MarsBlog.net

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

A Russian company which plans to build the world’s first space hotel has released further details on its ambitious project.

The plan, which would see a hotel placed into orbit some 350 kilometers above the earth, was first unveiled last year by Russian firm Orbital Technologies as a commercial alternative to the International Space Station.

This week, it revealed further details of the design at an aviation industry event in Moscow, suggesting that it will be able to accommodate seven people at a time – with the most incredible views you’re likely to get out of a window…

Orbital Technologies says that the design and development of the space station is underway, and it is expected to launch in 2016.

Just add money!

I’d like to see them succeed, but given the frequency with which ambitious space projects involving the Russians emerge and then disappear, I’m a little skeptical.

Posted on August 21st, 2011 under Russian Space, Space Commerce. Tags: Orbital Technologies, Russia, space tourism. Comments Off

…would aliens decide to eliminate us because of “global warming”?

You’d think that a civilization with the ability to cross interplanetary distances would, when encountering this set of circumstances (humans, on Earth, burning fossil fuels), simply mock us for using such inefficient and diffuse sources of energy, and provide us with matter-conversion cells or zero-point energy modules or something suitably science-fictiony, scoring a tidy profit on the trade.

(What…why would you assume the aliens wouldn’t be capitalists…?)

Posted on August 20th, 2011 under Economics, Luddism. Comments Off

DARPA will be launching a test flight of the Falcon HTV-2 hypersonic vehicle:

If all goes to plan, engineers will launch the Falcon HTV-2 to the edge of space, before detaching the plane and guiding it on a hypersonic flight that will reach speeds of 13,000mph (about 20 times the speed of sound) on its return to Earth.

Those who think that the long-overdue termination of the Space Shuttle and NASA/Congress’ lack of clear vision on what should replace it indicate the U.S. no longer has what it takes to innovate in aerospace ought look at this (and the X-37b) before shedding additional tears or rending further garments. DARPA and USAF certainly seem to be cutting new edges — and that’s on top of the New Space companies who are recapitulating and improving upon prior efforts with new technology of their own.

Posted on August 10th, 2011 under Science & Engineering, Space Commerce, Space Technology, Useful Technology. Comments Off