Commercial Orbital Reef space station passes NASA’s design review
Capitalism in space: A proposed commercial space station dubbed Orbital Reef and being built by a partnership led by Sierra Space and Blue Origin has passed its NASA’s design review, allowing for construction to now begin.
The review, conducted as part of a $130 million development contract from NASA, found no issues with the station’s design.
This commercial partnership also includes Boeing, Redwire, Mitsubishi, Genesis Engineering, and Arizona State University, and plans its launch before 2030 when ISS will be retired. This quote from the article I think is important:
“We’re going as fast as we can,” Steve Lindsey, chief strategy officer at Sierra Space, said during a panel at the Goddard Memorial Symposium March 25. “We don’t want to have a gap like we did with crew back in the last decade.”
Three other private space stations are also under construction or being planned, all hoping to be operational prior to ’30. If even two of these launch, the 2030s will be very exciting indeed.
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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Capitalism in space: A proposed commercial space station dubbed Orbital Reef and being built by a partnership led by Sierra Space and Blue Origin has passed its NASA’s design review, allowing for construction to now begin.
The review, conducted as part of a $130 million development contract from NASA, found no issues with the station’s design.
This commercial partnership also includes Boeing, Redwire, Mitsubishi, Genesis Engineering, and Arizona State University, and plans its launch before 2030 when ISS will be retired. This quote from the article I think is important:
“We’re going as fast as we can,” Steve Lindsey, chief strategy officer at Sierra Space, said during a panel at the Goddard Memorial Symposium March 25. “We don’t want to have a gap like we did with crew back in the last decade.”
Three other private space stations are also under construction or being planned, all hoping to be operational prior to ’30. If even two of these launch, the 2030s will be very exciting indeed.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
This is a good step forward.
Also, Mr Z. Not sure if you noticed. This story got picked up on Rantingly.
I love it. Can’t help but think this is good stuff.
BTW, what do they do up there?
David,
The concept behind Orbital Reef is a Low Earth Orbit business park. So really, they do whatever the leasing company wants to do. Redwire specifically is associated with 3D manufacture. You may have to dig into the website for the Reef on other potential uses.
David Telford asked: “what do they do up there?”
Right now, on the ISS, they mostly do science and research. NASA has been reluctant to do manufacturing for public consumption and has been reluctant to do tourism, thus it is considered a “National Lab.” Even the four people who are going to ISS on a commercial mission are saying that it is a business trip, not a tourist trip. SpaceX’s first commercial passenger launch even did some science and testing of space hardware.
Many people hope that the commercial space stations will allow commercial space-manufacturing for public consumption and straight up tourism. I believe that a lack of these two options has led to a lack of interest, reporting, and knowledge on what they do up there. Reports tend to be limited to scurrilous reporting on experiments involving beer hops, Coke vs. Pepsi, or other seemingly frivolous experiments. Meanwhile, there have been a couple thousand experiments performed, and few people can describe any of them and even fewer can explain why they are relevant to our knowledge of the universe or to our everyday lives.
Even though I expect much of what they will do up there will be proprietary, I hope the public’s lack of knowledge changes with the commercial space stations, as companies start bragging about their space-made products for sale to the rest of us.
From the article:
That seems especially exciting indeed.
David Telford asked: “what do they do up there?”
The video linked below, which I came across this evening, does not discuss Orbital Reef specifically, but it does discuss some of the expectations of the future commercial space stations as well as the decommissioning of ISS, especially in light of the loss of Russian cooperation in space endeavors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHKJntXF5do (14 minutes; “Has Putin Doomed The International Space Station?”)