PlanetSpace and NASA: what’s the deal(s)?

Today’s issue of the Halifax (Nova Scotia) Daily News provides an update on PlanetSpace and its plans to establish a spaceport in the Cape Breton region of the province. A couple curious things come out of the article: it states that “the Chicago-based company has signed one contract with NASA and is said to be very close to signing another”, according to an official with the province’s business development corporation. The deal that has been signed is with NASA Marshall and is for “co-development of hardware”; presumably this is the Space Act Agreement the company has previously indicated it has with NASA. The other in negotiations right now, though, is with the COTS office at JSC and “should be signed shortly”, according to the article. It’s not clear what sort of contract that would be, since PlanetSpace wasn’t a finalist for the original COTS awards. If it’s another Space Act agreement or small-scale study agreement of some kind, is PlanetSpace the only venture to get one or are other companies, including the finalists who didn’t get awards, also getting something similar? PlanetSpace isn’t saying: they failed to respond to several requests for details by the newspaper.

The article also quotes Cecil Clarke, the member of provincial parliament who represents the Cape Breton North area, as saying that because there has been a lack of criticism of the company’s vehicle plans, they must be sound: “Usually with the aerospace or aeronautics community, if there was question as to the validity of the project, usually there would be sharp criticism of it. I don’t recall nor have I seen, any experts in the industry saying that what they’re talking about is not feasible.” The problem with this assessment is that PlanetSpace has released few details about their plans, therefore, there is little out there to criticize (other than the lack of information, which is understandable and not unique to PlanetSpace.)

New leadership for the PSF

The Personal Spaceflight Federation (which, despite the similarity in names, has no relationship to this blog) announced today that Brett Alexander is the new president of the industry organization. Alexander, who will keep his day job as vice president of t/Space, formerly worked at the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He replaces Mike Kelly, who is leaving the PSF “to start an advanced technology business enterprise”, according to the statement.

Elon Musk, Virgin Galactic customer

On Wednesday night PBS aired a pilot of a new science show, Wired Science. (If you missed the show you can watch it online; the show is competing against two others to win a slot in the network’s lineup). One segment of the show featured an interview of Elon Musk, where host Brian Unger first asked him questions about his electric car startup he’s funding, Telsa Motors. Unger then turned to SpaceX and brought up a number of other commercial space ventures, like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. That led to this interesting exchange:

Unger: Who is your competition?

Musk: [long pause] We have no serious competition.

Unger: None?

Musk: Not presently.

Unger: So that Branson guy’s kind of a hack, then?

Musk: Well, what Branson’s doing—by the way, I’m a great admirer of Branson—is really a much smaller technological challenge. So their craft would be suborbital, so it would go to about Mach 3. Our craft is orbital, it goes to Mach 25, so 25 times the speed of sound. To do what Branson’s doing you need, say, about nine units of energy. To do what we’re doing you need 625 units of energy. The difference is monumental. So what Branson is doing from a technological standpoint is building something that can cross the English Channel. What we’re building is something that can circumnavigate the globe. I still think what he’s doing is great, and, by the way, I bought a ticket on his effort. But it’s not in the same league, technologically.

Unger: So you’re not particularly worried?

Musk: The things that worry me are, are we going to make a mistake? Our own foolishness, our own errors, can hurt us.

Unger: So rocket science really is rocket science?

Musk: Yeah. [laughs] It looks hard, and it’s harder than it looks.

(Up with) People for Aerospace

The Las Cruces Sun-News reports this morning that commissioners from three counties in southern New Mexico—Doña Ana, Otero, and Sierra—are planning a joint hearing on January 15 to discuss plans fox taxes needed to help fund Spaceport America. (A proposal for such a hearing was discussed last week.) The hearing is designed to make sure both county officials and residents—who will eventually have to vote to approve any taxes—are up to speed about spaceport plans and the need for the taxes. Apparently commissioners in Otero and Sierra counties, who are in the “spaceport district” but haven’t been following the issue as closely as in Doña Ana (home to Las Cruces), have some questions about the project that may be answered at the hearing.

The article also notes that spaceport proponents are hoping to get an extra $25 million from the state legislature this session. The money would be used to pay for a road to the spaceport.

