The Space Show has a couple of recent space tourism-themed shows that may be of interest to listeners. On Sunday John Spencer of the Space Tourism Society was on the show, while tonight (Monday) at 10 pm EDT Jane Reifert of Incredible Adventures will be on the show (a recording of which should be available on the show’s web site in the next day or so, if you miss it tonight.)
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In an essay in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman sees the launch of Genesis 1 last week as a key milestone towards the eventual development of space hotels. As he writes:
He notes, though, that there are many challenges ahead for the company. “The real challenge for the company and its leadership will be to see how well it handles the inevitable setbacks.” While the official announcement isn’t due until later today, the AP reports that New Mexico officials have come up with a new name for the Southwest Regional Spaceport: Spaceport America. The name’s genesis is interesting:
The old name, New Mexico Economic Development Secretary Rick Homans explained, was “a mouthful to pronounce” (true) and “didn’t reflect the cutting-edge vision of the project” (I dunno, “spaceport” sounds pretty cutting-edge to me.) Spaceport America, on the other hand, “is less parochial and solidifies New Mexico’s spot as the premiere spaceport destination in North America.” One imagines, though, that the name is a little off-putting to places like California, Florida, Alaska, Virginia, and Oklahoma, which have spaceports already or have them under active development. Daisuke “Dice-K” Enomoto, the next orbital space tourist, appeared at a press conference Thursday in Houston along with members of Expedition 14, the next long-duration ISS crew. The press conference itself didn’t get much press attention, since the STS-121 shuttle mission to the ISS is in progress, but NewScientist.com offers an overview. Briefly, he’s eager to experience weightlessness and take some pictures of the Earth and space while on the station. Also, “If all goes well, Enomoto says he would consider starting a business related to human space flight.” However, all hasn’t necessarily been going well for Dice-K outside of his space training. The Japanese newspaper The Daily Yomiuri reports that Enomoto failed to report to Japanese tax authorities three billion yen ($26 million) in income earlier this decade and thus has been levied with 350 million yen ($3 million) in fines. That problem came up during the press conference Thursday, and Enomoto said, “I thought I didn’t have to pay [taxes] since I was staying abroad. However, I have since made the payments they requested.” I have been too busy to have too much to say in regards to yesterday’s successful launch of Bigelow Aerospace’s Genesis 1 spacecraft (let’s see how much free time you have when you wake up to 4,500 unread emails.) A couple of good articles on the mission and its potential for orbiting hotels for space tourists (some years down the road) include SPACE.com, which interviewed some key Bigelow personnel who were at the launch site in Siberia; and, surprisingly, a local Las Vegas TV station, KLAS-TV, which got an exclusive on-camera interview with Robert Bigelow himself. Flight International magazine has an extensive article on the state of space tourism in its latest issue. It covers a lot of ground, ranging from vehicle development to regulatory, treaty, and insurance issues; I suspect much of it is based on the Royal Aeronautical Society’s space tourism conference held last month in London. One interesting item in the article is an illustration of what the magazine believes SpaceShipTwo and its carrier aircraft, White Knight Two, might look like. Both are similar to SS1/WK1, with the most obvious changes being a stretched, cylindrical fuselage with the same diameter as a Gulfstream V jet, and a new single jet engine mounted on top of WK2’s fuselage, in place of the two smaller side-mounted jets on WK1. WK2 would also have a significantly larger wingspan. Of course, it might turn out the Scaled Composites will turn up something very different. We’ll know some time late next year, when the first test flights of the vehicles are planned. An article posted on the web site of Oklahoma City TV station KSBI offers a revelation: “Space tourism isn’t necessarily out of the question”. The reason it isn’t out of the question, the article explains, is that while orbital flights to the ISS may cost $20 million, people can get a suborbital flight for about one percent of the cost. Oddly, even though the TV station is based in the same city as Rocketplane, one of the pioneers in suborbital space tourism, the company gets only a brief mention in the penultimate paragraph. An article on the web site of Technology Review magazine argues that 2006 will see “an unprecedented number of private launches”. As evidence, the article cites the inaugural launch of the Falcon 1, the pending launch of the first Genesis inflatable module prototype by Bigelow Aerospace (now planned for Wednesday, according to the Roskosmos web site), and the flights planned at the X Prize Cup in October. The article concludes that “this may be a record year for liftoffs by independent rocket-powered vehicles”. [Disclosure: I previously worked for Technology Review.] It appears difficult to reconcile this statement with actual launch activity. There have only been about 30 orbital launch attempts so far this year, on track for about 60 for all of 2006, similar to the depressed level of activity seen in the worldwide launch industry for most of this decade. The total number of commercial orbital launches in 2006 is likely to be no more than about 20, again similar to the low levels of recent years. The “record year” statement might be based on the assumption of a high level of activity at the X Prize Cup, with two or more teams competing in the Lunar Lander Challenge, but those are all low-level flights; if we count those, should we also count all the model rocketry launches, each of which counts as an “independent rocket-powered vehicle”? There are a lot of encouraging signs on the horizon, but it seems a bit premature to call 2006 a “watershed year” for commercial spaceflight. Let’s see what actually flies, and how well, first. One of the issues that space tourism operators will have to cope with as they ramp up operations in the coming years is what health requirements they set for their customers. Be too restrictive and you may exclude too many people, yet be too permissive and passengers could suffer injuries, or die, on flights, opening the door for business-destroying bad publicity and lawsuits. In a brief article in The Space Review I summarize some of these considerations, based on presentations on the topic made at the ISDC in LA a couple months ago. There are a lot of questions that have yet to be answered here, but will have to be answered in one way or another as the suborbital space tourism industry develops in the next several years. Starchaser Industries, the former British X Prize competitor with operations now in New Mexico, announced Thursday that it plans to create “Rocket City”, a 50-hectare facility about 30 kilometers west of Las Cruces on Interstate 10. The center will host Starchaser’s manufacturing facility and offices, as well as well as training and other tourist features, including “a space-themed hotel with conference facilities.” Or, as the company summarizes in its press release, “Starchaser’s Rocket City, located roughly 50 miles due south and well within striking distance of the Southwest Regional Spaceport, will be a high-tech theme park with an emphasis on science education and a 22nd century space age experience.” Twenty-second century? The company estimates this to be a ten-year, $100-million project, although the company has already spent $50,000 on a study to identify the center’s location, and has purchased the I-10 frontage property where it will be located. Still, raising $100 million, on top of the money it will need for its sounding rocket and suborbital space tourism program, is bound to be a huge challenge, given the company hasn’t raised even a small fraction of that total to date. The Las Cruces Sun-News points out that Starchaser originally planned to set up operations in an industrial park owned by the city of Las Cruces, but “the project could never be finalized because city officials could not get financial statements and a business plan from Starchaser” as required by state law. So, a little skepticism about this project is certainly warranted here. |
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