|
|
“Our two greatest problems are gravity and paperwork,” Wernher von Braun is credited as saying. “We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.” That’s a sentiment likely shared by some of the companies hoping to compete in the Lunar Lander Challenge late this week at the Wirefly X Prize Cup. While some companies are dealing with technical challenges, some are mired in the paperwork required to get an FAA/AST experimental permit.
As New Scientist reports, none of the four teams originally planning to compete in this year’s competition has received an AST permit. Two of the registrants, Acuity Technologies and Masten Space Systems, decided not to compete this year because of technical concerns: throttle valve problems for Masten and unspecified “rocket motor” issues with Acuity. Armadillo Aerospace and Micro-Space are still in the running, if their vehicles are ready and approved by AST.
Red Herring also looks at the paperwork issue. X Prize officials told the magazine that only Armadillo to actually compete, but that’s predicated on receiving a permit; John Carmack said he was not interested in paying for a tethered, non-prize flight if he didn’t get a permit. Richard Speck of Micro-Space said he hopes to get a permit at the last minute, saying that he has “a pretty good vehicle and a good chance” to win if he does get the permit.
Speck is also profiled in his local newspaper, the Denver Post, today; the article includes images of his Crusader LL vehicle. He said that if he doesn’t get a permit he will display the vehicle at the Cup, but not fly it, tethered or otherwise. X Prize spokesman Ian Murphy: “I would say right now the two front-runners to win money this year would be Armadillo Aerospace and Micro-Space.” Of course, they’re the only ones planning to compete—if they can lick the paperwork.
In an article in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Rocky Persaud reexamines the idea of “space sports” discussed last week in a Taylor Dinerman article. Persaud believes that zero-gravity sports (like the “Zero Gravity Football” his company, IPX Entertainment, is trying to develop) could spur public interest in spaceflight and space tourism. It’s in the interest of space sports promoters to encourage orbital space tourism in the long run, if for nothing else to have an in-person audience for their events: “Two teams facing off in zero gravity will be much more exciting to a television audience if they can hear the cheers and shouts of the people floating courtside. It might even make good marketing sense to make sure the arena is full by subsidizing or giving away those seats to the rich and famous who can pay for their own launch into orbit.”
Also in The Space Review this week, I interview Jim Benson about his decision to leave SpaceDev and create a new company, Benson Space Company. The genesis of Benson Space Company goes back to SpaceDev’s planning for the COTS competition, as an alternative means of bringing in private money to SpaceDev (through revenue rather than stock sales); Benson decided to proceed even though SpaceDev didn’t win a COTS award. I asked Benson how he would set his company apart from the various other ventures that are planning suborbital commercial spaceflight services in the next several years, and he believes that he can get the Dream Chaser into service before his competitors complete their vehicles: “I truly believe that Benson Space will be the first to market because we have absolutely the most elegant solution,” he said. “May the best company win.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday New Mexico State University will host the second International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight (ISPS) in Las Cruces. The local newspaper, the Sun-News, offers a preview of the event, with conference organizers trying to drum up interest in the event from the local community. “There are going to be some amazing people at the symposium and you can meet and hear their ideas about the challenges and opportunities for commercial space flight,” said ISPS co-chairperson Patricia Hynes.
The conference agenda is online and, from the looks of it, the event does offer a broad perspective of the emerging space tourism industry. Some of the panels do look overloaded, though: one panel, “Panel With The Entrepreneurs”, features nine panelists in a session lasting less than 90 minutes. (“There will be a limited amount of time for questions from the audience,” the agenda advises, perhaps unnecessarily.) the second day features a number of astronaut panels, including one titled simply “Ask the Astronauts Your Questions”, with six astronauts scheduled to participate.
David Bowie, it seems, has no desire to be a real-life Major Tom. According to a report from the entertainment news service bangshowbiz.biz, Bowie has said rumors that he has signed up to fly on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo are “total tosh”. (We’re not completely sure what “total tosh” means, but it doesn’t sound too favorable.) Bowie: “This must be Branson going for some cheap PR.” Bowie joins good company: both William Shatner and Sigourney Weaver have denied reports in recent months that they are also Virgin Galactic customers (although both are said to have “been invited to make the journey into orbit” in the article, nevermind that Virgin Galactic is initially a suborbital service.) Of course, the same report says that passengers must “earn to endure G-forces of up to 300mph”…
Anousheh Ansari has kept a relatively low profile since returning to the Us last week, but on Wednesday she participated in her first interview since the flight, on The Oprah Winfrey Show. If you, like me, don’t watch Oprah regularly (meaning at all), the Ansari interview segment is available online. There are no great insights in this interview, although it’s still worth watching; it includes some video of her stay on the ISS, as well as launch and landing.
