The great leap up

The Age ^ | 6/21/04

[Valin]

Today marks a breakthrough in the final frontier for space tourists, writes science reporter Stephen Cauchi.

Late tonight, if all goes to plan, there will be a space flight like no other. SpaceShipOne, the world's first privately built, manned spaceship, will take-off from a runway in California.

For would-be space tourists on a budget, it is a momentous occasion. For in a decade or so, they will probably be able to earn the ultimate thrill — their astronaut wings — as passengers in a craft very much like it.

SpaceShipOne will not go fast enough to orbit the Earth. But it will soar past the threshold of Earth's atmosphere and into space, hang briefly at an altitude of 100 kilometres, and then glide back to the runway. This is generally considered to be the boundary where space begins.

To be launched into the Mojave Desert sky, the innovative vehicle is the dreamchild of Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft. Allen is the sponsor of the craft, which was designed by aviation legend Burt Rutan and the aerospace company Scaled Composites. A test flight on May 13 by pilot Mike Melvill successfully reached a height of 60 kilometres.

Advertisement Advertisement "Since Yuri Gagarin and Al Shepard's epic flights in 1961, all (manned) space missions have been flown only under large, expensive government efforts," says Rutan.

"By contrast, our program involves a few dedicated individuals who are focused entirely on making spaceflight affordable . . . the SpaceShipOne flights will . . . encourage others to usher in a new, low-cost era in space travel."

The $US20 million ($A29.3 million) suborbital craft shoots right up and comes right down, whereas most manned spacecraft, like the space shuttle, orbit Earth.

But to obtain orbital velocity a much greater speed is needed (a typical orbital height of 300 kilometres requires a speed of 7.7 kilometres per second). At its peak SpaceShipOne will reach Mach 3 — over 1 kilometre per second.

Its design is inspired partly by NASA's experimental X-15 hypersonic jets of the 1960s, which were released at high altitude from B-52 bombers before soaring to the threshold of space (one reached 100 kilometres in 1963).

So how does it work? SpaceShipOne will be slung underneath a carrier aircraft, the White Knight, which will take off from the runway at Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Centre, a commercial airport. The pair will taxi out for take-off at 11.30pm tonight Victorian time (6.30am Californian time).

White Knight will take about an hour before it reaches its assigned altitude of 47,000 feet (15 kilometres). At this point, White Knight will release SpaceShipOne. Then, the as-yet-unnamed pilot of the craft, who is flying solo, will fire his rocket motor for about 80 seconds, reaching Mach 3 in a vertical climb. During the pull-up and climb, the pilot encounters G-forces three-to-four times the gravity of the earth.

SpaceShipOne then soars up to its goal height of 100 kilometres before falling back to earth. The pilot experiences a weightless environment for more than three minutes and, like normal astronauts, will see the black of space, the curve of the earth, and a thin blue atmospheric line on the horizon.

As it returns to earth, the pilot will configure the craft's wing and tail into a so-called "high-drag" configuration, allowing it to glide gently back onto the runway. After release from White Knight, SpaceShipOne's solo flight time is 25 minutes.

SpaceShipOne will later compete for the $US10 million Ansari X prize, an international competition to create a reusable aircraft that can launch three passengers into space, return them safely home, then repeat the launch within two weeks with the same vehicle. It is equipped with another two seats for passengers.

The privately sponsored Ansari X prize is directly inspired by the $US25,000 Orteig prize offered in 1919 to the first person who could fly from New York to Paris (successfully claimed by Charles Lindbergh in 1927).

Twenty groups, including Scaled Composites, are competing for it: UK-based Bristol Spaceplanes, for example, is designing the Ascender Spaceplane; the Canadian Da Vinci project, an air-launched craft from a hot air balloon; and the Russian Suborbital corporation, the Cosmopolis, which like SpaceshipOne, is lifted to high altitude by another aircraft.

Free enterprise and space are not unknown to each other. There are numerous privately built satellites orbiting Earth. Companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin have long built rockets for the space industry, but usually for government-owned space agencies like NASA.

But there are also entirely privately owned launch programs such as the Boeing-funded Sea Launch. This launches private rockets from a floating platform near the equator.

And there have been private space "tourists" such as Dennis Tito who have paid millions for the privilege of flying with astronauts on the government-funded International Space Station.

But according to Ansari X, private manned sub-orbital flights promise to tap four new markets: space tourism; low-cost satellite launching; same-day package delivery and hypersonic point-to-point passenger travel — LA to London in two hours, for example.

Kirby Ikin, the head of Sydney-based Asia Pacific Aerospace Consultants and chairman of the Australian Space Industry Chamber of Commerce, said space tourism would be the first of these that would be exploited.

"SpaceShipOne is clearly going to open the space tourism market. It's going to show this is real, it's affordable, it's doable. This is assuming they're successful," he told The Age.

"There are a large number of people interested in the sub-orbital tourist market and this should hopefully open the door to that being a very real market in the not-too-distant future."

Ikin said tonight's launch would be "a hugely historic moment". According to the X Prize chairman Peter Diamandis, the cost of a seat will eventually drop to $US10,000. And while Dennis Tito trained for six months, suborbital passengers might need a week of training. US-based space consultants Futron predict sub-orbital and orbital tourism will be a billion-dollar-plus industry by 2021.

Ikin agrees with these predictions. "There is a certain subset of adventure traveller who spends, already, $250,000 a year on adventure travel. I'd like to think within a year or so there'll be more people thinking very seriously about marketing sub-orbital flights."

Space Adventures, the company that arranged Tito's trip to the space station, is considered a key player and Australia has been cited as a potential launch site for suborbital flights.

Those lucky enough to experience suborbital flights will grab a few minutes of zero- G, plus some fantastic views. But what about the full orbital experience, of circling the planet for days on end?

That's another matter. Ikin believes private manned orbital flights are "inevitable", but could be decades away. Craft, such as the space shuttle that obtain orbital velocity, must reach speeds six or seven times that of SpaceShipOne and must deal with the intense heat of re-entry from orbital speeds — heat that would burn a sub-orbital flight to a cinder.

"The difference between orbital and suborbital is quite significant in terms of technology," said Ikin. "I think it's inevitable, but the hard part is working out whether that is five, 10 or 50 years away."

[Pukin Dog]

This could have been written by Paul Allen's publicist. Burt Rutan dreamed up this baby, and Paul Allen put up the dough. Too many reporters want to kiss Allen's ass because he supports all things liberal.

[Semper Paratus]

NASA is about to lose its space monopoly in the US.

'bout time!

[Valin]

I got to be honest, I could really care less who funded it. Paul Allen's got the money to do this GREAT. There are worse things he could be doing with this money.

[wolficatZ]

Will this flight be broadcast or monitored anywhere like the internet?

[Valin]

Don't know, hope so.

[wolficatZ]

Will this flight be broadcast live or monitored anywhere like the internet?

[SunkenCiv]

But to obtain orbital velocity a much greater speed is needed (a typical orbital height of 300 kilometres requires a speed of 7.7 kilometres per second). At its peak SpaceShipOne will reach Mach 3 — over 1 kilometre per second.

Kevin: A ping for your space list (older topic).

George W. Bush will be reelected by a margin of at least ten per cent