Word: orbitally
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Seager said the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be launched in 2013 and orbit the earth at a height of one million miles, will have a lens seven times bigger than that of the Spitzer telescope...
Many NASA critics take it further. The agency's role, they say, should be to explore the far reaches of the universe by roving robot, leaving Earth's orbit and the moon to the private sector. "We're in this transition zone, where the Lewis and Clark role of NASA has been done on the human side," says space activist and rabble rouser Rick Tumlinson, founder of Orbital Outfitters. "Now it's time for the settlers and shopkeepers to move...
...betting $250 million just to get Virgin Galactic started. Rutan plans to build at least 40 spaceships and expects to be run ragged by other clients. "I know this is an interim step," says Rutan, 63. "Fifteen years from now, every kid will know he can go to orbit in his lifetime...
Luckily, space is a gold mine. A geologist by training, Benson points out that all those comets and asteroids tumbling around in near-Earth orbit contain water and minerals. Water's components--hydrogen and oxygen--are the building blocks of life and a darn good rocket fuel as well. Some estimates put the number of asteroidal water deposits at 5 million. Some metallic asteroids have 100 times the concentration of gold of any mines on earth today. (Earth's gold results from some of those asteroids crashing into the planet.) "While exploration is going on, we can use those natural...
...most important reason we're going to space is not known now," says Rutan, who also points to similarities with the early computer industry, which evolved from the Army's need to improve its ballistics calculations. He and Branson have 100 engineers looking at new technology for both orbital and suborbital flights as well as lunar flybys in a "glass bubble." On Necker, the two men pored over ideas for a plane that would fly orbitally, cutting flying time between New York City and London to 20 min. once in orbit...