Estes and friends! (NASA, spacex, and blue origin)

[CoolRockets]

Hi all, I’ve noticed that Estes has only recently stepped into the realm of private space companies. I’m wondering if they will ever step into the realm a bit further (ESA, Ariane space, astra, virgin orbit, etc.) if anyone has guesses, please comment

 

[Antares JS]

Estes tried to make an Ariane but Arianespace wanted royalties that were too high.

I doubt Astra will survive much into 2024. Virgin Orbit is already gone.

 

[CoolRockets]

Galactic. I meant virgin galactic

 

[cls]

20 years ago, Estes sold kits of all the X Prize contenders... of which, Rutan and Space Ship 1 won. Estes made a BT60? SS1 model, and a huge E powered styrofoam model. That one was fragile.

The designs of the other X Prize entrants ranged from entirely conventional (Canadian Arrow, a long V2) to radical.

Would be difficult to clone many of them, special parts, odd size body tubes, weird nose cones.

I bet you can find them in the 2004ish era catalogs.

 

[CoolRockets]

20 years ago, Estes sold kits of all the X Prize contenders... of which, Rutan and Space Ship 1 won. Estes made a BT60? SS1 model, and a huge E powered styrofoam model. That one was fragile.

The designs of the other X Prize entrants ranged from entirely conventional (Canadian Arrow, a long V2) to radical.

Would be difficult to clone many of them, special parts, odd size body tubes, weird nose cones.

I bet you can find them in the 2004ish era catalogs.

I have one of the X prize kits, it’s the rubicon. I’m suprized it’s not a skill level 4

 

[mh9162013]

Like @Antares JS already brought up, I think the primary challenges relate to legal/greed issues.

 

[Antares JS]

Like @Antares JS already brought up, I think the primary challenges relate to legal/greed issues.

That and demand.

Not sure how many people would want a model of Astra's Rocket 3 since it had a high failure rate that led to the company abandoning it for an upgraded design. Rocket 4 may or may not ever happen with the cash flow problems they are currently having. They just had to do a reverse stock split to keep their stock listed as it had been below $1.00 for a while.

In the case of SpaceShipTwo, it's an airplane-like blended body design that would create big manufacturing headaches for something that would likely be rather niche since it would either have to be an annoying-to-make RTF or close to it, or a high-difficulty builder's kit. Either one would limit sales to a small fraction of rocketeers.

Maybe a Rocketlab Electron would work, but it's a rocket known for being small and launching small payloads. It doesn't exactly have the same kind of recognition and wow factor as the Saturn V.