While I’m generally loath to bandy about the phrase “NewSpace”, it seems particularly fitting in the context of a just-released video that does a darn fine job of summarizing where we are at this particular moment in time in developing a more commercially-oriented space industry in the U.S.
Were I a couple of decades younger, I might consider the industry a great place to be a part of something new and growing, sort of like how the computer industry was back in the late 70s/early 80s, when I was plugging away on a TI-99/4A and a Kaypro IV at home and TRS-80s, Apple IIcs and IIes in junior high and high school. Even tried to teach myself CP/M. (unsuccessfully)
Thing is, there was a fledgling private space industry back in the 1980s, too. Microgravity science payloads were lining up to fly on the Shuttle (till Challenger), the Conestoga launched from Texas (unsuccessfully), and folks were trying to get a crew-tended space station to orbit, the Industrial Space Facility (unsuccessfully).
There is great promise in the human spaceflight industry, but that promise is fragile. It needs nurturing and careful cultivation if it is to grow to become a significant contributor to U.S. (and global) prosperity. One way that everyone can support the space industry is to join a space society. Doesn’t matter which one - just join one if you haven’t already. Now is the time.
Things got started with a brief intro from the Texas Secretary of State, Esperanza Andrade, who extolled the virtues of doing business in the great state of Texas. One point she didn’t make (but I like to) is that Texas used to be considered worthless scrub land by pretty much everyone. It’s a harsh, stark, austere state with much danger awaiting the unwary,and those who do thrive here tend to be of a stouter stock than in most places. The harshness of the land also makes for a very pragmatic mindset. It is very difficult to wrest prosperity from the lands of Texas, and once wrested folks tend to be very possessive of it. That’s part of why we only let our legislature meet every other year. There’s work to be done and we don’t need political tomfoolery distracting folks from the tasks at hand.
Texas is, in my view, a perfect of analogy for the development of the near space frontier. If we can make Texas of all places a pleasant place to live (heaven on Earth for some of us), then we can make pretty much anywhere a pleasant place to live and that definitely includes the Moon.
One point she did make was that Texas has 30+ universities and 20 high schools that offer aeronautical courses.
Next up was Wayne Hale from NASA, a well-regarded commenter on the state of the organization. The essence of his talk was the question “Do we want to be China or do we want to be Portugal?” In this case we’re talking the 15th Century, when China was in the process of shutting down its huge Imperial fleet at the same time that Portugal was ramping up its exploration and trading efforts. One point that Wayne made regarded the mindset of the decision-makers in China, who were seeing the results of all the tradestuffs streaming back to Beijing and decided that hey, China had the best of everything already, the highest culture, the most advanced sciences, the biggest armies, the best food; for what did they need the rest of the world?
Except that it was Portugal and its European competitors, and their offshoots, which led the world into the 21st century, and now China is doing a very effective job of catch-up. So which do we want to be? The monolithic empire that seems to think it is the best at everything? Or one of the competitors for the abundant resources and energy of space that will be leading the world into the 25th century?
The first panel looked at the impact of the space economy. One number that was bandied about quite a bit was the $261.7Bn that the space sector contributes to the world economy. That’s not chump change, and it’s set to get bigger. Patti Grace Smith, formerly with the FAA and now an advisor to Bigelow Aerospace, was joined by Ken Bowersox of SpaceX, Dr. George Sowers of ULA, and Carl Walz of Orbital Sciences.
I did get to ask a question during this panel, so I asked the group if any effort was being made to design to a common payload interface, such that if I, as an entrepreneur, developed some kind of Murphy Coupe with rich Corinthian leather seats and an Apple-designed ergonomic interface, would I be able to stick it on any of the launchers proposed with basically no adaptation. Kind of like how I can stick a USB flash drive into a Dell, or HP, or Apple, or Fujitsu, or whatever. The answer from Dr. Sowers was noteworthy, in that he indicated that the military had the same concern with swapping payloads between launchers (the whole point of having multiple launch vehicles in the stable), and so had a Standard Interface Spec that both rockets were designed to.
