Posted on 06/30/2004 5:42:32 AM PDT by presidio9
Amid all the acclaim for Burt Rutan, spaceship designer, and pilot Mike Melvill, who carried off their private manned expedition to suborbital space last week, the bigger miracle may have been committed by the sponsors of the X Prize.
The group had been keeping up appearances since 1996, but only recently found a way to fully fund its promised $10 million prize -- a bow here to Anousheh Ansari, the Iranian-born telecom entrepreneur who devoted a small chunk of her bubble-era fortune to the cause. Peter Diamandis, the X Prize founder, expected that some $100 million would end up being invested by 27 groups in pursuit of the trophy. Mr. Rutan alone spent a rumored $20 million to get to last week's launch, which brings the prize within reach if he can repeat the performance twice in two weeks with three people aboard (or equivalent ballast).
Others may not be directly pursuing the prize, but there's no doubt that a self-reinforcing buzz about commercial space travel has called forth millions of dot-com winnings to capitalize a new industry. You've heard some of the names: Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com is the moneybags behind the low-profile operation Blue Origin, engaged in designing a space vehicle. Elon Musk, who reaped a fortune when he sold PayPal to eBay, created Space Exploration Technologies to develop a cheap rocket for blasting satellites and tourists into orbit. Bigelow Aerospace was created by Las Vegas hotel chain owner Robert Bigelow, to develop an inflatable space station cum tourist hotel.
Starry-eyed though they may be, they aren't crazy. Mr. Rutan always chooses his words delicately, referring to Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, who has invested a reported $20 million in the cause, as his "customer." That's because the "customer" is destined to remain somebody on the ground looking up, at least until certain loose ends in Washington are tied up.
As all involved seem to agree, rescuing human space travel -- a stagnant industry whose best days are 30 years in the past -- from NASA's palsied monopoly means surmounting one giant, possibly fatal obstacle. No, it's not gravity, deadly space radiation or even the tedium of long space voyages. Rather, the whole industry will come a cropper when, if not before, a predictable event happens: the death of a real customer for private space travel.
That many of the millions that have poured into the business come from dot-commers is explainable by one fact: They worked in computer electronics where mishaps and faulty designs meant only that screens went dark and PCs had to be rebooted. In contrast, Mr. Rutan, a hardened aircraft designer, frequently is vitriolic whenever anybody mentions the government, which he blames for making it "unaffordable to fly into space." Asked last week when he'd start accepting paying passengers for his now-proven SpaceShipOne, his answer was essentially "never" -- because it might cost upwards of $200 million to get the ship certified for passengers by the FAA.
Not without reason, folks in the space travel industry cite the near-extinction of the general aviation business in the name of "safety." Until Congress intervened, lawsuits drove manufacturers out of the business, leaving enthusiasts less safe because they were stuck flying aircraft that had been built and certified 50 years earlier.
Commercial space travel would undoubtedly pose more risk to the average millionaire than, say, scuba diving or puttering around in a Cessna. Commercial operators could be counted on, however, to supply exactly as much safety as customers are willing to pay for. Mr. Rutan and his tiny team of designers decided to forgo pressure suits and space helmets in their craft; emergency escape was through a hole in the floor and a parachute. Two things broke on last week's flight, including a trim tab that led to an unexpected 90-degree roll.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
SpaceCraft with "N" numbers are just plain cool!!!
It cost too much to make bathrooms convenient for the handicapped?
Seeing as the FAA did such a fine job protecting us having approved those flimsy cockpit doors on commercial aircraft. I guess it's no surprise that the major aerospace corporations like the system just fine because they can afford the bureaucracy and the government owns the liability.
Hopefully an astute observer would have noticed the new railroad tracks leading to the buildings before anything happened.
Ping :-)
Yeah, that'd do it. But before then, somebody's going to have to figure out a way to make money on the deal in the first place. The market for suborbital flights is pretty constrained, and the cost of developing a re-usable orbital vehicle is a whole lot more (~$1 billion) than Rutan's current version.
The commercial dilemma is to a) find something that people will pay for that b) can't be done easier and cheaper with an expendable vehicle.
After the control system failure on their last flight, I think Mr. Rutan's group may be doing their own review of integration and test methods.
Just a guess, but it sounds like they had a rate gyro failure, or something of that nature. I don't know whether test would have picked that up, but it does seem rather soon to have that sort of failure.
Most likely.
The space eleveator with the use of nano tubes will be the way to get into space.
Highly ironic, poetic, worth a book of its own--it all comes down to the ride, yet again. Not science, not exploration, just bragging rights. Only the few will be able to afford it, and going orbital will make them oh-so-special. Gods of the gravity-free zone. Looking down on the rest of us ants.
Space Ping! This is the Space Ping List! Let me know if you want on or off this list!
Iranians here ping
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