The Antares rocket has been cleared for its first test launch tomorrow at 5 pm (Eastern).
The Antares rocket has been cleared for its first test launch tomorrow at 5 pm (Eastern).
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Antares rocket has been cleared for its first test launch tomorrow at 5 pm (Eastern).
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I wish Orbital Science success, but I’m having a tough time seeing how they can compete with SpaceX. Their orbital vehicle isn’t recoverable, the payload capability is much smaller, and they’re giving up roughly 10% of the angular velocity of Cape Canaveral by launching from Wallops Island. I can’t find any published data for Antares cost-to-orbit, but the current $5300/kg for Falcon 9 and the projected $4100/kg for Falcon 9 v1.1 is going to be hard to beat. Perhaps the fact that most of Antares is built in Ukraine and Russia gives Orbital Science a favorable cost structure.
The Antares is built with the specific purpose to send supplies to the ISS. It isn’t intended to serve the diversity of customers a Falcon 9 can.
Be that as it may, I’d think given the current state of the art, a recoverable orbital vehicle would be a minimum requirement for customers.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you but in the case of Antares it is only intended to have one customer.
“Once Orbital’s Antares rocket was selected by NASA to supply the International Space Station, the company purchased 20 of the engines from Aerojet to power 10 launches – two test flights and eight operational missions, ”
http://spaceflightnow.com/antares/demo/130416aj26/#.UXBoAqLErE0
Wikipedia says there were only 150 total engines. So it looks a small project just to serve NASA for a few years.
It will be interesting to see if NASA will still purchases launches from them after the ten flights, if Orbital makes any more engine purchases, or even if Orbital starts manufacturing their own engines. Maybe they can even scale up their launchers with additional engines and put other companies vehicles on them.
Who knows if they have any plans for re-usability but it is a good example of what can be done with current tech.