao and Franklin Chang-Diaz. Several veteran space officials and cosmonauts are also steering Excalibur Almaz - in the hope of EA becoming a successful, internationally backed New Space company.
Source: Space.com
Image: Excalibur Almaz/NPO

| visit www.hit-counter-download.com here. |