The Dallas Morning News interviewed Ansari Thursday, her first full day back home. The article notes that “her celebrity has forced a new reality that includes the need for security while in public and demands from media worldwide” (see what happens when you go on Oprah?) As for the Iranian flag controversy that came up before her flight, she said is was Russia, not the US State Department or NASA, that initially balked at including an Iranian flag on her overalls:
Mrs. Ansari said politics and policy challenged her optimism while she trained for her adventure. Russian officials asked her to remove a patch on her launch space suit with the Iranian flag.
“I think they were afraid of negative publicity,” Mrs. Ansari said. “I told them there will not be any negative publicity unless you make me take off my patch.”
She protested and wrote a letter asking NASA to intervene. The American space agency declined, and rather than jeopardize her lifelong dream, Mrs. Ansari said she dropped the issue. She blasted into space with one country’s patch – the U.S. flag – on her left shoulder.
One day Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft may accommodate tourists in much the same way Russia flies paying passengers on its Soyuz missions, according to a Reuters report. The head of the China National Space Administration, China’s rough equivalent to NASA, said he was open to that possibility, although not immediately. “Once our technology is more mature, more reliable, there is this possibility,” Sun Laiyan. “Not only male tourists, but female too.” How egalitarian of him.
It’s just a little over week until the X Prize Cup, er, Wirefly X Prize Cup takes place in New Mexico. Some updates:
So what good is space tourism, rocket racing, or other seemingly-trivial endeavors? They’re actually very important, Taylor Dinerman argues in this week’s edition of The Space Review. Such ventures can stimulate interest in the space industry among students, and a vibrant industry filled with small developers is as important to the overall space field as small experimental airplane developers are to the overall aviation industry, he believes. “Over time it is going to make the space industry a greater and greater part of the US and world economy. Just as motor sports helped develop cars that eventually brought mobility to millions, space sports have the potential to bring space travel to a public with undreamed of results.”
Also in this week’s TSR, I have an article about risk, or at least the perception of risk, in both public and private space endeavors. A panel at the NewSpace 2006 conference back in July tackled this issue as it related to personal spaceflight, with Reda Anderson (Rocketplane’s first customer) and XCOR’s Randall Clague discussed informed consent and how to minimize the risk of flying in suborbital vehicles. (Anderson’s approach: going to Rocketplane’s factory and “shake hands and hug every one of the men and women there and say, ‘Hi, I’m Reda Anderson. I may look like payload to you, but I look like a human to me, and my only acceptable risk is to come back in equal or better condition than when I went up there.'” That works, although it may not be that scalable.
The “Vox Populi” section of today’s Savannah Morning News provides responses from residents of the Georgia city to this question: “Entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari paid a reported $10 million to be the first private female space tourist to the international space station. If tourist travel to the stars becomes affordably feasible in our lifetime, would you want to reserve a vacation in space?” ($10 million?) The responses indicate that readers (or the editors, as they selected the responses to publish) gave her flight less than unconditional support, either providing humorous responses (“I would like to reserve a permanent vacation in space for my son-in-law.”) or being outright critical. A couple examples of the latter:
“I would not reserve a vacation even if it were free, because one day they are going to go up there and they’re not coming back down.”
“I think she is a selfish person to spend $10 million on this. She could have put her money to more good by helping others.”
That last comment has popped up in Ansari’s blog several times, with people suggesting that her money would be better spent on other endeavors. (Like what Katie Couric thinks about NASA.) That prompted a post by Peter Diamandis earlier this week. “The fact is that Anousheh’s support of private spaceflight is not a whim, but the fulfillment of a dream that will yield very positive long-term implications for humanity,” he writes.
Wal-Mart is coming to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, and it’s all thanks to Spaceport America. That’s the premise, at least of an article in the Las Cruces Sun-News about new development in the town, not far from the commercial spaceport that will serve Virgin Galactic and other customers. Also headed to T or C: a speedway and a luxury golf course development. Is it boom times for the small town, part of a county with a total population under 15,000? One person said her husband was caution: “He doesn’t want it to get as big as Las Cruces or Albuquerque.” Las Cruces, for the record, has a population no bigger than about 80,000.
|
|
Recent Comments