This is encouraging, as it means there is going to be more opportunity for space vehicles to be separated launch vehicles in the context of who manufactures them. SpaceX shouldn’t care what launch vehicle their Dragons launch on, so long as people are buying Dragons. In fact, during a stand-down of the Falcon-9 (and SpaceX will have them, just like everyone else), the ability to continue to generate cash flows from the continuing sale of Dragon capsules could be a key strategic consideration. This also means that someone like Murphydyne Industries could design and build space vehicles without also having to design and build launch vehicles. That’s how entrepreneurial opportunities arise.
The next panel was on Green Space - Economic Growth at the Intersection of the Environment, Energy and Space. It was led by the host of the proceedings, Richard Phillips,and featured Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher of CSC, Nancy Colleton of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, and Dan Thoma of Iridium. Adm. Lautenbacher was an engaging speaker, and spoke a bit about the biggest little company you’ve never heard of, CSC. Ms. Colleton noted the key role that Earth observation satellites play in the global economy, as well as the disconnect that people have regarding even the existence of such things. She was the first of many during the conference to note the quote offered up by some rube: “What do we need NOAA for? We’ve got the Weather Channel!”
I got to ask my second and last question of the day to Mr. Thoma, who had noted during his remarks that Iridium was in the process of working up the financing for their next round of satellites in a couple of years. I asked in general what kind of approach were they taking for the financing? Syndicated loan, debt instruments, or what? He said what. In this case Export Trade Credits, which can be financed. Sort of like accounts receivable financing, but not exactly. I can’t think of a better example at the moment since I haven’t looked at that sort of thing in a long while. He also noted that less that 10% of the Earth is served by terrestrial wireless, so definitely an ongoing market for satcomms.
During the lunch break we were treated to a canned pitch for the status quo from Congressman Pete Olsen, which was rather ambivalently received by the attendees, and a much livelier talk from Esther Dyson, who talked about her adventures in the space field.
The first set of presentations after lunch was on Universal Communications and the Promise of Global Connectivity. Greg Pelton of Cisco IRIS talked about the various ways that Cisco is looking at things like how to do IP (internet protocol IP, not intellectual property IP) in space. He noted that the latency of using GEO sats in the comm pipe is actually competitive with terrestrial wireless, and that expectations of consumers dropped once everyone started using cell phones. Also more advance stuff like machine to machine (M2M) and ‘cognition’ (in the sense of awareness of location in space (via GPS signals) and the ability of the sat to communicate.
James Hollopeter, of GIT Satellite Communications, talked about where the rubber meets the road, and how his company works as a middleman to work with consumers (individuals or, mostly, businesses) and satcomm suppliers to craft the best solution for both. Which is one of the best ways to build long-term business relationships.
Last up, Tiffany Montague from Google Space Initiatives gave an overview of Google’s activities spacewise. It was a well-received talk, and the guys were lining up afterwards to talk with her. Yours truly included, as I wanted to cover a couple of points:
1) I wanted to thank her because Google has been bery, bery good to Out of the Cradle (and she got the cultural reference). OotC is considered a “Low Priority” website by Google Webmaster, but it shows up on the front page of a lot of space-related search queries. She averred that that spoke to the quality of the content, because you can’t game their engine. Dang she’s good.
2) I wanted to develop a bit of a rapport, so I mentioned a couple of younger folks I know that she has worked with, including Amanda Stiles (one of my competitors for Lunar expert), as well as Robbie Schingler and Jessy Cowan out at NASA Ames, so we chatted a bit about efforts like CoLab.
3) The main point of my visit was to ask her if she could get on the different Google Lunar X-Prize teams to respond to the EVA Interview requests. Eva’s had two teams so far respond to the questions she sent out through the X-Prize Foundation (and one with Will Pomerantz), so I figured maybe if Google dropped them a note encouraging them to respond we would get even more interviews up for everyone to learn more about the competition. So I’ve got to send her a reminder, one of many e-mails I’ve got to put together this weekend.
This little endeavor kept me occupied during the first half of the next panel (since I did have to wait in line), and so I only saw the last bit of Hal Hagemeier’s presentation from the National Space Security Office, and then James Baker’s talk from MEI Technologies.
The last panel of the day was on Job Growth, Entrepreneurship and U.S. Competitiveness, led by Doug Comstock of NASA IPP. Micah Walter-Range from the Space Foundation gave an overview of their recent market survey report, which shed a bit more light on the mysterious $261.7Bn figure noted above. I haven’t seen the report yet, so I don’t know the methodology used to arrive at the figures (a key bit of information if one is to do analysis), but they break down roughly as follows:
Commercial Infrastructure: $83.6Bn
Infrastructure Support: $1.2Bn
Commercial Satellite Services: $90.6Bn (yowza!)
