Private Spacecraft: Five Most Promising Spaceships (PHOTOS)

An artistic rendition of the Dream Chaser, a private spacecraft, launching into space.

By: Mike Wall
Published: 05/18/2012 02:59 PM EDT on SPACE.com

The private spaceflight company SpaceX is set to launch its Dragon capsule toward the International Space Station on Saturday (May 19). If all goes well, Dragon will become the first commercial vehicle ever to dock with the orbiting lab.

But it may not be the last. Dragon is just one vehicle in a new generation of private American spaceships on the horizon. Some aim to launch tourists and scientists to suborbital space, while others are vying to fill the orbital cargo- and crew-carrying void left by the retirement of NASA's iconic space shuttle fleet in July 2011.

The list of future private space travel projects started out short, but has steadily grown longer in in recent years. In addition to SpaceX, at least one other company - Orbital Sciences Corp., of Virginia - has a NASA contract to provide robot cargo ship deliveries to the space station. Companies like XCOR Aerospace and Virgin Galactic have their sights set on the suborbital spaceflight market, while Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas hopes to build its own private space stations. [Top 10 Private Spaceships Coming Soon]

Here's a quick look at five of the most promising commercial spacecraft currently in development:

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• Helping to pave the road for the future of commercial spaceflight, Boeing is hard at work on the research and development of a new space capsule aimed at flying people to the International Space Station.

• Photo of actual Dragon spacecraft after its first successful orbital flight.

• An artistic rendition of the Dream Chaser vehicle launching into space.

• This artist's illustration of the orbital crew-carrying spaceship planned by the private company Blue Origin was included in the firm's NASA Space Act agreement to continue its work on a commercial crew space vehicle.

• Artist's rendition of the Dragon spacecraft at the International Space Station.

• Suborbital SpaceShipTwo glides over Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

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Comments

[skytracker]

06:50 PM on 08/04/2012

Pretty darn kwel ya all.

[gasmanrobe]

02:55 PM on 06/09/2012

aint worth crap without warp drive engine .make faster than light engine first before designing ships that only go max 35000 mph

[Herromerr]

12:00 PM on 09/17/2012

the model "T" came before the Porsche 9-11 turbo.

[jgarcia]

10:27 AM on 05/25/2012

Instead of "Deam Chaser." they should call it "the Angry Penguin."

[MikeDu]

10:17 AM on 05/22/2012

From what I can tell the only utility the space program has is in employing artists.

[Liberal2]

02:19 PM on 05/23/2012

Hope a "smart feller" like you doesn't use a phone, need weather info, GPS, or wartch TV.

[Downix]

08:35 PM on 05/29/2012

Or use a computer or surf the internet.

[Herromerr]

12:01 PM on 09/17/2012

FAIL

[Royce09]

09:08 AM on 05/22/2012

That space craft resembles an Oracle whale, they should rename it THE ORACLE.

[Liberal2]

02:20 PM on 05/23/2012

Designing a manned vehicle is easy. Hard is the launch system.

[Downix]

08:35 PM on 05/29/2012

Launch system for it is old, and dates back to the dawn of our own manned space adventure. The 5th generation Atlas rocket.

[Patient Zero]

11:27 AM on 05/26/2012

Ellison will sue them.

[Stoney The Dreamer]

03:18 AM on 05/22/2012

Anyone else reading as we await the reattempt of Spacex Dragon launch? Perhaps it is a carry over of the propoganda from generations ago, but this space exploration stuff always fills me with such hope .. then of course I react to talks of privatization with fond memories of scifi tales like the movie Serenity. What can I say, I'm a dreamer with no plans to change:)

[mynamesyow]

01:49 PM on 05/23/2012

Many of us are.

[MJinCanada]

02:55 AM on 05/21/2012

That's a bad angle for the Dream Chaser. It looks like an insane, horny robot penguin.

Either that, or I need to skip the nightcap and head to bed.

[gregory57]

06:42 PM on 05/22/2012

You're absolutely right. I thought it looked like an giant, evil robot penguin with an erection.

[John Shuck]

01:16 PM on 05/20/2012

A kind of UPS serving one customer?

[erhuh]

03:39 PM on 05/20/2012

SpaceX will launch satellites, service ISS with cargo and crew, hopes to launch unmanned probes and defense projects like ULA, and have partnered wtih Bigelow to launch private astronauts to private stations (if that comes to fruition).

[hat1701d]

12:11 PM on 05/20/2012

"Dream Chaser" is very old school. It is a re-envisioning of the X-24 from the 60's, which was itself used as the basis for the X-38 about 10 years ago as an escape craft design for the International Space Station. Everything old is new again, so few realize it. Especially the young generation which just take things as if they are always new.

[DXM]

05:28 PM on 05/21/2012

And don't forget the the unmanned X-23 PRIME (which was an unmanned, sub-scale model of the same shape as the X-24A that was launched on a suborbital tests three times in 1966 and 1967 on a modified Atlas) as well as the Soviet BOR-4 (which was a unmanned, half-scale model with a similar shape that made four orbital test flights between 1982 and 1984)

[hat1701d]

01:38 AM on 05/22/2012

True, very true.

[navsolve]

03:08 AM on 05/22/2012

DXM and hat1701d - I totally agree! The US is now dead in space! We cannot even get back to the moon with our "modern" technology and the Gov't doesn't want to admit that (with all the debt incurred and not much to show for it except for rich bankers). The Chinese understand if they have a current generation of engineers to the level of where America was - we may physically be dead as well!

