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American spaceplane startup signs deal with Australian spaceport startup

Australian commercial spaceports
Australia’s commercial spaceports. Click for original map.

The American spaceplane startup Titans Space, which hopes to develop a reusuable space plane based on designs developed in the 1970s by Rockwell, has now signed a deal with the Australian spaceport startup Space Port Australia to work together to find an Australian location for both building the spaceplane and launching it.

Titans Space, a company that is taking an innovative approach to the space industry, has ambitious plans to become the largest low-earth orbit and lunar space tourism company in the world, as well as the largest “real estate owner in space and the Moon”.

Space Port Australia, which is headquartered in the NSW regional town of Moree, is committed to creating an integrated space facility which fosters innovation, industry, education and helps grow Australia’s place in the space sector.

Though Titans has raised some investment capital, this project is right now in its aspirational phase. It is very possible none of this will happen. This announcement is mostly an attempt to generate interest in both projects.

As for Space Port Australia, if it finds a location for this project it would be the fourth spaceport in Australia, joining the three spaceports that already have completed or have planned launches, as shown on the map to the right.

Genesis cover

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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

3 comments

  • Dick Eagleson

    Looking at their website, no one could accuse Titans Space of failing to think big. Or fast. Its proposed HTHL SSTO Spaceplane and its big LEO space station are both supposed to be in-service by 2028. So, aspirationally, at least, Titans Space intends to develop its vehicle far faster than SpaceX has developed Starship and its LEO space station as fast or faster than Vast’s schedule for Haven-2.

    Titans Space’s fundamental proposition is that Elon is doing things all wrong and that something completely different is actually the long-term correct approach – an undeniably gutsy stance at this point. And one that is the polar opposite of the view taken by Vast which has cast its lot with SpaceX.

    I can’t say that I expect Titans Space to succeed, but one cannot help being impressed with its two-fisted pugnacity. And, win or lose, I think Titans Space is correct that tourism will be an early killer app for both LEO and cis-lunar space.

  • Jeff Wright

    DLR’s Spaceliner is a TSTO system–but VTOHL…more doable but less comfortable.

    Bless anybody who can make SSTO’s work.

  • Mike Borgelt

    Their first mistake is trying to do this in Australia. Anyone trying to do anything aeronautical or space related in Australia is deluded or hasn’t done their homework. Our bureaucracy are a bunch of sanctimonious, tooth sucking Karens who will endlessly delay.

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