Going Private: The Promise and Danger of Space Travel
By Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
posted: 30 September 2004
7:00 a.m. ET
A flurry of space tourism milestones and announcements in recent
days signals that human spaceflight is shifting from governments to
the private sector, space experts say.
After years of promises, the industry is suddenly blossoming. Yet
as regular folks thunder into the unknown, risk will likely
grow.
Commercial zero-gravity jaunts became available for the first time
this month. A successful manned space flight took place yesterday.
And earlier this week, entrepreneurs announced a $50 million prize
for the first private orbiting vessel, as well as public flights
into space as early as 2007.
"It's going to transform everything," George Whitesides, executive
director of the National Space Society, said of private space
tourism efforts. "This is an unbelievable bumper year for human
spaceflight."
Increased risk?
Yesterday pilot Mike Melvill -- the first civilian astronaut --
again flew the privately built SpaceShipOne to suborbital height in
a very public launch that drew crowds of people and was broadcast
live on the Internet. The flight was the first of two planned
launch attempts to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize, a
competition designed to spur construction of reusable manned
spacecraft.
While successful, the flight had its share of danger, when
SpaceShipOne went into an unexpected roll near the top of its
trajectory, spinning some 20 times. The incident, combined with a
control issue during a previous SpaceShipOne flight, highlights the
risk inherent in space travel.
That risk, present during the entire Space Age, could grow as the
industry is privatized.
"Private individuals are willing to take risks that government
[agencies] can't take," explained Howard McCurdy, a space historian
and professor of public affairs at American University in
Washington, D.C. "I think [the X Prize] clearly has a Lindburgh
effect that is drawing attention to the field."
The big unknown in all this may be the extent to which people
really want pay for joy rides off the planet. It appears there will
soon be no shortage of tickets to buy.
Building a spaceflight industry
It has been three years since Dennis Tito paid several million
dollars for a trip to the International Space Station. Since then,
the idea of space tourism seemed to get a bit stale. Little else
happened.
Suddenly the industry has been galvanized by the X Prize flight and
four significant announcements this month:
* Zero gravity flights - X Prize Foundation president Peter
Diamandis and his Zero Gravity Corp. now offer weightlessness to
the public in high-altitude roller-coaster rides aboard a modified
airplane. Ticket price: $3,000.
* Space tourism - British entrepreneur Richard Branson will launch
Virgin Galactic, relying on licensed SpaceShipOne technology, with
plans to send 3,000 people to space by 2009. Ticket price:
$208,000.
* America's Space Prize - Nevada millionaire Robert Bigelow will
develop a $50 million prize for the first orbital passenger
vehicle.
* Dream Chaser - NASA researchers will collaborate with the firm
SpaceDev to develop new hybrid rocket technologies, which SpaceDev
hopes will propel a reusable, crewed spacecraft dubbed Dream
Chaser.
The X Prize has helped turned the fantasy of space travel into a
near reality. But as the $10 million purse is on the verge of being
awarded, parallel dreams are also about to be realized.
"This is the pinnacle result of efforts from a lot of people, and
it's not just about the X Prize," said Rick Tumlinson, founder of
the Space Frontier Foundation. "There is an entire industry out
thereĀ
a new space industry that has branched off and built on its
past."
Starting with satellite construction and launches, private space
industry has gradually reached the point where it can catapult
private citizens into space. Multiple ways to access the black void
and a robust commercial space infrastructure will help secure a
human foothold out there, Tumlinson told SPACE.com.
NASA shifting gears
Meanwhile, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and a changing
culture at NASA are dramatically altering the playing field.
Consider that the only two manned space flights planned in the
Americas for the remainder of this year are by private firms:
SpaceShipOne's second attempt and a Canadian effort that is
currently on hold.
With its shuttle fleet grounded until at least March of 2005,
NASA's next crew of astronauts must rely on a Russian Soyuz
spacecraft to get off the planet. The shuttle problem illustrates
why many think a different approach is needed to sustain a healthy
spaceflight industry.
"You do not want a single point of failure," Tumlinson said. "If
it's all crammed into one giant government vehicle, then we're
doomed from the start and it will fail."
McCurdy said NASA has already begun revamping its relationship with
the private space industry.
In addition to the NASA Ames-SpaceDev partnership, the agency has
had a standing relationship with Florida's United Space Alliance
(USA) to service and prepare its space shuttle fleet for each
mission. The agency also plans to offer its own cash prizes for
space accomplishments, another sign the agency is learning from
private industry, McCurdy said. He added that such prizes, like
insurance incentives, are just one way the government can support
new industries.
Riskier than a 747
The current spirit of today's privately funded human spaceflight
efforts is akin to that of NASA's suborbital Mercury program in the
1960s, McCurdy said. But there are stark differences, too.
Spaceflight then was a matter of national prestige, with NASA and
the U.S. reluctant to stretch risks of both pilots or
spacecraft.
Commercial firms have a little more breathing room when it comes to
risk.
"We must live with these risks and the possibility to fail,"
Diamandis said during yesterday's SpaceShipOne flight. "Without
taking risks, there are no breakthroughs."
Burt Rutan, the engineer behind SpaceShipOne, told SPACE.com in a
Sept. 23 telephone interview that there is "no way" that
SpaceShipOne would be as safe as a 747 jetliner. Instead, he said,
he and his team are aiming at achieving the safety rates of the
early airliners.
"This isn't like flying airplanes, or United," said Whitesides, of
the NSS. "What they are doing is hard." He added that preparing for
the new risks can mean adjustments as a culture and as a
society.
"Space is risky, and somewhere, sometime over the next 10 years, we
have to expect things are not always going to go well, and we have
to ready for that," Whitesides said in a telephone interview.
Despite the increased risk, people will pay for a ride that goes
fast and a ride that goes high, analysts say.
For example, adventure seekers and mountaineers pay upwards of
$100,000 to scale mountains such as Everest or the challenging K2,
knowing they might not return.
"But still, people are clamoring to go," McCurdy said. "There
appears to be this incredible draw for some people."
On a regular airplane, McCurdy said, the risk of not making it to
your destination is about 1 in 10 million, while on a military
combat mission the odds are about 1 in 23,000. Military risk
levels, rather than the current 1 in 50 for human spaceflight,
could be a good target for Rutan's and other spacecraft, he
added.
Tourism: An ugly word
Even as the media and public may fixate on the recent spate of
space tourism announcements, Tumlinson sees the "space tourist"
label as a limiting factor to the developing industry.
"It's sort of derogatory to think of all the people who would be
flying in space as tourists," he said. "I do see tourism as a small
part of a potentially larger market."
Space tourism, he says, is currently being seized upon as a "magic
bullet" for the private space industry, while the future of
sustainable spaceflight lies in steadfast progress toward a
reliable orbital infrastructure that could serve as both an
industrial base and a gateway to deep space.
Ultimately, according to analysts and entrepreneurs, it could be
asteroid mining or planetary migration that would support the
private spaceflight industry, rather than merely
thrill-seeking.
"I'm excited, but I'm cautious," Tumlinson said, of this year's
private human spaceflight activity. "I think this time we may have
something real, we have a lot of momentum building."