BREAKING NEWS!! SNC Starts Commercial Space Station Race! Billions at Stake for SpaceX! (SN15 pics)

so as a lot of you are probably aware i've been talking about the axiom space station the first commercial space station that's going to be put into orbit at least in my opinion a great deal on my channel and as a matter of fact of course i got to interview them and have established a pretty good relationship with the company which i'm very excited about however they are not the only game in town as a matter of fact things have started to develop recently that have started to convince me that there is a space station race going on and quite an exciting one at that but real quick before i get to that topic i just wanted to show you a couple of photos of sn15 as it rolled out to the pad about an hour ago from the time that i'm recording this what an exciting time and by the way this is courtesy of mars embassy please support his channel but in any event i am looking forward hopefully to traveling back to boca and filming this as it takes off and by the way i have better equipment than i have in the past so it should be something to remember not as good as many other channels but still something uniquely angry so stay tuned but getting back to the topic at hand on march 31st a huge announcement was made by a company called the sierra nevada corporation which i talk about a great deal on this channel and they have thrown their hat in the ring to become the first commercial space station in orbit now are they going to be able to beat axiom as far as this is concerned that is a very interesting question but what it does mean is instead of axiom having pretty much a monopoly on the commercial space station route at least is in terms of realistic plans sierra nevada has made it into a race and they're not the only ones so what's going to be coming up in the next few years let me tell you it's going to be beyond exciting and even though spacex doesn't technically have a dog in this fight as far as commercial space stations are concerned they are very concerned about who's going to be carrying both cargo and crew up to these stations now axiom will probably use the crew dragon at least in part but sierra nevada probably is going to exclusively use their own ship the sierra nevada dream chaser which i have talked about many times and even though there are things about the crew dragon that might make it less expensive there are things about the dream chaser that are going to give sierra nevada a dominant position as far as commercial space is concerned in low earth orbit if all of their plans come to fruition this is a race that affects not only the people that are putting stations into orbit but every space flight organization in general and by the way the story doesn't end here there's another company called nanoracks who are looking to be the dark horse in this race who have a very affordable and very innovative way of putting space stations into orbits that may catch axiom and sierra nevada off balance does all of this sound very exciting to you well if it does strap yourself in for a very special episode of the angry astronaut [Music] so good morning and welcome to another episode of the angry astronaut so sans glasses again just for the hell of it well no because i misplaced my glasses transitioning locations here in colorado as i think a lot of you know i am very much an absent-minded person but enough of that glasses no glasses it really doesn't matter so please forgive me by the way in the introduction for throwing in uh shots of sn15 i was just so excited getting those shots pretty much right as the event was happening this morning from mars embassy and if i may make a personal plea please go and subscribe to his channel this guy doesn't pay me um or anything like that he's just another person trying to document the very important things that are happening there and i'm trying to help to just get him to a thousand subscribers so he can actually perhaps have a chance of doing that that's all costs nothing to subscribe to the channel but of course that's entirely up to you and that's the last that i'm going to say about that so space stations i've talked about them before i've talked about axiom i've talked about the gateway foundation and you know recently i've had the idea that axiom pretty much was the only game in town as far as private space stations or commercial space stations were concerned really everybody else seemed to be a long ways behind and in terms of funding that sort of thing really didn't have a realistic possibility of grabbing that that first place spot in low earth orbit and to put up a commercial station there however there was a recent announcement on march 31st actually that changed the entire game and the timing of it i think is extremely interesting because it came very shortly after axiom announced how much money that they had raised for their own project and here comes sierra nevada corporation with their own station concept and their own infrastructure in low earth orbit and let me tell you something there's a whole lot of companies out there that have you know a whole bunch of schemes to put space stations and space hotels up in orbit but sierra nevada has i believe a real real realistic possibility of making this happen as well and i think that we have a race going on and it's not just with them there's also another company called nano rex that a lot of you folks may be familiar with who also have some space station ideas and plans and their ideas aren't bad either and also like sierra nevada like axiom space these folks have sources of revenue coming into them that have nothing to do with their space stations so they have money coming in from other sources that will allow them to fund something like this and also like sierra nevada like axiom nanoracks also has a plan that doesn't involve anything incredibly ambitious or incredibly expensive but on the other hand it's incredibly exciting now does this mean i've changed my position on axiom space no i still believe that they will be the first to have a commercial space station um simply because they're going to be putting up their the first of their modules just in a couple of years i don't believe anybody else is going to be able to beat that but at the same time as you're going to see in the video their competition especially sierra nevada has the capability of putting up a very large space station all in one shot and to do so at a very affordable cost as well and incidentally the whole thing about spacex that's not just click bait if sierra nevada is successful in establishing their presence in low earth orbit and actually manages to establish the dominant place in low earth orbit then that will impact the crew dragon because sierra nevada for very good reasons intends to not use the crew dragon definitely not use the starliner but instead to use their own spacecraft to get to their own station want to hear more about this well we're going to get started right now so here we go again the damn rocket that i seem to have a love affair with the vulcan centaur but this rocket is