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At the Space Access ’07 conference earlier this afternoon, Nicole Jordan and Will Pomerantz of X Prize discussed the 2006 X Prize Cup and plans for the 2007 event. The biggest news from their presentation is that, while an official final decision hasn’t been made, it is almost certain that the 2007 event will be held not at Las Cruces International Airport, home of the 2005 and 2006 events, but instead at Holloman Air Force Base near Alamogordo, New Mexico, about an hour’s drive northeast of Las Cruces. The base holds an air show every other year, and the X Prize Cup would combine with the 2007 air show, most likely on the last weekend (27-28) of October.
A big focus of the presentation was on this year’s Lunar Lander Challenge event, which is expected to attract more contestants than 2006, when Armadillo Aerospace was the only team that had a vehicle ready to fly. I asked Will how many teams had registered, but he said he was unable to give a number at this time. The event will be able to handle up to five vehicles each for the Level 1 and Level 2 portions of the challenge. In general, he said, the five vehicles that are the first to get experimental permits from the FAA will be the ones allowed to fly, provided that they actually have a completed vehicle associated with that permit. If they get that many vehicles, he said, “Wow, it adds a lot of work, but wow, what a show.” Team registration is open now: the “regular registration” deadline is the end of next week, with a fee of $2,500; a “late registration” period is open through the end of April, but with a $5,000 entrance fee.
A lot has already been said about the Falcon 1 launch earlier this week, so rather than recap and reanalyze the launch from a technical standpoint, I’ll make this observation. It was initially a little surprising to hear that SpaceX people were celebrating, having champagne toasts, and, in general, calling the flight mostly a success. After all, their rocket had failed to reach orbit, the one factor that counts in a launch. In the most binary sense, this was a failed launch: being 90-95% successful is no consolation to the customer whose satellite failed to make orbit.
Of course, though, this wasn’t a satellite launch but rather a test flight, where that 90-95% success is actually meaningful, something I (and others) explained in a news@nature.com article published today. It’s still a little odd to hear people celebrating a success even as the second stage lost roll control, but in any case the launch is a significant step forward in SpaceX’s long-term efforts to develop launch vehicles and spacecraft capable of eventually carrying people into orbit.
I’ll be arriving in Phoenix later today to attend the Space Access ’07 conference, the annual conference that attracts a large fraction of the entrepreneurial space industry, including a number of companies in or planning to enter the space tourism market. I will not be liveblogging the conference per se, but will post from time to time (as events, technology, and caffeine levels in my bloodstream permit) on conference events, and probably write one or more articles about it for future issues of The Space Review.
Space Adventures announced yesterday that space tourist Charles Simonyi will take a gourmet meal to the ISS next month to share with the crew. The six-course meal includes quail roasted in Madrian wine, duck breast ‘confit’ with capers, shredded chicken parmentier, apple fondant pieces, rice pudding with candied fruit, and semolina cake with dried apricots. The meal was prepared by Alain Ducasse, a French chef, in cooperation with the French space agency, and was selected by Martha Stewart, who is Simonyi’s “friend”, as the press release diplomatically puts it.
The Las Cruces Sun-News reports that the New Mexico Spaceport Authority has endorsed a lower price tag for Spaceport America, the new commercial spaceport the state plans to build in southern New Mexico. The facility, previously estimated to cost $225 million, is now expected to cost “only” $198 million. The primary factor in the reduced cost is the removal of one of two runways originally planned for the spaceport. Not having a second runway doesn’t jeopardize the operations of the spaceport, and it can be added later if there’s sufficient demand. The announcement comes two weeks before voters in three counties go to the polls to vote on a tax referendum that would help pay for the spaceport. Releasing the new cost estimate for the spaceport now is intended to demonstrate “that we’re on track and that we have a cost estimate that meets the conditions that were set,” said Rick Homans, director of economic development for the state; one of the conditions set by Doña Ana County earlier this month requires the spaceport’s cost not to exceed $225 million. Early voting on the referendum has already started in the county, with about 1,500 people casting ballots in advance of the April 3 election.
