Aerospace giant Lockheed Martin is testing the waters of space tourism. It is teaming up with Bigelow Aerospace to study how a human-qualified version of its Atlas V rocket could be developed to deliver paying passengers to a Bigelow space hotel in low-Earth orbit.
Bigelow already has an agreement with SpaceX, one of several upstart companies trying to develop new launchers, and has talked with Russian rocket-builders.
But the company wants alternative ways of reaching its orbital outpost that are both reliable and affordable. 鈥淔rom a business perspective, it would be wonderful to have options,鈥 corporate counsel Mike Gold told New Scientist.
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Lockheed and NASA have already looked into human-certifying the Atlas V, a family of evolved expendable launch vehicles (EELVs) originally developed to carry only unmanned military and civilian spacecraft. In fact, NASA seriously considered developing a human-rated version of the Atlas V when it was selecting a replacement for the space shuttle.
However, in 2005, the authors of NASA鈥檚 Exploration Systems Architecture Study decided they could save money and time by using a pair of shuttle-derived vehicles to orbit crews and heavy cargo separately.
That is because both loads are large enough to require the development of costly new 鈥渉eavy鈥 versions of the Atlas V by adding extra solid rocket boosters. If there was an accident at launch and the boosters came into contact with the rocket鈥檚 liquid core, that would 鈥渕ake an accident worse and quicker,鈥 Joe Fragola, a consultant on the study now at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, told New Scientist. 鈥淲hen you went to the heavy, the risks went up,鈥
Smaller capsules
Bigelow and Lockheed, however, do not need the beefed-up version of the Atlas V. They are considering smaller passenger capsules that would weigh just about 10 metric tonnes, less than half the weight of NASA鈥檚 planned payloads.
That would allow the use of the Atlas V/401, the simplest member of the family. The rocket uses only two liquid-fueled engines, one in each stage, and no strap-on solid boosters. Its kerosene fuel takes longer to ignite in an accident, giving more time to escape, says Fragola.
That version should be able to meet human flight rating requirements, Jeff Patton and Joshua Hopkins of Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colorado, said in a paper presented at the Space2006 meeting in San Jose, California, this week.
They point out that all eight Atlas V launches to date have been successful and say that future unmanned launches should build a track record of 鈥渇light demonstrated reliability, rather than analytically predicted reliability鈥.
But Fragola points out that the space shuttles had 26 successful flights before the Challenger disaster in 1986. 鈥淎 string of eight successes says little about a safety goal that should be about 1 in 1000,鈥 he notes.
Still, turning to Lockheed鈥檚 relatively well proven system makes sense, says John Logsdon, a space analyst at George Washington University in Washington DC, US. Founder Robert Bigelow 鈥渉as no business unless he can get people to his facility, so he badly needs a transportation system鈥, Logsdon told New Scientist.