International Governmental: $21.8Bn
Government (pres. U.S.): $64.4Bn
Commercial Space Transportation: $0.1Bn (actually, $80.0Mn, which rounds to $0.1Bn)
As I said, I don’t know how they got these figures, so I won’t comment on them (other than the remarks above). Micah’s supposed to send me a copy for the Lunar Library, so yet another e-mail to compose this weekend.
Peggy Slye of Futron provided further details, as did Mary-Lynne Dittmar, whose Dittmar Associates has done extensive market research in different space-related areas. Jeff Krukin was, of course, Jeff Krukin, and if you haven’t seen him speak then make sure to sign up for the next Space Frontier Foundation conference.
Closing remarks were provided by Richard Garriott, who covered the perils and pitfalls of being a citizen astronaut. I approached him about possibly being a speaker at the Moon Day event I’m putting together for July 18th at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field in Dallas. He’s got to check his scheduled but he indicated he’s interested. If I can get both Richard and Anousheh Ansari to speak at the event that should certainly be newsworthy. Or at least should be.
Afterwards, everyone was bused up to the Texas State History Museum at MLK and Congress for cocktails and munchies, and a long address by Buzz Aldrin. Kudos to Buzz for getting out there and proselytizing, but I’m not getting the feeling that the younger folks are really buying into it. Sure, some are, and people will always cluster to get his autograph, but does that translate into a deeper appreciation for the subject? I appreciate his efforts, but younger voices are needed. Unfortunately, the youngest man to walk on the Moon so far was born in 1936, so there’s not a big pool of talent to work with except for a whole bunch of us wannabes. I do have to admit that I’ve seen him speak many times over the years, most recently at the inauguration of efforts at Richland College to restore the Buzz Aldrin Planetarium where he gave mostly the same talk, and so it may not hold the same magic as it does for others to be in the presence of living transcendental history.
Which brings us to the topic of demographics. There were between 50-70 folks there during the day. I couldn’t identify more than about a dozen of them as being of Gen X or less. 20% isn’t bad, but it should be higher. I should drop Mr. Phillips a note about advertising the next one at the MBA school up the road at UT.
Props go out to Paragon SDC, whose man Shawn was probably the youngest person there. I’ve got to drop him a line about the Houston office of Paragon maybe participating with a display or speaker on their activities at my Moon Day event. That the company paid to send someone up to Austin for an event like this speaks well of their desire to cultivate their assets, something that’s all too rare these days. Speaking of cultivating assets, Tiffany Montague was a terrific ambassador for Google, and she was out canvasing for prospects throughout the event.
The point is, there should have been at least 70 youngsters (Gen X and under) at the event. There should have been more corporate presence from the many support companies, like Oceaneering, that have an economic presence in the state. That there wasn’t certainly wasn’t the fault of the organizers, and I think this was a terrific start to something that I hope they will continue, perhaps traveling around the great state of Texas to allow different pools of participants to contribute their own flavor to the proceedings. Texas is ripe with the kind of pioneer stock we need to get a real human spaceflight enterprise going, the kind that does generate more value than it consumes, and thereby grows the wealth of its backers.
Overall, I think it was a good conference. I learned a few things, did some networking, enjoyed the pleasures of the capitol area of the city. This was supplemented by a rather successful haul of materials for the Lunar Library from a variety of Half-Price Books (HPB) and Austin Comics, both of which I’ve been shopping since I was a little punk-a@# junior high schooler living over by the old airport back in the late 70s, fresh back from England and culture shocked beyond belief. HPB has also been bery, bery good to the Lunar Library over the years, and this year was no exception. From the hard-core 1964 edition of “Rocket Propulsion Elements” (the equations! the graphs! the diagrams! Total geek pr0n!) to a Christian fiction book, “Zero-G”, where a space tourist finds G-d.