[FerrisValyn]

08:24 PM on 05/21/2012

The shape comes was originally from Soviet Russia, from something called BOR-4. The US picked it up with the HL-10 & HL-20 projects

[hat1701d]

01:39 AM on 05/22/2012

Just like the reverse with the Shuttle Buran. It goes to show, if the math is right, the math is right. Aerodynamics pretty much work...50 years ago or today.

[Downix]

08:43 PM on 05/29/2012

HL-10 predated BOR by many years. BOR was used for HL-20, correct, but it used information from HL-10 and X-24 in determining its shape as well. Mutual theft I'd say.

There was a funny antecdote I heard once. Shortly after the wall fell, some NASA engineers visited rRoscosmos, where they got to discussing things, as engineers do. One NASA engineer commented about how Burans wing design was near identical to the Shuttles, to which the Russian engineer commented about how it was the ideal shape for such a vehicle. When the NASA engineer commented back about the shape was not determined for being ideal, but in order to fit through the VAB doors, the roscosmos engineer changed subjects.

[cathy0122]

08:17 AM on 05/20/2012

looks kinda cool, but boy will the aliens b freaked out that now orcas are leaving the ocean and flying in space, lol

[bliss infinite]

03:14 PM on 06/01/2012

What do you mean? The orcas ARE the aliens.

[cathy0122]

03:29 PM on 06/01/2012

lol, the space ship looks like a killer whale to me, meaning if there are aliens out there they would wonder what the heck is happening, the whales are in space, out of the water. out of their element, so to speak.

[mrjohnny212]

06:56 AM on 05/20/2012

Don't worry about anyone "controlling" space, by definition it's limitless expanse leaves enough for everyone who's interested.

[BIGPREZY]

09:13 PM on 05/19/2012

Privateers controlling Space...??.I have to weigh which is better ...The For Profit Crowd with everything being about the Bottom line and Max dividends..or Government Controlled spacecateers. With everything controlled by the military....Can't we just jump 3 hundred years to "Federation of Planets" when most things are done for the betterment of all...Yeah Right..

[itruth]

05:53 PM on 05/19/2012

i had hope we would boldly go a long way back in july of 69;it turned out that we need some very hard science to get there from here.We can do it in another 100 or so years at this pace.

Interstellar travel in 100; intergalactic in 500 or a 1000 years or more;perhaps never unless we find a way for superluminal speed;or a way to live indefinite spans of time.That darn E gets in the way;seems it requires tremendous amounts of energy to get very far in this Cosmos.

So until we find out how to use DARK ENERGY we will just have to putter about the solar system.It is a long way to Europa and the summers there are nice and cool!

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

09:36 PM on 05/19/2012

Faster-than-light speeds (or even light speed) are impossible for humans (FTL actually impossible even for particles.) No way around that. Unless we find a way to open wormholes and travel through them.

[itruth]

02:48 PM on 05/20/2012

You are correct on both parts;the wormhole thing works on paper;however to have a stable one takes more energy than mankind can make at this point;as far as i know...

[crankyCrackPot]

11:50 AM on 05/21/2012

You are mostly correct.

The Universe is only 13.72 billion Earth years old but our cosmic horizon is 41 billion light years across. Now... technically according to inflationary theory nothing traveled through space faster than light; but space did expand faster than light could have traveled.
Quantum leaps also need to be explained, at the very least the particle's information is being transmitted faster than light.

[Al Schrader]

10:15 AM on 05/20/2012

I worked for McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company (MDAC) for 19 years. By darn E I figure you are refering to Einstein's 100 year old relativity theory.
I already have the technology for going to other stars, plus more. The 10 billion dollar LHC was built because of one of my discoveries. What I'm working on today is more valuable than fusion. On paper it makes me the wealthiest person on earth....Alfred-

[itruth]

02:44 PM on 05/20/2012

Al if you can do better than a Star;by all measures you have the Ball and it is in your court,forward your theory!

[crankyCrackPot]

12:12 PM on 05/21/2012

Are you the Alfred Herman Schrader?

[[e-mail]]

04:26 PM on 05/19/2012

Once the "profiteers" take over space ... that'll become just as much of a mess as planet Earth ...

[Sean Jennings]

03:34 PM on 05/19/2012

I am rooting for Virgin's craft to make it happen. Their design seems really innovative, especially the re-entry portion. I am looking forward to seeing any and all of these companies efforts unfold. Exciting. Light that candle!

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

04:36 PM on 05/19/2012

Apples and oranges. Virgin's SS2 is about sub-orbital flights for tourists, never meant to reach the ISS. But yeah, the feathered re-entry is pretty cool.

[Sean Jennings]

04:58 PM on 05/19/2012

Hi proudlib, thanks for explaining that a little. I don't really get the point of suborbital flight. It seems like kind of a waste if you are going to head into space and not go all the way out and take at least one lap around the big blue ball.

[realworldnews]

06:21 AM on 05/20/2012

Just to keep the record straight - the VG craft is an enlarged version of SpaceShipOne designed by Burt Rutan (probably the greatest aerospace designer alive) and built by the team at his firm, Scaled Composites, based in Mojave, California. SS1 was the first privately built craft to reach sub-orbital altitude back in 2004 and marked the start of the NewSpace race. It was that that caught Branson's attention and he formed a relationship with Rutan and Scaled to build SS2 for VG.

[Sean Jennings]

12:38 PM on 05/20/2012

Awesome realworldnews, thanks. Burt Rutan sounds like the innovator I should be complementing.