In a bid to help drum up public support for the project, spaceport proponents officially launched Wednesday People for Aerospace, an advocacy group that is trying to demonstrate the economic importance of the spaceport for southern New Mexico:

Chances are good you will never ride a rocket into outer space, or visit the International Space Station, so why should you support the spaceport?

For the same reasons we support new schools, airports, roads and education – to promote jobs and economic development in Doña Ana County.

The group’s site provides some general information about the spaceport and the benefits it may offer to the community, as well as answers to some common questions (although many of those answers are little more than barebones talking points.)

Blue Origin opens up

I was just sitting down to lunch when a coworker came up to me and asked, “Have you checked out Blue Origin’s web site recently?”

“Umm, no,” I responded.

“You should,” he responded. And I did, and you should, too: the company has provided a major new update on its web site, in the form of a public letter by Jeff Bezos (dated January 2), as well as some photos and videos of the November 13th first flight of Goddard, the first in a series of vehicles for its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. Some initial notes and analysis:

  • The flight itself lasted about 30 seconds, a quick up-and-down flight to an altitude of 285 feet (87 meters). From the grainy video it appears the vehicle, which has a conical, almost capsule-like shape, has nine thrusters in the base, with five arrayed in a cross at the center and four closer to the edges, apparently to provide vectoring.
  • This was not the first attempt to launch Goddard: an attempt a few days before was scrubbed because of winds, according to Bezos (they had reserved airspace with the FAA from November 10th through the 13th)
  • There were a number of friends and family at the site for the test, and the company provided them with a Jumbotron to better see the launch, entertainment for the kids, and “delicious chuck wagon food”.
  • Bezos said his only job at the test “was to open the champagne, and I broke the cork off in the bottle.”
  • Bezos said that he has a slow, methodical approach to development: “We believe in incremental improvement and in keeping investments at a pace that’s sustainable. Slow and steady is the way to achieve results, and we do not kid ourselves into thinking this will get easier as we go along.”
  • The company has a decidedly retro (think 19th, or even 18th or 17th century retro) logo, complete with turtles (a nod, perhaps, to their methodical approach) and the motto “Gradatim Ferociter”. I quick online check reveals that this means something to the effect of “step by step, with spirit”. I’m sure someone who actually knows Latin can come up with a more accurate and elegant translation…

A Bahrain spaceport?

It looks like this week is spaceport week for the personal spaceflight industry. A front-page article in the Bahrain Tribune on Thursday claimed that Virgin Galactic was planning to establish a spaceport in Bahrain for suborbital space tourism. (The article is no longer available on the newspaper’s web site, and its JavaScript-based system makes permalinks effectively impossible.) The article claimed that Virgin based the decision on the Persian Gulf nation’s “infrastructure and ideal geo-political positioning.” The decision, officially under wraps according to unnamed sources cited in the article, could be revealed as soon as February.

Virgin Galactic quickly moved to squash the rumors, telling Bloomberg News, TradeArabia, and another Bahrain newspaper, the Gulf Daily News, that the company had no plans to establish a spaceport in Bahrain, or anywhere else in the Persian Gulf. “We have looked at Sweden and the possibility of opening one in Scotland,” Virgin Galactic spokeswoman Jackie McQuillan told the Gulf Daily News, “But as for opening one in Bahrain, or even in Dubai, that is not true at all.”

The Daily News article leans on its own unnamed sources to say that even if Branson elected to establish a spaceport at some point in the region, it most likely would be in Dubai or elsewhere in the UAE, citing Branson’s visit to Dubai earlier this year, where the subject of a spaceport came up. Ras Al Khaimah, another emirate within the UAE, already has plans to develop a spaceport in cooperation with Space Adventures.

While the Tribune article might be short on facts (among other things, it calls Rocketplane Kistler’s George French a “billionaire” and Canadian Arrow’s Geoff Sheerin a “tycoon”), it does make a point that a spaceport in Bahrain, or elsewhere in the region, would be “more viable and easier to access for this part of the world.” Not everyone will want to travel to New Mexico or California or Oklahoma just to fly into space, and many people will want to see their own region of the world from space, rather than the potentially unfamiliar geography of the American Southwest. There may not be any plans in the works now for a Virgin Galactic spaceport in Bahrain or the Persian Gulf region, but if the company is successful it may only be a matter of time before one is developed.