One thing that did surprise me was the amount of local press coverage, something we don’t usually see much of up here in the metroplex. Some examples:
Next up on the space business conference circuit is the 8th Space Investment Summit on May 26th up the road in Chicago. As in years past, it’s being held in conjunction with the NSS’s International Space Development Conference, which runs through Memorial Day. The programs for both events are still being finalized, but it looks like a powerhouse line-up.
Coming up later in the summer is the dynamic duo of the NASA Lunar Science Forum 2010 from July 20th through 22nd, and then the NewSpace 2010 conference from July 23rd through 25th, both out in Silicon Valley.
Some folks may be focused on building a particular rocket, or going to a particular destination, but there are also a lot of folks focused on growing the space industry into an even greater contributor to the country’s GDP. For the latter, there are many interesting opportunities coming up in the near future.
Here in North Texas we had a treat this weekend as Armadillo Aerospace made its bid for the $1,000,000 purse of the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge at the Caddo Mills Municipal Airport just east of Dallas.
Festivities kicked off in the hangar shortly after 9am on Saturday as folks got registered and hung around waiting for the rain to let up. Anticipating such a wait I had brought my bag of Moon goodies with me, and after getting permission I set up a small display of genuine fake Moon rocks and real regolith simulant. Many a youngster was engaged for long stretches of time learning about Moon rocks and asteroids. One budding geologist was even curious about the smell and taste of anorthosite.
The delay turned out to be a long one, and it wasn’t until later in the afternoon that the weather cleared enough to make an attempt. This left some time to wander about the facilities and check out some fine American engineering.
Pixel is one of my favorites. It’s the hardware that Armadillo showed off at the ISDC here in Dallas back in 2007, and the most popular exhibit in the display room. It looks a little worse for wear now.
I didn’t expect to see an X-Racer there, but it was an opportunity to check out the plumbing and peek into the cockpit to compare the control panel with the one I had seen in the simulator at the last ISDC. Since I like taking pictures of the business end of rockets, here’s one of the Rocket Racer motor.
What’s interesting is to compare the scarring in the combustion chamber with the scarring in the combustion chamber of the Scorpius. I’m not an engineer, nor do I play one on TV, but the pattern in the Scorpius chamber appears to me to be a more efficient design, in the context that the ‘flares’ coming out from the center are more cleanly defined and regular. This tells me that the Armadillo team is getting better at what they do, and their success in this year’s Challenge is testament to that.
Local families continued to wander through, and the police and fire department folks were hanging out as well. I went through my Moon spiel more times than I can remember, but at least all of the kids now know more about the Moon than their teachers. Most folks would have given up, but we Texans knew better. There’s an old saying here in North Texas that if you don’t like the weather, just wait around a bit and it’ll change. The local weather radar was on the mission control laptop, and experienced eyes were watching the patterns for breaks in the slow gentle rain. Periodically the VIPs would stop down to check on developments, but they mostly kept to themselves. Then, mid-afternoon, the tenor changed and we got the mission briefing. It was tough to hear with the rain still coming down on the hangar roof, and the video I took only seemed to pick up on baby wails and white noise.
Concerned about the rain-slicked soil, the crane truck was fired up and the vehicle moved to a different trailer. The crane truck by itself was probably okay, but crane plus trailer plus rocket was just playing chicken with Murphy’s Law. Everyone moved out to the viewing area to wait while the rocket fueled up at the launch area. Then the countdown crackled out of the radio, and like something out of the movie “October Sky” the whole gaggle of spectators joined in - 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0…ker-thunk. Hold up, wait a minute, main igniter issue, let’s try again…ker-thunk…okay, one more time - ker-whoosh, and away she went. Like a refined lady she delicately worked her way to altitude, precisely slid through the translation, then demurely descended to a soft landing. Cheers arose amongst the spectators as the first stage of the challenge was completed.
Believe it or not, this was my first rocket launch. I’ve never seen a shuttle launch, nor anything other than model rockets. I’ve gotta say, it was pretty darn cool. I should have stuck around for the second flight, but it was after 4 in the afternoon, my lower back was in severe pain from having stood at the display since 9:30am, and my throat was raspy from jabbering away about the Moon all day, and I could tell that some kind of illness was trying to set up shop in my chilled, damp body. My memory cards were all full, so I was pretty much done for the day.
