Private Spaceflight a boon to Scientists

History is happening around us.. Despite the problems in our world, we can see great progress in the frontiers that will eventually free humanity from this lonely single rock.

Scientists go suborbital - Cosmic Log - msnbc.com:
"The killer app for private spaceflight, at least once the millionaires and celebrities have had their turn, may well be scientific research.

'You spark this industry with tourists, but I predict in the next decade the research market is going to be bigger than the tourist market,' says Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Colorado-based Southwest Research Institute who is heading up a committee to link up researchers with future suborbital spaceflights.

Until recently, suborbital space trips were marketed primarily as the penultimate high for well-heeled thrill-seekers.
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Virtually all the major players in the still-gestating suborbital industry now realize that research flights could make the difference in their drive to profitability.

One of the clearest signs of that came last month, when an Arab investment group bought a $280 million stake in British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture, putting special emphasis on the capability to fly scientific experiments and deploy small satellites.

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There are other options for space research, of course, ranging from zero-G airplane flights to suborbital sounding rockets to unmanned orbital and deep-space flights to space station experiments. So why would researchers, and even NASA, opt for rides on private spaceships that have yet to be built?

Cost is just one reason, Stern told me. A $200,000 ticket for a space ride may sound expensive for a tourist, but it's peanuts compared to the $2 million or more charged for the launch of a NASA sounding rocket, he said.

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"If you could go at [an experiment] every day of the year and see the atmosphere changing, how powerful would that be?" Stern said. "This becomes a laboratory-like experience."

Piloted spaceships are also likely to provide a more robust environment for research. Scientists would be more likely to get their experiment back and less likely to lose it in a hard landing.

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Experimenters could also fly along with their experiments - not just once, but multiple times. "Graduate students will be doing their own Ph.D.s in these vehicles," Stern predicted.

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"This is so cheap, and the applications are so good, that I expect NIH, NSF, DOD, DOE, a whole slew of federal agencies will have space efforts, just like federal agencies have boats and airplanes that they use," he said. "Literally, Aruba could afford to have a spaceflight program. ... Every country that wants to have their own space program with astronauts can go.""

Dealing with hazardous space debris

As I've written before, trash collection is space has the potential to be a profitable business for some bright entrepreneurs.

Building an Electronic Fence to Track Space Junk | Popular Science:
"Thousands of manmade pieces of space junk orbit the Earth, threatening astronauts and unmanned missions alike. Now the U.S. Air Force Space Command wants an electronic 'space fence' that could track any orbital object larger than two inches in width.

Such a surveillance system would require a global network of sensitive S-band radar stations that operate in the gigahertz range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The U.S. Air Force currently relies on a system dating back to 1961, which only covers the continental United States, and can only track objects 20 inches in width or larger.

The growing cloud of space debris in Earth orbit includes more than 16,000 pieces of debris larger than four inches in width. And that only seems likely to grow . . . "

Beyond tracking the debris, some folks are coming up with a variety of methods to destroy or collect it. I'm in favor of collecting the debris to sell as souvenirs, but that technology may be too pricey.

Taking Out the Space Trash | Popular Science:
"Scientists at NASA and private companies have devised several ways for clearing the sky. Although some methods are admittedly outlandish, says Nicholas Johnson, the chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, a few are possible with today’s technology.

One early idea was to have robotic trash collectors shove large pieces of junk through the atmosphere so that they mostly burn up before hitting the ground. But the fuel costs for destroying a significant amount of debris with such craft has quashed this approach.

A more feasible plan is to attach miles-long “electrodynamic tethers,” wound on a spool, to all new satellites. Once a satellite ends its mission, it would deploy the cable and Earth’s magnetic field would induce an electric current in it. This interaction imparts a force on the craft that pushes it through the atmosphere until most of it burns up harmlessly,"

Spaceport America construction starts in New Mexico

We start slowly - currently only the wealthy can consider vacationing in space. This will change over time - start saving now.

Eventually life on Earth will be improved as we tap the wealth of our solar system. Privatization of space travel is an essential component of this transition. We're seeing privatization happen now.

Construction Begins on Spaceport America | Popular Science:
". . .
For everyone looking to hop the next commercial flight to space, your departure gate has finally been announced. Almost two years after the first plans were announced, construction has finally begun on Spaceport America. The spaceport, which will serve as the launch and landing pad for Virgin Galactic flights, is the first of its kind anywhere in the world, and represents the first serious commitment of infrastructure to manned commercial spaceflight.
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Currently, Virgin Galactic only has two space ships, so it will probably be sometime before the facility experiences O'Hare and LaGuardia level traffic."