Two Anniversaries and Our (Private Sector) Future in Space
The anniversaries of Sputnik and SpaceShipOne point the way forward for the private exploration of space.
Fifty-second and fifth. Those were the respective anniversaries yesterday of Sputnik and the winning of the X-Prize. Both events shook up the world of space policy and technology, each in their own way.
The first kicked off an expensive space race in an existential war between freedom and totalitarianism that, almost a dozen years later, culminated in American astronauts walking on the moon in the summer of 1969. We live with its legacy today, with a bloated and expensive human spaceflight jobs program in an age of ballooning deficits, while on the verge of technical and budgetary collapse.
The second kicked off another race, but one that holds much more promise for making our nation into a truly space-faring one.
Five years ago when SpaceShipOne left the atmosphere and reached a hundred kilometers altitude for the second time within two weeks, it changed the mindset of many people in the worlds of policy and investment. Almost overnight, private space travel shifted from a topic that elicited giggles or eye rolling from many industry professionals to one in which we could start to reasonably think about individual people going into space with their own money and for their own purposes. It laid the groundwork for the growing Washington consensus (albeit with continuing rear-guard and ultimately doomed battles from some of the authorizers in Congress) that NASA needs to get out of the earth-orbit space transportation business for personnel and at long last become a good customer for the private sector.
It also kicked off a new appreciation from the investment community for new markets for space, and the potential for new players to change the game. This means that investment will start to flow into not just the Virgin Galactic company that it directly spawned, but also into XCOR, Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, and other players in the new suborbital game.
Beyond that, it led to a new-found appreciation for the value of prizes at NASA, though the potential has been held back by a penurious Congress. Had the X-Prize not been successful, it’s unlikely that the Centennial Challenges program, established a year previously (on the hundredth anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight) would have moved forward in the way it has. There are attractive purses for a variety of useful aviation and space technology demonstrations.
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Rand Simberg is a recovering aerospace engineer and a consultant in space commercialization, space tourism and Internet security. He offers occasionally biting commentary about infinity and beyond at his weblog, Transterrestrial Musings.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
4 Comments
1. Marcus Boyd:This is indeed an exciting time. I am just sad that I will probably miss the best to come.
Oct 5, 2009 - 2:49 pm 2. Gozer the Carpathian:All I can say is about bloody time.
I work for NASA out at Goldstone and I know first hand how much overrun there is in every bloody part of the process.
And this is just a ground tracking station! o.O!
I hope the private sector starts getting into deeper space, or at least lunar space, so I can change jobs.
Oct 5, 2009 - 6:02 pm 3. Euler:I am extremely excited about private spaceflight. Virgin Galactic will be flying passengers in the next few years and XCOR is only a few years behind them. Both have fully reusable suborbital spaceplanes.
SpaceX will launch the Dragon capsule in the next few months. While their overall design is conservative their first stage booster is supposed to be reusable.
A few other companies are about to start test missions but they’re mostly under the radar.
Oct 5, 2009 - 6:07 pm 4. Jon:I have long been in favor of privatizing space and space research. When I first brought it up to friends five years ago, I was greeted with looks ranging from puzzled to “are you out of your freaking mind?”. I’m glad someone else mentioned this topic! Kudos!
Oct 7, 2009 - 10:50 pm