On December 13, 2010, Brazil launched what correspondents in Brasilia described as "a midsized unmanned rocket" into space, according to an article on the website news.com.
According to the article, the launched vehicle was a VSB-3 rocket designed by Brazilian and German scientists. The rocket carried around 400 kg of cargo and several microgravity experiments. The rocket remained aloft for about 18 minutes, eventually splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean about 233 km offshore of Brazil.
A Once-Exclusive Club
Brazil, China and Russia all have ambitious emerging space programs. Whereas until the mid-1960s only the United States and the Soviet Union had the ability to launch rockets and satellites into space, now Brazil joins a growing club that includes the European Union, Russia, Japan, China, India, Israel, Iraq and possibly North Korea - not to mention at least one private company that has achieved orbit.
But until 1965, only the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had demonstrated the ability to launch a vehicle into space. As outlined in a timeline on the website spacetoday.org, China first launched a satellite into orbit in 1970, with India a decade behind.
A North Korean rocket launch in 2009 was declared a failure by the U.S. and South Korea, but North Korea insisted that the satellite had reached orbit and transmitted data back to them, according to an article on the BBC website.
Private Spaceflight
Not only is the ability to launch rockets into orbit spreading to more countries, private enterprise is starting to get in on the action. According to an article on the National Public Radio website, less than a week before the Brazilian launch, on December 8, a private company called SpaceX launched a rocket that carried a space capsule called Dragon. The capsule orbited the Earth twice before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
The U.S. National Space and Aeronautics Agency is retiring its space shuttles and the new direction of the American space program is intended to replace them with private capsules, such as the Dragon. The hope is that doing so will both save taxpayer dollars and encourage innovation and the commercialization of space flight.
Space Tourism
Even ignoring NASA's outsourcing initiative, several companies already offer space tourism opportunities. The company Space Adventures, in partnership with Boeing, is promoting an ambitious plan to "arrange the flights to space for more people than have made the journey since the dawn of the Space Age," according to their website.
The Russian Federal Space Agency partnered with Space Adventures and the company Energia to ferry three space tourists to the International Space Station in 2001, 2002 and 2005. Each of the men was reported to have paid over $20 million for the privilege. Between 2007 and 2009, three more space tourists rode Soyuz capsules to the station and back.
In addition, the company Virgin Galactic plans to offer suborbital space flights, peaking at an altitude of 100-160 km and allowing onboard passengers to experience free fall and to have a view of the stars in which they do not twinkle, according to a 2004 article by Carolyn Said in the San Francisco Chronicle. Projected costs are about $200,000 per passenger.
James Sutherland - null
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