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HobbySpace

 

 
Welcome to HobbySpace. the site that will prove to you that everyone can participate in space exploration and development in one way or another.
July 2006
Space Hobbies & Activities in the Spotlight
Space Music

Collect space inspired music from
the early space age -
Space Age music

- to the present day -

To Touch the Stars

Make space music -Guitarists in space

But you don't have to go into space to make it.
See, for example, the Space Filk section for
info about the world of space and sci-fi inspired
folk music.

Party to space music, especially at the annual
Yuri's Night celebrations -
Yuri's Night

Space Artist Spotlight
Mars Cycler Aldrin by Bill Wright
Mars Cycler Aldrin
Water Ice at the South Pole by Bill Wright
Water Ice at the South Pole
Europa Expedition by Bill Wright
Europa Expedition
Bill Wright
More space art...
Space Music of the Month

Space Oddity by David Bowie -
A Sims 2 Music Video from Brian Castro

Previous space music in spotlight

Yuri's Night
It's a Whole New Outer Space Out There

Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) Rocket Vehicles

CUTE-I TITECH
Image courtesy Armadillo Aerospace
See the video of this "perfect test flight" in which the vehicle flies up and then
straight back down for a powered landing.

Some suborbital space tourist companies, such as Virgin Galactic and Rocketplane, will use winged vehicles that take off either from a runway or are dropped from a carrier vehicle and after the spaceflight land on a runway. However, several companies are developing vehicles that "will take off and land the way God and Robert Heinlein intended"* - on a column of flame. Below we list four such projects.

* From "Single Stage to Infinity!", Dr. Arlan Andrews, Analog magazine, 1993/

Armadillo Aerospace
Armadillo 65-inch vehicle

Armadillo Aerospace, led by the famous programmer John Carmack, is developing several VTOL vehicles such as the high altitude vehicle shown here.

Blue Origin
Blue Origin enviro impact
Blue Origin is led by Jeff Bezos, founder and chief of Amazon.com. There is no official imagery of the Blue Shepard vehicle that the secretive company is developing, but it is described in this FAA document submitted to obtain permission to test the rocket at a site in West Texas. See a summary of the vehicle design in this item from the Space Transport News weblog.

.Masten Space Systems
Masten Space  XA-1.0 suborbital rocket
Masten Space Systems, led by Dave Masten, plans to develop a series of VTOL vehicles beginning with the XA-0.1. They are aiming at the scientific and educational markets with low cost flights of unmanned payloads to suborbital altitudes. See video.
TGV-Rockets
Early design of the Michelle- B
TGV Rockets is led by Pat Bahn, an early proponent of commercial suborbital spaceflight. TGV is developing the Michelle-B (older design shown above) at its facility in Norman, Oklahoma. TGV is aiming its vehicle at remote sensing and reconnaisance markets rather than space tourism.
Real-Time Space Viewers
Earth Viewer
Earth
Weather maps, remote sensing
and spysat images.
Space Weather Viewer
Space Weather
Sun, solar wind, aurora images
and the latest data

Space Explorer Viewer
Space Explorers
Images and data from
deep space probes.

See the archive of previous HobbySpace homepage Spotlight items ...
June - August

HobbySpace provides over 15,000 space links and
has delivered over
8, 233,000 page views since
January 1999.

The Art of C. Sergent Lindsey

 
 
 
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