We Have More Launch Companies Than Ever We are on the verge of a new era in space. So far much of the advances in space travel have been because of government programs. These are governments from all over the world. This is changing with all the new private companies, at least in this country, getting into the act. Space travel development is different from what happened in the development of the airplane. As we all know the Wright Brothers, two men who owned a bicycle shop were the first ones to make a successful flight in a plane. It only lasted for less than the wingspan of some of our bigger aircraft, but it flew. When World War I came along airplanes started to gain better technology. War is usually a catalyst for technological advancements and that war was no exception. Much of the advancement was because the governments of the world wanted better planes to use as weapons. If we look at the International Space Station also known as the ISS, we see a platform floating around the earth which is made of many parts from different countries. These parts are all there because the governments of the earth thought it was a good idea to contribute to the space station and its technology. Things are beginning to change in this area. NASA has given out three contracts to private companies to develop new space stations. As time goes by expect to see space stations not only around the earth, but also around our moon. Eventually, in the future, we might find there are going to be space stations around all the planets and maybe even some of their moons. The very young ones today might even see some of this in the future. Some of these private companies are just itching to get into space in a meaningful way. I am not just talking about building cargo craft to get to the ISS, they want to build craft capable of traveling into space and I believe many people can’t wait for this to happen. Elon Musk of SpaceX has announced he is build a launch pad in Florida for his giant spacecraft the Starship. Musk seems to be a man who gets thing done as evidenced of his building of the Starship without government funds. In a way the Starship if successful will be an embarrassment not only to NASA and the government, but also to the builders of the SLS system which is supposed to send astronauts to the moon. Why did I say that? First of all, the Starship can hold one hundred people, is more powerful than NASA’s rocket, will cost only a couple of million to launch verses over a billion for NASA’s rocket and is more powerful. It is reusable and currently the engines cost one half a million dollars each while the engines for NASA’s rocket cost in the neighborhood of ten million dollars each and are not as powerful. I would imagine the companies involved in building NASA’s rocket, which by the way is over budget and years behind schedule, are praying for the SpaceX Starship to fail. If it is a success it is going to make them really look bad and NASA at the very least incompetent. There are companies who are now in the space business most of us have never heard of and weren’t around years ago. Some of them have a famous parent company and some do not. Most of us don’t realize it, but there are over 100 companies which are in the space launch business all over the world and the number is growing. As of the writing of this article the space launch companies in this country are: If I missed a company I apologize, but I believe I got them all as of this date. Can you imagine this many companies are trying to compete in launches? Remember these are only the American companies. I can’t help but think this is a very good sign. It seems to me this proves in the mind of industry space is the next big frontier and there will be a lot of business for that sector. I am not saying every company on the list will be around in a few years, but I am also not saying there won’t be new ones added to the list. I always say the more the merrier. It took 43 years from the first time a plane flew until the first time we broke the sound barrier. This makes me wonder about speed connected to space flight. I have always felt Einstein was wrong about not being able to fly faster than the speed of light. Sure, almost every scientist out there will call me an idiot for saying that, but people were also called idiots who said we would break the sound barrier. We have to figure out how to travel faster than light or be stuck in this solar system. Flights where people are put into suspended animation, if perfected, really are not practical. It just increases the danger of space flight when ships are flying themselves and the crew is sleeping. I didn’t count the number of American companies in the launch business against the rest of the world, but it looks like there are far more here than anywhere else. It is hard to compare to countries like China since they are all run by the government so there wouldn’t be as many. This just eliminates competition. Many of the companies I listed have different requirements for launch. First of all, there is the weight limits. Some can do heavy launches, some can do medium weights, and some do only light loads like cubesats and such. Cubesats are small objects crammed full of experiments. The rocket power needed to launch them is much less so it might be a lot cheaper.
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