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[::..about this blog..::]
"...all these worlds..." is a blog by David Hitt. It covers space exploration, decent science fiction, humor (by its very nature), and whatever else I happen to find cool. (Formerly "You Must Fight The Bear")
Name: David Hitt About Me: Inspiring the next generation of explorers... See my complete profile
[::..disclaimer..::]
The opinions expressed on this page are those of the author, and very likely no one else.
[::..archive..::]
:: Thursday, August 12, 2004 ::
True Private Spaceflight
While this blog is getting carried away with X Prize fever, here's a little something else to dream about: the day when individuals could own their own personal spacecraft. Alan Boyle interviewed Armadillo Aerospace and Doom mastermind John Carmack about the future of the Black Armadillo program after the weekend crash, and among the interesting things that Carmack had to say, this stood out: "$35,000 is basically what the vehicle cost. The new one will probably be closer to $40,000, because we are doing more custom machining and using some more expensive materials. ... If we built two identical ones at the same time, cost would go down a little, probably 15 percent, and labor for the second one would probably be cut in half." Now, granted, this is for an unmanned prototype, and, granted, this doesn't cover launch costs, but consider that there are people willing to pay $100,000 for a suborbital flight. Is it too hard to imagine that within a couple of decades the cost for an assembly-line personal spacecraft would fall low enough that there would be people willing to pay it?