I didn’t just talk with all the kids during the day; I did speak with many of the adults as well, though the message I try to convey is a bit more sophisticated. I don’t talk about inspiration and discovery, I talk about commerce and economics. The U.S. has a competitive advantage in this industry, and the space industry has very high barriers to entry. I think Armadillo is a great example of the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that will commercialize the space industry, and they’re clearly getting better at what they do, working their way up the learning curve.
So congrats to Armadillo on their successful run. These kinds of successes are crucial for the nascent commercial space industry, so a big thank you to Armadillo Aerospace for adding another success to the growing list.
Richard Branson, as you might guess, is on my list of people who I would love to interview for EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Age™. I haven’t yet asked him to be my guest as I have a few glitches in the process of conducting these interviews that I need to work out. Until then, I thought you might be interested in a taste of what such an interview might be like with a review of his latest book Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur.
There are an increasing number of entrepreneurial space-related events and conferences happening, and here are a few that I’ve gotten notice of recently:
On short notice is the half-day symposium on THE SPACE ECONOMY, occurring next Friday morning, March 13th in D.C. The agenda can be found here. There are some interesting names supporting the event, from Cisco to Phillips & Co., in addition to the usual suspects like AAS, AIAA, CSE, GMU, ISU and SEC.
[Update: Robert Hoskins of Phillips & Co. uses some of the output of the event in an editorial in Florida Today in response to short-sighted political maneuvers, found here. Hoyt Davidson of Near Earth LLC also provides a nice summary in the June issue of From the Ground Up (pdf)]
Near Earth LLC, a capital advisory firm, has their March newsletter (pdf) out, From the Ground Up. This month they put the markets in the context of space developments, and are optimistic for the future.
Later this month, also in D.C., is the Satellite 2009 conference, from March 24-27. This is for industry, which means there’s quite a list of exhibitors. Eva and I bandied about the idea of her attending to get some interviews, but no one is buying any books, so there’s no capital to underwrite the trip. Plus, it’s unclear if we’d qualify for a media pass. And I’m going to be at the LPSC down in Houston that week.
Filling out the week in early April, from the 2nd to the 4th, is the Space Access ‘09 conference in Phoenix, AZ. This is the conference where all the rocket guys get together to talk about access to space. There’s a strong entrepreneurial spirit to this one, making it a great place to scout for talent.
Back when I was co-chair of the 2007 ISDC, I campaigned hard to get as many pre-conferences as possible held just before the ISDC, so that the results could be presented at our citizen space conference. So in addition to the Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG), we also had the Space Venture Finance Symposium (often considered the 2nd Space Investment Summit), and folks from both groups stuck around for our conference. That was repeated again in 2008 in D.C., and will be repeated again this year in conjunction with the 2009 ISDC in Orlando, FL. The 6th Space Investment Summit will be on Wednesday, May 27th. From the website:
Presentations will focus on the latest developments in the rapidly growing space tourism industry (vehicles, funding, destinations, timeframes, numbers of customers and more), as well as new cross-industry business.
Be sure to stick around for the International Space Development Conference, the largest citizen space conference in the world. From May 28-31, it will feature luminaries from all aspects of our space endeavours. I know from experience that the program will keep evolving right up to the last minute, so be sure to check regularly for updates.
Further out in the year is the NewSpace 2009 conference from the Space Frontier Foundation, from July 18-20 at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountainview, California. Waitaminit…that’s what I thought - the ISU Summer Session Program is going to be at NASA Ames from June 29 to August 28. OMG, I so have to be there for that party. I may need to bring lots of beer and Texas vodka to the festivities. Rick always appreciates a nice ice-cold Shiner Bock.
Still further out, September 14-17, is the AIAA SPACE 2009 conference & exposition in Pasadena CA. This one is a more technically oriented, and may not be as much fun as the NewSpace 2009 conference.
I’m sure there are a few that I missed, but this should give you a start on getting the lowdown on the business of space.
Howdy everyone! Welcome to this week’s spectacular Carnival of Space!
I’m your host Ken, the Lunar Librarian here at Out of the Cradle.
We don’t have to go far this week to find space. This last weekend in Washington, D.C., the National Space Society held their 27th annual International Space Development Conference. As the largest citizen space conference in the world it is open to all, even internet bloggers. And blog they did, extensively, over the three day period. The conference was even on C-SPAN! I’ve rounded up most of the links for the Lunar Library, which can be found here:
The Space Cynics want you to be sure to get a dash of cold-water reality in the face, because, well, that’s their job. Several of them were at the conference and they did some recruiting in A Gathering of Cynics, which led to a very interesting discussion and an upcoming radio show on The Space Show.
