I can't see them making commercial passenger flights any time soon. It is possible they can put an astronaut into space.TheGrimSqueaker wrote:SpaceX will be first now, I think. Their Falcon rockets, much more conventional tech liquid fuel rockets, have proven reliable so far (13 out of 13 successful launches so far for the Falcon 9) and the Dragon capsule has successfully delivered cargo four times to the ISS (albeit with a few minor mission glitches); they plan to commence testing of the astronaut carrying Dragon v2 next year and hope to see it enter service in 2017.TechnicalEphemera wrote:I think they will be first, if they don't go bankrupt.LadyCentauria wrote: Their latest article says this was the first test-flight using these new plastic-based fuel grains. Earlier tests were all ground-based burns. I am sure that they will persevere with the project but cannot see how they could have launched for passengers in Spring 2015, regardless – or not on the new fuel. But it is a competitive market and there is a race on and at least some of the passenger-seats were already installed. So perhaps they thought that, if Friday had gone well, they'd have been able to get enough tests in – and the relevant licences issued in time. And there is not just income but kudos and names in history books at stake for being The First.
Four flights ever have fired the rocket, none to full burn and the first to try the new fuel had an issue.
Now I would think they will want hundreds of test flights on full burn before they get certified to carry passengers. This feels like three to five years away.
Nobody else is within a decade.
Now when looking at hype and expectations around high volume space travel I keep coming back to this 1980 article on the Space Shuttle. Amusingly on the economics his worst case scenario was too optimistic.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/featur ... ltext.html
Incidentally anybody who hasn't read the Washington monthly article I urge you to do so. It is still the gold standard on aviation journalism. Entertainingly in 79/80 NASA stated the shuttle would fly between December 80 and first quarter 81. Columbia finally made it in April 1981.