Space Shuttle's "Return to Flight"

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Cool yes, but I believe they are focusing on a tourist vehicle, something that can carry a handful of passengers. While that would be inredible and a big step forward, it's still a far cry from the thousands of tons of cargo carrying ability that the shuttles have, or the physical space necessary to perform experiments.

Certainly - I'm sure it whatever they develop will be based on the vehicle Rutan developed in the X Prize competition. But it's a start.

Anyone else read Popular Science? They had an issue not long ago on efforts being made to reduce the cost of getting payloads into orbit. A couple of the really cool ones were mag-lev launching (similar to the launch of CA Screamin') and a "space elevator", where currently existing ultra-ultra strong micro fibers (constructed at the microscopic level) are lifted into a geosynchronous orbit as a tether to a platform on which shuttle like vehicles can land to get the payload or change crews. I really like that elevator idea, and while I am certainly no mechanical or structural engineer, it seems feasible.