Overview
- Explains in layperson's terms how the commercial suborbital industry is poised to develop and mature into a fully fledged and viable market
- Describes how the new suborbital vehicles operate in the suborbital environment and how basic and applied research will be conducted in suborbital flight
- Describes how commercial astronaut organizations will train suborbital payload specialist scientists
- Enumerates the demands of various potential users, the types of payloads and the potential revenue that the impending commercial suborbital market will generate
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Springer Praxis Books (PRAXIS)
Part of the book sub series: Space Exploration (SPACEE)
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
The nascent commercial suborbital spaceflight industry will soon open the space frontier to commercial astronauts, payload specialists, scientists and of course, tourists. This book describes the tantalizing science opportunities to be offered when suborbital trips become routine within the next 12 to 18 months. It describes the difference in training and qualification necessary to become either a spaceflight participant or a fully-fledged commercial suborbital astronaut and it describes the vehicles this new class of astronauts will use.
Anticipation is on the rise for the new crop of commercial suborbital spaceships that will serve the scientific and educational market. These reusable rocket-propelled vehicles are expected to offer quick, routine and affordable access to the edge of space along with the capability to carry research and educational crew members. Yet to be demonstrated is the hoped-for flight rates of suborbital vehicles.
Quick turnaround of these craft is central to realizing the profit-making potential of repeated sojourns to suborbital heights. As this book outlines, vehicle builders still face rigorous shake-out schedules, flight safety hurdles as well as extensive trial-runs of their respective craft before suborbital space jaunts become commonplace. The book examines some of these ‘cash and carry’ suborbital craft under development by such groups as Blue Origin, Masten Space Systems, Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace and describes the hurdles the space industry is quickly overcoming en-route to the industry developing into a profitable economic entity.
Seedhouse also explains how the commercial suborbital spaceflight industry is planning and preparing for the challenges of marketing and financing and how it is marketing the hiring of astronauts. It examines the role of commercial operators as enablers accessing the suborbital frontier and how a partnership with governments and the private sector will eventuallypermanently integrate the free market’s innovation of commercial suborbital space activities.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Suborbital
Book Subtitle: Industry at the Edge of Space
Authors: Erik Seedhouse
Series Title: Springer Praxis Books
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03485-0
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-03484-3Published: 07 February 2014
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-03485-0Published: 27 January 2014
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXVI, 184
Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations, 79 illustrations in colour
Topics: Aerospace Technology and Astronautics, Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology, Entrepreneurship