Welcome to
HobbySpace. the site that will prove
to you that everyone can participate
in space exploration and development in one way
or another.
October 2006
Recent
Features
NewSpace
- Introduction & Resources An overview of the
NewSpace (or alt.space) entrepreneurial
space world. NewSpace promises to bring much
lower costs and much wider participation to
space development. The section includes historical
info, web resources, news, and more.
Interview:
Glenn Reynolds An exchange with the
Instapundit,
Professor of Law, author, and long time space
activist about issues of space law and space
politics, and about space development using
armies of Davids.
HobbySpace website
provides several sections where you can find links
to all sorts of space related images and videos,
space sounds, etc. Below are some samples of what
is available
Several companies have announced plans to build
and fly vehicles for suborbital space tourism
within the next two to three years. We show below
a sample of such companies. More suborbital projects
are listed
here.
Burt Rutan's company is developing the SS2 system,
which will follow the scheme of the SpaceShipOne
/ WhiteKnightOne. The SS2 will drop from the WhiteKnightTwo
and then fire a hybrid rocket to got to over 100km.
2 pilots + 6 passengers
Airlaunch, HL
First test flights in 2008,
passenger flights in 2009.
The Rocketplane XP uses jet engines to take off
from a runway. After reaching the proper altitude,
it fires a rocket to go to suborbital space. After
falling back into the atmospherethe jets are used
for a powered landing.
1 pilot + 3 passengers
HT, HL
Passenger flights in 2009
Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com,
is developing the New Shepard vertical takeoff
and landing vehicle.
New Shepard will resemble the DC-X
Crew capsule and propulsion module remain
attached except for an abort.
At least 3 passengers
VT, VL
Commercial flights in 2010
The Dream Chaser is patterned after the HL-20
design from NASA.
Mockup of the Dream Chaser
~6 passengers
VT, HL
First flights in 2009
This vehicle will be developed in Russia and
will be air dropped from an existing vehicle.
Spaceports
in UAE and Singapore are under development where
the system will fly passengers to 100km altitude.
The Explorer will resemble this mockup
of the Cosmospolis 21 design.
1 pilot, 5 passengers
Airlaunch, HL
XCOR is developing the XERUS for space tourism
and scientific payloads. No firm rollout date
has been announced.
1 pilot + 1 passenger
HT, HL
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Weather maps, remote sensing
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Weather
Sun, solar wind, aurora images
and the latest data