American spaceplane startup signs deal with Australian spaceport startup
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.
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
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.
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
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.
DLR’s Spaceliner is a TSTO system–but VTOHL…more doable but less comfortable.
Bless anybody who can make SSTO’s work.
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.
Mike Borgelt,
Setting up shop in Australia may well prove to be a mistake, but I suspect we will find that some other mistakes have preceded it. There are several aspects of Titans Space’s fundamental architecture and concept of operations that strike me as being iffy as heck.
The bureaucracies of Oz seem – from my distant perch here in the U.S. – to be very much as you characterize them. Nice to have confirmation on that point from a knowledgeable local.
Not that bureaucratic Karens are exactly a novelty this side of the Equator either. We are fortunate that the recent presidential election has now set in motion forces that will be bringing something akin to Thor’s Hammer down on such people starting in January. I wish the good people of Oz all the luck and pluck you need to send the Albanese administration to the showers in the same way we did the Bidenistas and as soon as possible. The world is a serious place. We don’t need major and important countries being run by either the feeble-minded or by spiteful and petulant children.
Dick, hear, hear! Unfortunately 7 to 12% of this stupid country votes for the Greens (aka Communists). The Labor Party decided long ago to ally with them “Whatever it takes” in the words of one Labor luminary.
The “Liberal” Party (dumb name for what used to be conservatives) is allied with the Agrarian Socialist Party (called Nationals). Plenty of times there isn’t a whole lot of difference between Liberal/National and Labor /Greens. Some call it the Socialist Progressive Uniparty (SPU) pronounced “spew”.
I wish the Titans well but they look to me like a bunch of high schoolers with delusions of competence.
Mike Borgelt,
My condolences anent the current dysfunctional leftist politics of your unfortunate nation. The entire Anglosphere has been thus afflicted recently. Fortunately, the political left are much like the erstwhile German army and tend to attack prematurely when they imagine themselves to be stronger than they actually are.
They came a-cropper in the U.S. this political season and there would appear to be encouraging signs that Canada may soon follow suit. Even the British left appears to be rapidly wearing out its welcome with the godawful beta male Keir Starmer behaving even more banana republican than our own Sleepy Joe Biden and without the excuse of being near terminally demented. Perhaps the Brits are on the cusp of finding their long-missing gonads again. One can certainly hope.
Even Middle Earth has put paid to its most recent Labour administration with the Nationals now back in charge – or at least as “in charge” as any of the Kiwi’s perennially semi-stable coalition governments ever is.
So here’s to near-term exits by both Trudeau and Starmer and a return to rational government in Oz.