Read More 2039: An investment space odyssey In this case, it's being owned by industry, built by industry. "Everything else before this point was owned by the government. "There's a revolution happening in the ownership," said Mark Sirangelo, head of Sierra Nevada's space systems unit. These stations would require regular resupply and the shuttling of researchers and tourists to and from orbit-services that could be supplied not by NASA or another space agency but by private space-transportation companies. Though the International Space Station (ISS) currently serves as the only permanently manned outpost in space, Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace is testing inflatable space habitats in orbit that it hopes to develop into a series of commercial space stations, serving as either scientific outposts that could be leased by government agencies or "space hotels" that would allow space tourists to spend extended periods in orbit. "This really depends on what the destination is for low Earth orbit and how viable that destination is as a place for leisure or to conduct business," Ferguson said. ![]() The industry is closer than ever to tipping over into profitability.Īccording to Christopher Ferguson, former NASA shuttle commander and director of crew and mission systems for Boeing's commercial crew program, the business case for human space travel isn't so much about how you get there as it is about where you're going and how much it costs to get there. With launch costs already decreasing and new destinations and revenue streams emerging in orbit, that is already happening. As he explained, technical progress will accelerate as investors get better returns on their investments. "Up until this point, space transportation has been an exclusively money-losing proposition, and when things lose money, you don't do a lot of them," said Jeff Greason, founder and CEO of private space company XCOR. Improving economics is spurring the trend. Read More America's weapon in the US-Russia space war This current generation of spacecraft and launch vehicles under construction at private spaceflight ventures like SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Virgin Galactic, XCOR and Blue Origin represents not only a renewed interest in putting humans into space but new opportunities made possible by expanding markets in low Earth orbit (LEO) and, at some point in the next few decades, economic opportunities at destinations beyond. plans to send its seven-seat Dream Chaser spacecraft into orbit, while Boeing will launch the most powerful space rocket ever built-the one that will launch NASA/Lockheed's Orion and crew to an undetermined destination beyond orbit in 2021. Continued abuse of our services will cause your IP address to be blocked indefinitely.Next year Mojave, California-based XCOR Aerospace will begin flying its two-seat suborbital Lynx spaceplane. Please fill out the CAPTCHA below and then click the button to indicate that you agree to these terms. If you wish to be unblocked, you must agree that you will take immediate steps to rectify this issue. If you do not understand what is causing this behavior, please contact us here. If you promise to stop (by clicking the Agree button below), we'll unblock your connection for now, but we will immediately re-block it if we detect additional bad behavior. Overusing our search engine with a very large number of searches in a very short amount of time.Using a badly configured (or badly written) browser add-on for blocking content. ![]()
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