extremely important to the future of commercial space flight at least as far as space stations are concerned because the sierra nevada corporation has decided to use the dream chaser exclusively with this rocket because of its huge fairing size although the dream chaser could be used on other types of rockets like some manufactured by ariane space however it cannot be used at least currently on the falcon heavy because of bearing size as you can see it has a high reusability factor and it can carry a lot of cargo actually more cargo than the current version of the crew dragon it also can re-enter the atmosphere under a very low gravitational force and land on just about any runway on the planet which makes it very flexible for various types of scientific experiments now it's important to note that the dream chaser which theoretically can carry crew and cargo because of that little pod on the back which is called the shooting star which by the way sets it apart from the boeing starliner in a huge way was actually in competition with the crew dragon and the starliner for the commercial crew vehicle to go back to the iss and to put americans back into space from american soil however nasa decided that the starliner was a better design dirty lowdown son of a okay so i'm sure they had very good reasons at the time but the point is is sierra nevada never stopped working on this ship at least in terms of carrying crew and as you can see the pod on the back can be used for a variety of purposes not just in terms of disposing of trash but can also be used as a miniature space station after the primary mission is over the u.s military actually intends to use it for that purpose and is signed a contract with sierra nevada to do so and of course i've pointed out the value that sierra nevada has in this ship being able to land like a plane instead of a space capsule very sensitive scientific experiments and other types of cargo will benefit tremendously from this type of configuration however what most people didn't realize is the fact that the dream chaser is not just designed to service things like the iss but rather as the primary vessel to travel to and from the new sierra nevada commercial space station which as you can see is going to be colossal at least if their final goals are achieved and this isn't a colossal station like what the gateway foundation has in mind this is actually very doable utilizing the types of inflatable modules that bigelow aerospace used to use before they went defunct sierra nevada has always used this type of technology as well for their space station designs this innovative module is three stories tall nine meters in diameter and is made out of a substance called vectran which is a high performance multi-filament yarn spun from liquid crystal polymer or lcps it's very strong pound for pound it's five times stronger than steel and 10 times stronger than aluminum but as far as sierra nevada is concerned that's still not enough protection see that mohawk looking thing on the top of the module that's actually the beginnings of a meteoroid deflection shield or an absorption barrier to take care of any pieces of space junk or small meteoroids that may collide with the station this thing is not only big it's very safe for its occupants and in case you need further evidence of just how big it is have a look at this it's huge big enough to accommodate a dozen astronauts with ease in low earth orbit and on top of sleeping quarters it has space for science and manufacturing experiments exercise equipment a medical center and snc's astro garden system i'm quoting from their site by the way which the company is developing as an option to grow fresh produce for astronauts on long duration space missions they have put so much thought and so much work into the development of this station and as you can see it's not just a bunch of computer generated images they have built a lot of this station already and of course the system is completely modular as you can see so with every new module that you add you add another dozen astronauts and of course you're going to need a lot of dream chasers in order to provide the necessary cargo and passengers to the station in the first place and since sierra nevada is going to control all of this they'll be able to offer package deals and by the way you can use the technology on the surface of the moon as well so what sierra nevada has proposed over the last few days is a complete low earth orbit infrastructure space station actually a space city plus transportation to get there which means the passengers that travel on this transportation will be able to pay lower prices per seat simply because they'll be paying to stay on the station as well there is no other company currently that has this kind of capability and here's another compelling advantage each one of these inflatable modules can be carried up to orbit by one vulcan centaur or something else that has a similar fairing capability one rocket launch can propel a space station of this size at least in terms of each module into low earth orbit absolutely incredible and on top of that as you can see here it can also be transitioned into a station to orbit the moon as a matter of fact sierra nevada tried to get this design to be used as the lunar gateway but nasa seems to be attached to their conservative ideas of using iss type modules not that this is necessarily a bad thing obviously axiom space also intends to use modules that are similar to this although the interior is going to be radically different from the iss and on top of that they're going to have astronaut training available to people who are going up to their station something that sierra nevada at least presently does not have and also their new solar array is going to be using bleeding edge technology to produce almost as much energy as the entire iss array so this is going to be a very interesting competition between these two stations and in case you're wondering about funding well snc is run by the husband and wife team of aaron and fatih osman both of whom are billionaires and given that a launch of a single module of this particular space station design would cost probably about 600 million dollars if you include the rocket launch they have more than enough money to get this station into orbit and on top of everything else the sierra nevada design has the ability to travel between planets and no i'm not joking utilizing solar electric propulsion this system can take four astronauts to mars in roughly six to seven months about the same time frame as most other configurations this is a system that will not only operate as a space station but as space transportation as well as we carry out man's exploration of the solar system it is beyond exciting and i can't wait to see what these companies come out with but guess what there's more in store besides what just they have to offer now these guys don't get a hell of a lot of press but nevertheless i think they have perhaps the most innovative way of creating a space station in low earth orbit that any of these companies do and this of course is nanoracks