Russian company announces plan to enter suborbital tourism industryCapitalism in space? A new Russian company, CosmoCourse, claims it will be flying a reusable suborbital capsule for tourism and science by 2023, with manned flights to follow in 2025.
CosmoCourse is developing a reusable spacecraft for sub-orbital tourist flights. A crew of six persons and an instructor is expected to make a 15-minute flight to an altitude of about 200 km. The preparations for the flight will take one day. The first manned flight is planned for 2025.
The CosmoCourse chief executive earlier told TASS that the company had signed a contract with the Nizhny Novgorod Region in the Volga area on cooperation in the project of creating the first private spaceport in Russia. The corresponding documents were submitted to Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos for approval. [emphasis mine]
I strongly suspect that this story will fall into the pile of hundreds of other stories that have come from Russian in the past two decades, promising much but in the end delivering nothing. The company appears to be just a piece of paper selling itself in the hope of raising investment capital. In Russia however such capital does not exist, as everything related to space is controlled by Roscosmos, as indicated by the highlighted text. To get built, this company must convince Roscosmos to fund it. And since its proposals will be a direct threat to the already established “companies” under Roscosmos’s control, I doubt the Russian space agency will be inclined to approve this competitive effort. The players in power will determine who gets the money, and it won’t be any new startups.
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
Capitalism in space? A new Russian company, CosmoCourse, claims it will be flying a reusable suborbital capsule for tourism and science by 2023, with manned flights to follow in 2025.
CosmoCourse is developing a reusable spacecraft for sub-orbital tourist flights. A crew of six persons and an instructor is expected to make a 15-minute flight to an altitude of about 200 km. The preparations for the flight will take one day. The first manned flight is planned for 2025.
The CosmoCourse chief executive earlier told TASS that the company had signed a contract with the Nizhny Novgorod Region in the Volga area on cooperation in the project of creating the first private spaceport in Russia. The corresponding documents were submitted to Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos for approval. [emphasis mine]
I strongly suspect that this story will fall into the pile of hundreds of other stories that have come from Russian in the past two decades, promising much but in the end delivering nothing. The company appears to be just a piece of paper selling itself in the hope of raising investment capital. In Russia however such capital does not exist, as everything related to space is controlled by Roscosmos, as indicated by the highlighted text. To get built, this company must convince Roscosmos to fund it. And since its proposals will be a direct threat to the already established “companies” under Roscosmos’s control, I doubt the Russian space agency will be inclined to approve this competitive effort. The players in power will determine who gets the money, and it won’t be any new startups.
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
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