Everyone’s favorite Babe…in the Universe was there for the Space Investment Summit as well as the main conference. She’s put up a number of blog posts on the event, starting with “ISDC”. Her latest post, Convergence, has her in slightly more traditional garb. As she summarized the event:
Aloha Carnival!
Thursday saw Elon Musk and announcement of the first Space Solar Power demonstration. At Friday’s dinner, a lifetime award was given to Burt Rutan. Saturday an enthusiastic crowd saw a documentary on Apollo and live coverage of Discovery’s launch to ISS. We end at the Air and Space Museum, seeing humanity converge on a future in Space.
Thank you for hosting this week’s Carnival.
Well you’re certainly welcome Ms. Riofrio, we’re always happy to see you here at the Carnival of Space.
Librarian’s Note: Not a fancy website, these are guys who are working on making sure we have frequent and regular access to low-Earth orbit outside of NASA. They’re focused on rockets, not pretty graphics.
Details are sketchy, but it looks like the explosion centered around nitrous oxide storage tanks, leading to two fatalities and four serious injuries. A Scaled Composites truck was sighted near the blast. Scaled, maker of the first private craft to reach space, SpaceShipOne, is based at Mojave, and currently developing a larger spacecraft system for Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company owned by Richard Branson. Nitrous oxide is the liquid component of the rocket propellants used by SpaceShipOne’s hybrid rocket motor.
Somewhat to his surprise, three major aerospace companies are talking to Armadillo Aerospace about flying sensor systems on Armadillo vehicles, using them as high-altitude platforms, Neil Milburn, program manager for Armadillo Aerospace, said in a June 15 interview: Those flights are expected to begin in 2008. While not identifying the customers, Milburn said one of those companies is not a domestic U.S.company.
“So we have finally crossed over into the realm of providing actual value that people care about,” Carmack added.
For years now, John Carmack and his team have been following the mantra of “build a little, test a little” and it looks like they have learned a lot from it. All this with only relatively modest outlays in terms of money and people’s time, by aerospace standards. Maybe there’s something there that the Big Aerospace crowd could learn from that.
Howdy everyone! I’m almost done convalescing after co-chairing the ISDC, and have done a little scouting around the web to see the news that came out of it. Much of which I only got to see bits and pieces of whilst patrolling the conference making sure that everything was going okay. In no particular order:
Howdy everyone! Regular visitors to the Lunar Library know that yours truly is one of the co-chairs for the International Space Development Conference coming up over the Memorial Day weekend here in Dallas. This is the largest citizen space conference in the world, and gathers together leaders in industry, academia, research, activism and the general public to learn all of the latest goings on in the space field.
I’m a little late to the punch here, but the Space Access ‘07 conference is well under way, and it’s worth checking out the sterling job being done by the guys live blogging it:
Saturday March 24th
9 am Bill Boland, Teachers In Space
9:20 Sam Dinkin, SpaceShot
9:40 Masten Space
10:20 break
11 am Ken Davidian, “NASA ESMD’s Approach to NewSpace”
11:40 Jeff Greason, XCOR Aerospace
12:30 break for lunch
2 pm Leik Myrabo, Lightcraft Progress
2:40 Panel, The New Space Investment Climate - Esther Dyson,
Stephen Fleming, Joe Pistritto
3:30 break
4 pm Panel, How Are We Doing? - Jeff Foust, Jon Goff, Rand Simberg,
Henry Vanderbilt
4:45 Rick Tumlinson, Space Frontier Foundation
5 pm Paul Breed, Unreasonable Rocket
5:15 Dave Ketchledge, The Next Shuttle
5:30 Alex Bruccoleri
late - Hospitality closes - see you next time!
This guy has had to turn down the suborbital spaceflight he won from an Oracle promotion, because he can’t afford to pay the tax on the value of the prize.
It’s hard not to feel sorry for the guy - if it was me’ i’d be devastated. Luckily for me (though the chances of me winning a spaceflight at this point are remote), I live in a country where winnings are not taxed as income. Yet. (And I live in New Zealand, if you think you’re in the running for a spaceflight prize and you’re looking for a new place to live).