and their plan is to take discarded second stages mostly from ula rockets and to convert them into space stations what a wonderful way to get rid of space junk and to transform it into something useful to mankind and keep in mind these second stages are actually very very large in terms of volume and could house quite a number of astronauts and they're made out of very resilient materials so you could probably make a pretty good space station out of these plus they often come complete with engines now of course doing all of this is easier said than done you would have to rip out most of the internal components from the second stage bring up the necessary components to build the space station inside of the second stage probably complete with additional materials to provide additional protection for the astronauts all of these things would probably require astronaut workers preferably brought up by the crew dragon because they've got the best price on that right now but another advantage that nanorex has like sierra nevada and other companies is the fact that they're getting revenue from other types of jobs that they're doing for nasa and other companies such as a new airlock for the iss which was deployed a few years ago and in addition they've been deploying cubesats from the iss for a variety of different customers and this is another point when it comes to commercial space stations if you want to build one you need more than an innovative idea and a few million dollars you need other divisions of your corporation already doing jobs for nasa and others that's producing millions of dollars for your corporation if not hundreds of millions before you can consider putting up a large commercial station in space unfortunate but true you need that kind of backing if you want to be successful but regardless of who wins this competition it's vital that somebody wins it because next year the people's republic of china is going to be putting up a very impressive space station one that will definitely replace the iss unless some commercial institution manages to replace it as well in which case the people's republic of china is going to have a monopoly on all space industry and space innovation in low earth orbit unless the rest of the world does something about it china will control all of the new innovations in space and not the free market is this really the world that we want to have now i am thrilled that china is doing this but i am not thrilled with a monopoly no matter who creates it let's hope that that's not what's in our future i'd like to clear something up i talk a lot about china and it all sounds very negative i want to be perfectly clear that i applaud china for what they're trying to do for their aggressiveness in moving into low earth orbit for their plans to go to the moon moon bases everything the more countries the more people that we have in space the better on the other hand the reason that i said what i did about their space station is because any space station i'm not just talking about china any space station that's controlled by a government or a nation as opposed to a commercial entity is going to have different goals and a different agenda what i mean is let's say that the chinese space station comes up with some new manufacturing capability or let's let's not even say it's china let's say it was space station freedom i don't know how many of you are familiar with that but that's what america intended to put up in space to compete against the mere space station freedom before we came up with the international space station let's say they come up with a new manufacturing process that's going to be able to create extremely good armor for tanks do you think that space station freedom in the united states is going to share that information with the world and especially their enemies no absolutely not let's say they come up with some new medical technology that will give them a fighting chance or an edge in biological warfare do you think that space station freedom or the united states is going to share that information with anybody aside from perhaps their allies no absolutely not and this is why i believe in free enterprise and the free market now of course there's a lot of secrets there as well but still i think that we have a better chance with this information being shared with the world if these sorts of things are being sponsored and developed by private companies universities that sort of thing as opposed to nation states i really think that the time for the nation state to dominate you know space especially low earth orbit that time has to end it has to go instead to the free market the free market is going to make everything much better patents everything else tends to be more freely shared in the free market than it is by nation states and that's something that you know we need to keep in mind when it comes to future stations so i applaud what china is trying to do but at the same time if the rest of the world allows china to establish a you know a presence in low earth orbit an exclusive presence and the iss has to be retired sometime then i think that that creates a situation that may deprive humanity of very important developments that only can be done in microgravity so the importance of these commercial stations is vital and that's why i want this competition that's why i want sierra nevada axiom nanoracks everybody else to duke it out for you know dominance in low earth orbit i hope that none of them actually achieve dominance but instead all of them have as many customers as they can possibly handle and they all make a lot of money doing this this is what i would love to see happen with all of these companies but what is really going to happen is yet to develop but it's going to develop in the next few years and it's a very exciting time to be interested in this particular topic if you like what i talk about once again i need to emphasize monetization is a very very fickle thing monetization can drop by 60 percent in just a couple of days and it has a big impact on my channel if there's any way that i can be supported by my viewers i'm always very thrilled and humbled that folks you know do that and quite a few do so thank you so much for that it's all in the description there are many different ways to support this channel however like i say if you can't a like and a subscribe and i will be very happy either way but until we discover who's going to win this race if anybody actually wins it some you know that may not even happen which is the scenario as i just said that i approve but until this race comes to its conclusion and we have the first commercial station in orbit and all of the things that that means to the future of mankind and to space flight and our exploration of the solar system i urge all of you to stay angry about space [Music] you

Channel: The Angry Astronaut

Views: 68,846

Keywords: Space, SpaceX, Crew Dragon, Dreamchaser, SNC, Axiom Space, Space Station, ISS, Nanoracks, SN15, SN11, BN2, Vulcan Centaur, Boca Chica, Angry Astronaut

Id: R-W-qC0Bmfw

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021