The normal way to orbit is in
Would you like to fly to the edge of space in a balloon? Tony Robbins is doing his part to make it happen.
The motivational guru is one of a group of investors providing $7 million in seed funding for Space Perspective, the company that plans to send people to the edge of space in a giant balloon.
The financing will be instrumental in the development and early flights of Space Perspective's spacecraft, called Spaceship Neptune, which will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility and fly a pilot and eight passengers to the edge of space and back in a pressurized capsule.
The space balloon promises a comfortable six-hour round-trip flight and the opportunity to see our home planet from an altitude of 100,000 feet, nearly 20 miles above the Earth's surface.
For SpaceNut ... this item would fit in a number of topics that have balloons as a theme...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/french-compa … 00900.html
This is a French company building a dirigible (from the description) for a number of potential customer applications. It was originally designed to move logs for environmentally friendly forest operations, but the team has expanded its vision as well as its staff.
(th)
Its about using but may not do as well on mars but until we bound with numbers we will not know.
Possibly a doughnut ship for launching from a center...
]]>The same is true of the mesospheric region just over the stratopause, though the thin air at that height supports much less payload.
The only trouble is that anything you put up there has to get across the troposphere, where the winds can be violent enough to rip such a vehicle to shreds. Once in that cozy stratospheric niche, the airship will need to hang on for dear life. An 18 month operating time for such a vehicle might sound optimistic, but it's only a comfortable margin. Midlevel tropospheric winds could be impassable to a large airship for months at a time every year, and no stratospheric airship should go up if it can't stay there for at least an entire season.
]]>Telecommunications: After years of hype, a new, cheaper way to blanket cities with wireless coverage may finally be about to get off the ground.
Next month Sanswire Networks, a company based in Atlanta, Georgia, is planning to launch the first airship satellite, or “stratellite”. Floating in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 20km (13 miles), the airship will behave just like a geostationary satellite, hovering over a particular spot and relaying radio signals to and from the ground. Such airships will, however, be much cheaper to launch and maintain than satellites—and can do things that satellites cannot.
While greater than suborbital but not quite LEO this is a strategic area of space and of military concern for control.
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It's a tiny drama in the history of space flight -- an argument between a do-it-yourself Canadian astronaut and doubters alarmed he's about to foolishly expose himself and others to harm by blasting off in a largely untested rocket ship.
I bet you didn't consider the number of bananas it would take to launch.
It could lead to a new space partnership NASA+ CHICITA..
NASICITA.. *lol*
And a new slogan...
We don't monkey around in space.
I just increased the default charactersize on my browser, because I misread this topic as "Baboon-launcher" ???
Seriously. I did.
snipet:
Already a leading launch area for scientific balloons in northern Europe, operations at Sweden's Esrange launch facility will expand next year with NASA's decision to use it for launches of its largest scientific balloons, a spokesman said Tuesday.
Canadian Arrow Drop Test Scheduled for Saturday
http://www.canadianarrow.com/
http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin....04.html
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Forks: National publicity brings acclaim -- and possibly investors' bucks -- to rocketeers building a new Rubicon
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/sited … tml/170414
"The result: A slew of investors have e-mailed the cash-strapped company, saying they are interested in making an investment in the partners' dream of developing space tourism."
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