Commercial Space Trips within the Decade

As companies vie to build a successor to the Shuttle, commercial flights into space seem closer

With the space shuttle fleet being phased out next year, Nasa has announced an ambitious second phase to fund four private organisations designing the next generation of crafts for ferrying humans to and fro from space. The equivalent of nearly Rs 1,000 crore (one-fifth the Indian space budget) has been awarded to Boeing Co, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada Corporation and SpaceX. What is clear is that we are on the verge of a new era in spaceflight with commercial operations to low space orbits, likely within the decade. Almost all the projects being funded envisage using spare capacity or a different version of their Nasa craft for commercial operations.

The break-up for the projects being funded by Nasa is as follows: Boeing Co is getting about Rs 350 crore for its CST-100 project to construct a seven-passenger space capsule. The company has already signed an agreement to market passenger seats on commercial flights to low earth orbits and expects to have the vehicle operational by 2015. Sierra Nevada Corporation is being funded with about Rs 300 crore and is developing its Dream Chaser craft that will also seat seven persons. It will take off vertically like a rocket, but land horizontally like an aircraft. The company is also exploring the possibilities of space tourism. SpaceX is being funded with about Rs 275 crore to develop its Dragon spacecraft as an unmanned cargo vehicle (it also plans to develop a DragonLab for non-Nasa commercial flight purposes); it has already undertaken a test launch using a Falcon 9 rocket to put a Dragon craft into orbit. The last company on the list, Blue Origin is backed by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and will get about Rs 75 crore for its somewhat secretive craft. In an earlier interview, Bezos had claimed the craft would take-off and land vertically and would be able to carry at least three people on board.

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Hartosh Singh Bal