Joint hearing on NM spaceport tax

The three counties that are proposing gross receipts taxes to help raise money for the construction of Spaceport America are considering a joint hearing to discuss the proposed tax, the Alamogordo Daily News reported Thursday. The purpose of the joint hearing of the county commissions, according to Doña Ana Commissioner Bill McCamley, is to demonstrate regional support for the project, making it more likely voters will approve the taxes. Doña Ana County, home to Las Cruces, is planning an April 2007 referendum on the tax; Otero and Sierra Counties have yet to schedule similar votes.

Woomera delay

The Adelaide, Australia newspaper The Advertiser reports that Rocketplane Kistler has delayed plans to start work on spaceport facilities in Woomera. “Design changes” are blamed for the delay, although it’s not clear from the brief article whether the changes are in the design of the spaceport or in the K-1 vehicle that will fly from there. Work at Woomera was supposed to begin in May. “Things are a little behind but they are still on track,” said Alan Evans, chairman of Rocketplane Kistler Australia. (How can you be a “a little behind” but still be “on track”?)

[A nod to Mark Evans, who flagged the article in a comment to a post last month about Woomera.]

Ohio’s offer to PlanetSpace

According to a report in Wednesday’s issue of the Columbus Dispatch, the state of Ohio has made a preliminary incentive offer to PlanetSpace to lure the venture to establish operations in the state. (See previous coverage of Ohio’s plans to get PlanetSpace to establish a landing site and/or manufacturing facility near Columbus.) Details about the offer weren’t disclosed, but the article said the state was proposing a “multimilliondollar package of tax credits, grants and other incentives”, some of which would require matching contributions from the city of Columbus and Franklin County, where Columbus and Rickenbacker International Airport, the proposed landing site for PlanetSpace’s Silver Dart vehicle, are located. Chirinjeev Kathuria, chairman of PlanetSpace, said he hoped to have a deal in place in 60 days to keep the company on a schedule that would have a vehicle ready to fly by late 2008 (which seems like a very aggressive schedule, given the company’s current standing.) Kathuria also hinted that “one other state is interested in talking to us”.

The seasick astronaut

Today’s Toronto Star has an article about Terry Wong, a member of the astronaut corps of Canadian Arrow/PlanetSpace first announced back in 2003. Wong, a Canadian Forces pilot, used to suffer something that would seem to be a disadvantage to a pilot or astronaut: airsickness (including an incident on his first solo airplane flight that required a bit of maneuvering.) He doesn’t suffer from airsickness now, but seasickness is another story: “I’m no good in a boat if the water’s rough.”

There are a few interesting items in the article beyond Capt. Wong’s motion sickness woes. The seasickness is an issue because the Canadian Arrow spacecraft will splash down in the Atlantic after launching from the Cape Breton spaceport in Nova Scotia, starting around 2010, according to the article. However, when the Cape Breton project was announced in August, it was intended only for orbital flights of its Silver Dart orbital spacecraft, not the suborbital Canadian Arrow capsule, which would operate from a “Midwestern” state. Earlier this month, when Ohio was revealed as that Midwestern state, the focus was on suborbital flights of the Silver Dart, a winged vehicle that could land on a runway, rather than the Canadian Arrow capsule that requires a water landing. (To make things more confusing, the spacecraft described later in the article does sound like the Silver Dart.) Has there really been a change in plans, or is the company (inadvertently) sending out mixed messages?

Wong also tells the Star that NASA is taking Canadian Arrow and PlanetSpace “seriously”, including offering unspecified technical expertise. “They know we can do this,” Wong said. Does that mean PlanetSpace has a Space Act agreement with NASA (something hinted at in the original report about the Cape Breton spaceport), or something more informal? Wong adds that Canadian Arrow has “partnership deals” with undisclosed aerospace companies in the US and Canada.

However, the best line of the article is not about space, but about Wong’s preference for flying helicopters rather than jets. “It’s nice to take off in snow in Moose Jaw and a couple of hours later be warm in Vancouver. But I like helicopters, too. It’s great to be able to land, pee and fly on.” The ultimate in quick turnaround time.

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