Lunar Development

New Lunar Transportation Company

Lunar Transportation Systems, Inc. (LTS) - A New Private Commercial Space Venture for Lunar Exploration by Walter Kistler and Bob Citron. They have lots of ideas, but I am worried they are using the failed Von Braun Paradigm, using lots of different pieces of hardware in series. This type of system is very complex and will be expensive to build, while it may be efficient from a delta-V perspective it much more complex and has many more failure points than the direct approach. For more info

Was the X-prize a Technological Challange or a Economic Challange

The X-prize has been won. Congradulations Space Ship One. Though, I wonder did the x-prize really accomplish anything? Was the X-prize really to drive technological change? Or was it just a economic chllange to see who would throw money at high altitude flight?

When the X-prize was announced I expected to see lots of holes in the dessert, but there were none. There were only three flights by a single competitor and all reached the required altitude.

So was the x-prize realy about technolgy? I don't think so. It was about who was willing to pay enough money for a flight, in this case the x-prize was part of the subsidy for a flight.

Space flight is expensive. While it is possible that the X_prize will open the door for space tourism and that the frequently flights will bring down the cost of space flight. I will believe it when I see it. I don't think that there are many people willing to pay a hundred thousand dollars for a few hours in space and I don't think that new rocket ships will be much cheaper to fly than the old ones.

I am very skeptical about RLV since, we have been so badly burned by the shuttle. I think getting people off the earth will always be expensive. The key to space development is to make people the only thing you need to take off earth by developing lunar and other space resources, to find things to do in space that are so valuable that it is worth sending people into space and to make the Moon so livable that no one feels the need to go back to Earth so you don't have to send up so many people.