America's Space Prize was a US$50 million space competition in orbital spaceflight established and funded in 2004 by hotel entrepreneur Robert Bigelow. The prize would have been awarded to the first US-based privately funded team to design and build a reusable manned capsule capable of flying 5 astronauts to a Bigelow Aerospace inflatable space module. The criteria also required the capsule be recovered and flown again in 60 days. The prize expired January 10, 2010, without a winner or any test flights attempted. The teams were required to have been based in the United States.
The prize was announced by Bigelow on 17 December 2003—the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers first powered aircraft flight. [1]
A set of ten criteria were set up in order for a contestant to win the prize. [2]
Since the launch of the prize, 40 companies had expressed interest, but either did not have the money which would apparently be needed, or, in the case of SpaceX, were ineligible due to having accepted government funding. Despite the lack of interest, Bigelow did not revise the prize rules, planning instead to seek transportation to space other ways. [3]
A few contestants have been:
A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transportation of humans and cargo. All spacecraft except single-stage-to-orbit vehicles cannot get into space on their own, and require a launch vehicle.
Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. To date, orbital space tourism has been performed only by the Russian Space Agency. Work also continues towards developing suborbital space tourism vehicles. This is being done by aerospace companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. In addition, SpaceX announced in 2018 that they are planning on sending space tourists, including Yusaku Maezawa, on a free-return trajectory around the Moon on the Starship.
The Ansari X Prize was a space competition in which the X Prize Foundation offered a US$10,000,000 prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. It was modeled after early 20th-century aviation prizes, and aimed to spur development of low-cost spaceflight.
The Canadian Arrow was a privately funded, early-2000s rocket and space tourism project concept founded by London, Ontario, Canada entrepreneurs Geoff Sheerin, Dan McKibbon and Chris Corke. The project's objective was to take the first civilians into space, on a vertical sub-orbital spaceflight reaching an altitude of 112 km.
Private spaceflight is spaceflight or the development of spaceflight technology that is conducted and paid for by an entity other than a government agency.
Bigelow Aerospace is an American space technology startup company which manufactures and develops expandable space station modules. Bigelow Aerospace was founded by Robert Bigelow in 1998, and is based in North Las Vegas, Nevada. It is funded in large part by the profit Bigelow gained through his ownership of the hotel chain, Budget Suites of America.
JP Aerospace is an American company that aims to achieve affordable access to space. Their main activities include high-atmospheric lighter-than-air flights carrying cameras or miniature experiments called pongsats and minicubes. They are also engaged in an Airship to Orbit project.
The B330 was an inflatable space habitat being privately developed by Bigelow Aerospace from 2010 until 2020. The design was evolved from NASA's TransHab habitat concept. B330 will have 330 cubic meters (12,000 cu ft) of internal volume, hence its numeric designation.
A space competition is an inducement prize contest offering a prize to be given to the first competitor who demonstrates a space vehicle, or a space exploration apparatus, which meets a set of pre-established criteria. It spurs pioneering development in private spaceflight.
Galaxy was a canceled prototype space habitat designed by the American firm Bigelow Aerospace, and was intended to be the third spacecraft launched by the company in their efforts to create a commercial space station. Like other modules made by Bigelow Aerospace, Galaxy was based on the inflatable TransHab design by NASA, and was to be used for advanced systems testing before the company launched human-rated vehicles.
Sundancer was the proposed third prototype space habitat intended to be launched by Bigelow Aerospace—and the first human-rated expandable module based on TransHab technology acquired from NASA. It was to have been used to test and confirm systems used in the company's commercial space station efforts during the early 2010s, and if successful, would have formed the first piece of the proposed commercial space station.
Space architecture is the theory and practice of designing and building inhabited environments in outer space. The architectural approach to spacecraft design addresses the total built environment. It is mainly based on the field of engineering, but also involves diverse disciplines such as physiology, psychology, and sociology. Like architecture on Earth, the attempt is to go beyond the component elements and systems and gain a broad understanding of the issues that affect design success. Space architecture borrows from multiple forms of niche architecture to accomplish the task of ensuring human beings can live and work in space. These include the kinds of design elements one finds in “tiny housing, small living apartments/houses, vehicle design, capsule hotels, and more.”
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner is a class of reusable crew capsules expected to transport crew to the International Space Station (ISS) and to private space stations such as the proposed Bigelow Aerospace Commercial Space Station. It is manufactured by Boeing for its participation in NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
The Bigelow Next-Generation Commercial Space Station is a private orbital space station under development by Bigelow Aerospace. Previous concepts of the space station had included multiple modules such as two B330 expandable spacecraft modules as well as a central docking node, propulsion, solar arrays, and attached crew capsules. However it now appears that each B330 can operate as an independent space station. Attaching a B330 to the International Space Station or flying a B330 alone have been suggested by Robert Bigelow.
The BA 2100, or Olympus, is a conceptual inflatable space habitat by Bigelow Aerospace. The larger BA 2100 would extend the volume and capabilities of the B330 module, which is under development as part of the Bigelow Commercial Space Station. As with the B330 module, the number in the name refers to the number of cubic meters of space offered by the module when fully expanded in space.
t/Space was an American aerospace company which participated in NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS), and later, Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) programs for delivering cargo and crew to the International Space Station. The company was headquartered in Reston, Virginia.
Orion is a class of partially reusable space capsules to be used in NASA's human spaceflight programs. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) designed by Lockheed Martin and the European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space. Capable of supporting a crew of six beyond low Earth orbit, Orion can last up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. It is equipped with solar panels, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines, and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus, provide the spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Although compatible with other launch vehicles, Orion is primarily designed to launch atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a tower launch escape system.
The following is a timeline of important events in the history of private spaceflight, including important technical as well as legislative and political advances. Though the industry has its origins in the early 1960s, soon after the beginning of the Space Age, private companies did not begin conducting launches into space until the 1980s, and it was not until the 21st century that multiple companies began privately developing and operating launch vehicles and spacecraft in earnest.