Today’s Bakersfield Californian profiles two companies that are competing with Virgin Galactic to fly space tourists, namely Interorbital Systems and Benson Space. Both have Mojave ties: Interorbital is located at Mojave Airport and Benson Space plans to do testing at the airport. The same airport, of course, is home to Scaled Composites, which is developing SpaceShipTwo for Virgin and will host the initial flights of the vehicle, at least until Spaceport America in New Mexico is ready.
Given all the publicity surrounding Virgin Galactic, why would someone sign up with another company? Tim Reed, a Missouri businessman, says he’s getting a good deal: for $250,000 Interorbital will give him an orbital flight, versus the $200K for a Virgin suborbital flight. Interorbital believes that the suborbital market “will dry up” once cheap orbital flights are available, which is quite possible (depending on how cheap suborbital flights become in the process). The problem, though, is you have to develop a vehicle that can provide cheap orbital flights first, and as the article notes, “while the Mojave firm has developed detailed plans and conducted several rocket engine tests, no actual rocket for space tourism has yet been built.”
The New York Times reports that Shaun White, the Olympic gold medalist in snowboarding last year, will become “the first snowboarder to experience space travel.” How’s that? It turns out White and six other athletes from five “action sports” will get a zero-g aircraft flight in April, presumably organized by Zero Gravity Corp., although it’s not specified in the article. Well, weightlessness is one aspect of “experiencing space travel”, but hardly the only one.
Speaking of Zero Gravity (the company, not the sensation), the company announced yesterday a partnership with Space Florida to establish a microgravity research and education center in the state, providing flight opportunities for students and teachers as well as researchers. (The company also appears to be sporting a spiffy new logo on the press release, but not yet on the main web site.)
Several Indian media reports have identified the first Indian space tourist: Santosh George Kulangara, a TV journalist and entrepreneur, who has signed up to fly on Virgin Galactic. Beyond that, however, the details get a little confusing: it seems he is one of the Founders, having reservation number 38. However, he says he’s paid only a $20,000 deposit on his $200,000 flight: previous reports had suggested that the Founders had to pay the $200,000 in full up front. He also says he’ll spend “2-3 hours” in space, which is a huge over-estimate. (It might be closer to that time from takeoff to landing, but most of that time will be spend in the atmosphere, attached to the carrier aircraft.) Another report says that SpaceShipTwo carries four passengers, rather than the six displayed in cabin mockups in New York and London (the other report does indicate the correct passenger complement.) Both reports also state that Kulangara’s flight will take place either “by the end of next year” or “mid-2008″, when actually passenger flight don’t appear to be slated to begin in late 2008 or early 2009.
Reuters, meanwhile, (or, rather, “Reuters Life!”, exclamation mark included), has a brief profile of Namira Salim, who plans to be the first Pakistani-born woman in space by flying on Virgin Galactic. Salim has already gotten some media coverage, so there’s not much new here. Few of the reports have explained how Salim, described in the Reuters article as “a poet and an artist” (and elsewhere as a musician, “astrologist”, and peace activist) could scrape up the $200,000 for a flight. That’s a lot of poems.
Last week Jeff Bell published an essay on SpaceDaily questioning the safety of rocketplanes planned for space tourism applications. His essay was not well-received in many sectors, including here. If you have questions you’d like to pose to Professor Bell about his essay (or congratulate him for his comments, for that matter), he will appear on The Space Show this Thursday at 10 pm EDT. As host David Livingston puts it, “here’s your chance to engage Dr. Bell in a constructive dialog.”
The head of Space Florida, the state’s new overarching space agency, wants a “horizontal launch” spaceport operating in the state as soon as possible. Florida Today reports that Steve Kohler, president of Space Florida, said the state needs to “immediately secure” an FAA license for such a spaceport to capture suborbital space tourism business and other commercial businesses. (Hopefully Koehler realizes that spaceport licenses often take many months, if not years, of work, as people in New Mexico and Oklahoma would testify.) That approach suggests the state will look to refit an existing airport to handle spaceflights (as in Mojave and Oklahoma) rather than developing a new purpose-built spaceport (as New Mexico is doing). The article doesn’t mention any such sites, but previously one such facility that has been considered for a spaceport is Cecil Field, a former naval air station near Jacksonville, whose operators have already been doing the preparatory work needed to obtain a license.
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