By Christopher Schrader
NASA wants new spaceships for astronauts no longer build yourself, but leave it to private companies – also because of the conflict with Russia. The space industry is hoping for supernatural profits, space tourists could be lifted effective.
you fly long again – at least in the computer. As the rocket launch in Florida, lawn overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the height, then approach the capsules of the ISS and dock there, as if pushing a bike in the stand. So far, allow only the arts of graphic designers and animators who imagine the flight of spaceships, pseudo realistic to pentagonal flare, so light reflections that can occur in backlight in the lens of SLR cameras.
The engineers however had years waiting for their chance, such a flight became a reality. For more than three years, no American astronaut launched into space from his home country – in three years this past shameful phase should be. The American space agency Nasa has announced on Tuesday that by 2017 two companies to build new space capsule for transporting astronauts to the ISS. $ 6.8 billion (equivalent to 5.25 billion euros) she wants to spend on it; Money she has not even that has yet to grant the Congress. The deputies were reluctant in recent times, however, the Nasa to fulfill all their wishes.
Of the billions of established aerospace company Boeing gets $ 4.2 billion, and the newcomer of Elon Musks company SpaceX receive 2.6 billion. In both cases it is, in the words of a NASA spokeswoman what the companies have requested. For this they build the capsules up a test flight with at least one NASA astronauts on board, as well as from two to six taxi flights with four astronauts to the ISS . “We are preparing the most ambitious and exciting chapter in the history of NASA and the manned space before,” raved Charles Bolden, the head of the U.S. space agency, as he announced the award of contracts. “The greatest nation in the world can not rely on any other nation to reach outer space.”
Frosty relations between the United States and Russia in space
Since the end of the Shuttle Flights 2011 American astronauts come only with Russian Soyuz -Raumschiffen by Kazakhstan’s Baikonur to the ISS and back to earth. It costs NASA estimated 50 to 60 million euros per flight. But in the space relations between Washington and Moscow have cooled considerably. The continued operation of the ISS beyond 2020, the supply of rocket engines, the establishment of ground stations of the national satellite navigation network on the ground of the other State, all of which has become a conflict. Since Bolden, however, prepared for years, announcement own American spaceships as a kind of new cosmic declaration of independence acts.
Both ordered capsules should be able to take up to seven astronauts into a lower orbit, at the height of the ISS in about 400 kilometers. Both should be able to be used ten times. NASA wants the space ships do not buy more, but rent, pay no hardware, but a service. Two companies, it is explicitly allowed to sell seats: to spaceman other nations, to researchers under contract to private companies, to wealthy tourists. Boeing, for example, cooperates with the company Bigelow, who wants to send a sort of space hotel in orbit, where they will rent laboratories and rooms with weightlessness and magnificent views.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk before the space capsule Dragon V2
(Photo: AP )
Technically, the Boeing capsule CST-100 the more conservative product. It is slightly larger than the Apollo spaceships of the 1960s. Land they want on a parachute and air cushion on land. Boeing has already processed a long checklist that NASA had issued to potential producers of their crew capsules. Some uncertainty surrounds the starting mode. For the journey to orbit the capsule on the top of an American Atlas-5 unit price is fixed rocket, $ 150 million (116 million euros). However, they used Russian rocket motors. The Americans themselves had nothing comparable, say space experts. This gives the competition with SpaceX the opportunity to cast an unfavorable light on Boeing. Elon Musks company has checked the use of Russian components already in court, if the import does not violate the sanctions against Russia.
landing with the precision of a helicopter
SpaceX wants the other hand, a V2 develop spacecraft called Dragon for series production. It is based on an unmanned capsule that’s been flown several times with cargo to the ISS. This experience of the engineers Musks company apparently counted, even if they have not processed the checklist NASA. SpaceX manufactures its own missile, the Falcon 9 free hot and $ 60 million (46 million euros). Recently, however, the company had to cope with a failure, crashed as an experimental device, with which the engineers wanted to expand the concept of reusability on other rockets modules. So far only planned that the capsule can complete several flights.
The Dragon V2 looks with its large windows and the gentle curves quite different than previous spacecraft. You should be able to put on practically every landing site with the precision of a helicopter with braking rockets; ., only for emergencies, there is a parachute
flown from the race is the Armor Group Sierra Nevada, who had offered his Dream Chaser : a type of body aircraft that on an Atlas rocket Start and end up sliding into the atmosphere after the re-entry should – so similar to the original Space Shuttle , but further developed and significantly smaller. The makers had no experience with flights to the ISS nor their checklist completed. They do not want to give up, but wait until the creation of NASA. Apparently
All three companies attracts the prospect of future business to be pioneers in space tourism. The British billionaire Richard Branson is here already active and will probably offer his company Virgin Galactic as one of the first flights to the limit of space. For the other manufacturers engineers explain enthusiastically, in 30 years would be flights into orbit as commonplace as today intercontinental flights. Couple getting married in 2044, could then ask: Honeymoon in the Caribbean or in the space hotel
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