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September 29, 2004
The Age Of Private Spaceflight Begins
Posted by Dana Blankenhorn
While you watch SpaceShipOne make its historic attempt to win the XPrize today, I'm sure what you're asking yourself if -- what comes next?
That's the question, after all, that eluded Apollo. What came next wasn't nearly as exciting as what had already come, thus interest in space waned.
While the publisher of Tubular Bells (you didn't know that was where Richard Branson's fortune started?) has licensed the craft for its designed use of space tourism, there's a new goal, and a new prize shaping up. (That's Branson, from the BBC story.)
America's Space Prize will pay out $50 million to the company that can get up to 7 Astronauts at a time safely into the orbit of inflatable space habitats being designed by Bigelow Aerospace, which is putting up half the money. (That's the habit, to the right, from Space.Com.)
The man behind this scheme, Robert Bigelow, got his start with the Budget Suites chain of hotels, and this is not crazy. NASA first developed the technology for inflatable modules, under the name TransHub. Bigelow is taking this a step further, first with a hub called Genesis Pathfinder that could fly as early as next year, then a larger hub called Nautilus which he needs a bigger lift vehicle to fill.
While NASA itself is thinking of offering prizes of up to $30 million to private companies that can develop specific scientific advances in space (like bringing back a piece of an asteroid) private companies are coming up with clear goals they can follow-up on, and bringing more money to the table.
The age of private space flight has truly begun.
Comments (1)
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Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Russell Shaw on September 29, 2004 11:01 AM writes...
I'm no reflexive privatization advocate,
but the private sector is best equipped
for undertakings of this type.
Adequately funded private-sector space
missions -- indeed, private-sector
initiatives of almost any scientific
type -- have an inherent advantage over
corresponding missions administered
by government agencies.
The overarching reason is nimbleness.
When almost any government agency
purchases materials, they have to go
through an encrusted, red-tape process
that involves an endless dance of RFPs
and regulations. Testing technology also
does not involve only necessary
scientific rigor, but adherence to
regulations, many of which are totally
unrelated to how the technology will, or
may, perform.
Then, once the technology is on board,
government entities, including NASA,
are stratified to the point that little
seat-of-the-pants information travels
from the field level to the top decision
makers. We've seen this at NASA, and
reports indicate the problem has not
been substantially fixed.
Finally, government-administered
Permalink to Commentprograms frequently suffer from budgetary
penury. Once again, as we have seen with
NASA, less-safe inferior materials or
parsimonious work-arounds have been
a documented way of life. And, in at
least two cases, a documented way of
death.