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Long post, buckle up...
Morgan Stanley has predicted the "space economy" will be worth over $1 trillion by 2040, and some analysts think their estimate is way too low because do much is going on...
The world's fleet of spacecraft, suborbital and orbital, will be growing by leaps and bounds within a few years. There are also national and commercial space stations in the way; China, Axiom Space, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if Sierra Nevada Corp teams with Axiom Space to use their LIFE* inflatable habitat. Russia wants a sovereign station, but can they afford one? The ISS consortium seems hell bent on building the Lunar Gateway station.
* Large Inflatable Fabric Environment
While decried as "joyrides" by some, suborbital vehicles like those from Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are piling up contracts for microgravity experiments from DoD, NASA and universities. Key is a human can go along to operate and otherwise tend to the experiment. This isn't trivial.
Orbital vehicles;
Russia will be replacing Soyuz with their more capable Oryel, a high-side wall capsule, similar to Dragon. Formerly called Federation, it'll carry 4-6 passengers.
China will be replacing Shenzhou with something similar to Oryel, but with a 7 passenger capacity. It flew a suborbital trajectory in May 2020. They're also developing their Tengyun spaceplane, which would launch from a mother ship aircraft.
The US already has Cargo Cygnus, Crew and Cargo Dragon, with Crew Starliner in tests. The Cargo Dream Chaser spaceplane should fly cargo to the ISS in 2022, with a Crew Dream Chaser still in development for Commercial Crew Round 2. SpaceX's multi-purpose Starship is the 800 lb gorilla among orbital vehicles, while the NASA Orion capsule is in development hell.
And I'm sure other orbital vehicles will come from Blue Origin and others, some overseas as other countries take advantage of lowering launch prices. Even the UAE has NASA training astronauts.
Suborbital point-to-point transportation (P2P), both for cargo and passengers. NASA and the FAA recently signed an agreement which included sharing data & setting standards for P2P.
The proposed vehicles for P2P range from a 19 passenger Mach 3-4 waverider design from Virgin Galactic (engines: Rolls Royce) to the SpaceX Starship flying at near orbital velocity.
Starship P2P would fly with or without a booster, with the latter having a range of 10,000 km in ~30 minutes. With a booster, anywhere. Changes to Starship start with using 7-9 sea level Raptors instead of 3 sea level + 3 vacuum. Now add life support, seats, and the cargo version's elevator.
There is already high interest in Starship P2P from the US DoD, SpaceX signing a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the US Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) which would include a demonstration flight.
Some interesting NASA commercial info in this Twitter thread; there will be a new Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) board, new rounds of Commercial Crew, Cargo and...Destinations (!) starting in the mid-2020's.
New capabilities, lower costs, phasing down ISS (hinting at commercial space stations), developing free-flying platforms, etc.
Twitter thread (first post below, click to read)
Morgan Stanley has predicted the "space economy" will be worth over $1 trillion by 2040, and some analysts think their estimate is way too low because do much is going on...
The world's fleet of spacecraft, suborbital and orbital, will be growing by leaps and bounds within a few years. There are also national and commercial space stations in the way; China, Axiom Space, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if Sierra Nevada Corp teams with Axiom Space to use their LIFE* inflatable habitat. Russia wants a sovereign station, but can they afford one? The ISS consortium seems hell bent on building the Lunar Gateway station.
* Large Inflatable Fabric Environment
While decried as "joyrides" by some, suborbital vehicles like those from Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are piling up contracts for microgravity experiments from DoD, NASA and universities. Key is a human can go along to operate and otherwise tend to the experiment. This isn't trivial.
Orbital vehicles;
Russia will be replacing Soyuz with their more capable Oryel, a high-side wall capsule, similar to Dragon. Formerly called Federation, it'll carry 4-6 passengers.
China will be replacing Shenzhou with something similar to Oryel, but with a 7 passenger capacity. It flew a suborbital trajectory in May 2020. They're also developing their Tengyun spaceplane, which would launch from a mother ship aircraft.
The US already has Cargo Cygnus, Crew and Cargo Dragon, with Crew Starliner in tests. The Cargo Dream Chaser spaceplane should fly cargo to the ISS in 2022, with a Crew Dream Chaser still in development for Commercial Crew Round 2. SpaceX's multi-purpose Starship is the 800 lb gorilla among orbital vehicles, while the NASA Orion capsule is in development hell.
And I'm sure other orbital vehicles will come from Blue Origin and others, some overseas as other countries take advantage of lowering launch prices. Even the UAE has NASA training astronauts.
Suborbital point-to-point transportation (P2P), both for cargo and passengers. NASA and the FAA recently signed an agreement which included sharing data & setting standards for P2P.
The proposed vehicles for P2P range from a 19 passenger Mach 3-4 waverider design from Virgin Galactic (engines: Rolls Royce) to the SpaceX Starship flying at near orbital velocity.
Starship P2P would fly with or without a booster, with the latter having a range of 10,000 km in ~30 minutes. With a booster, anywhere. Changes to Starship start with using 7-9 sea level Raptors instead of 3 sea level + 3 vacuum. Now add life support, seats, and the cargo version's elevator.
There is already high interest in Starship P2P from the US DoD, SpaceX signing a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with the US Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) which would include a demonstration flight.
Some interesting NASA commercial info in this Twitter thread; there will be a new Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) board, new rounds of Commercial Crew, Cargo and...Destinations (!) starting in the mid-2020's.
New capabilities, lower costs, phasing down ISS (hinting at commercial space stations), developing free-flying platforms, etc.
Twitter thread (first post below, click to read)
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