Seriously though, you’d think that the competition organizers would have put some thought into this, and organized a cash co-prize to cover the taxes. I know that this is what Sam at FreeSpaceShot does.
Over at Transterrestrial Musings, Rand Simberg has a good explanation of the difference between average and marginal flight costs for space launch vehicles, and why higher flight rates should lead to lower average costs per flight.
Anousheh Ansari is safely back on Earth, and still blogging. I strongly recommend that you read everything she has written; her style is lucid and heartfelt, she includes detail and emotion that most astronauts to date have not, and she really conveys the feeling of ‘being there’. If you are interested in space, you will enjoy her blog.
But Shubber Ali of the Space Cynics blog would like us all to take a deep breath (or a cold shower) and get some perspective. Of Ansari’s flight, he says:
This isn’t HISTORIC.
It WON’T get you to space.
She’s RICH, you AREN’T.
She isn’t the first person to BLOG.
Normally, I appreciate the Space Cynics for providing some much-needed counterpoint to all the starry-eyed optimism out there, but on this occasion I think that Shubber has missed the point by a country mile.
You only have to look at the hundreds - and hundreds - and hundreds - of comments. Shubber looks at them and is annoyed by the hyperbole. I look at them and see a great many people, and not just the ‘usual suspects’ pouring out their passion for space. It’s not “Anousheh worship” - she just struck a chord, and reached people in a way that NASA and the other space agencies have never managed to do.
People care about this stuff - people outside the space advocacy community. Give them even the smallest whiff of it, in the personal and accessible way that Anousheh Ansari has, and look at the outpouring that resulted. The overwhelmingly positive response to her flight has been surprising (to me, anyway). I didn’t think that people would care that another rich person flew to space. I’m sure that the blog, and Anousheh’s intimate and evocative descriptions of her experience, are the key. In that, she is unique; I don’t know of anyone else who has related her space experience as powerfully as Anousheh.
As I said, normally the Space Cynics provide a very useful reality check. On this occasion though, Shubber’s response comes across as sour grapes. He’s right that Anousheh’s trip is just one rich woman’s extreme vacation, but he’s looking at the wrong thing.
The point is not that Anousheh is somehow special because she flew to space. What is special is how she has reached people, and tapped into a strong and positive undercurrent of public feeling about space. We need more of that.
It’s been two years since SpaceShipOne soared into space on a suborbital trajectory to win the X-Prize. If things have seemed a little quiet since then, you’re probably hearing the silence left over when all the laughing stopped.
If the X-Prize did one thing, it was to strike a decisive blow in the fight to make entrepreneurial space credible.
But those who backed the prize are predictably not content with doing just one thing, and as Alan Boyle points out, they have a lot more in store.
And you can have it, too, for a cool $1.7 million. It’s in this year’s Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog. Your very own SpaceShipTwo flight with five of your closest friends, and a stay at Richard Branson’s retreat in the Virgin Islands to top it all off.
I’d post more, but I feel the need to write an urgent letter to Santa…
Condolences from the OotC team to everyone who worked so hard on this launch. It’s always disappointing when something goes wrong, but I’m sure that they will learn from it and try again.
These are very early days indeed for commercial spaceflight, and just getting something built and flown is a real achievement. In the meantime, back to the drawing board, and don’t be too discouraged: look how many failures the early space program had to go through - and they had virtually unlimited budget and resources.
Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log is reporting that Blue Origin has won an experimental permit to conduct flight tests from their Van Horn, Texas, launch site.
With permit in hand, Blue Origin can proceed with plans for unmanned testing at the West Texas site. The company said in its environmental assessment that up to 10 rocket tests could be conducted this year, using a remote-controlled vehicle that would rise no higher than 2,000 feet (610 meters) during flights lasting less than a minute.
Over the next couple of years, the tests would become increasingly ambitious, leading to piloted flights in the 2009-2010 time frame. Blue Origin’s environmental assessment calls for suborbital passenger service to begin in 2010, with roughly one flight per week.
Sam Dinkin of FreeSpaceShot.com gives us the run-down on his new free skill game, where contestants can compete for flights to space, and even a shot around the Moon.
